Life of Mary Bird Lake - Patriot Ancestor of Betty Shepard Rasure
A member of John Haupt Chapter, Mrs. Betty Shepard Rasure has the distinction of joining the Society as a descendant of a female Patriot. Her ancestor, Mary Bird Lake, was one of America's outstanding women pioneers. She was born in Bristol, England, in 1728. At the age of twenty she married Archibald Lake. Archibald had been born in New Castle, England, in 1720. After their marriage they moved to St. John, Newfoundland, where he engaged in fishing. At a later period they moved to New York, where he entered the ship building industry. The Lakes had eight children, all born before the American Revolution.
When the Colonists decided to break away from Old England, Lake threw his forces with the New World and became a staunch supporter of American Liberty. He served as Deputy Commissary of the General Army Hospitals of the Revolution. One son, although very young, also served in the Revolutionary Army.
During the Revolution Mary became a Matron of Hospitals at Fishkill and New Windsor, New York. It is recorded that Mary Bird Lake was personally thanked by General George Washington for her tender, vigilant, and unremitting care of the sick and wounded and was kissed by the General when he came to the hospital.
After the Revolution they moved to Marietta, Ohio, in 1789. The following year a plague of smallpox broke out in Campus Maritus and during that dread period Mary Bird Lake earned her title "The Clara Barton of Ohio."
She was also the founder of the first Sunday School in the Northwest Territory and the second one to be established in America. The foundation of the state was more than the bedrock of individualism. It included that touch of infinite tenderness which only the hand of a woman could give.
Two women will always live in the histories of the early days of Marietta: Mary Bird Lake was to the sick and afflicted what Catherine Fay Ewing was to the orphans, and Sunday Schools are a monument to Mrs. Lake as the Children's Homes are to Mrs. Ewing.
Both Archibald and Mary had very commendable records. She was included as a pioneer contributor to the building of the great state of Ohio in a book entitled "Ohio Builds a Nation" by Samuel Harden Stille.
In 1795, after peace was declared with the Indians, the Lakes retired to the community of Rainbow on the Muskingum River. Mary Bird Lake was loved and respected by the entire frontier. She died in 1796 and is buried in a little cemetery in Rainbow, Ohio.
In June 1930 a bronze tablet was placed on her grave by the Daughters of the American Revolution in honor of her service in the Revolutionary War. Her war records are from the Library of the War Department in Washington, D.C.
Information on this page is not an official DAR document, and should
not be considered as proof of lineage. Applicants for membership in DAR
are encouraged to contact the chapter for assistance in joining on this line.
