When Hilde was here for Mother’s Day, we took a drive that included Jackson’s Mill. There is a small Jackson graveyard on the grounds, very close to the highway. I hadn’t been interested until I discovered that my 4th great-grandfather, John Brake, was buried there. Elizabeth Brake, his daughter by his first wife, married Edward Jackson, and had her father buried in the Jackson plot, separating him from his second wife, my 4th great-grandmother, Catherine Shook Brake, who is buried in the Morrison Cemetery at Berlin with two of her daughter’s families. They were separated, but he has a matching stone.
The style and the wording “Sacred to the Memory” are the same. He didn’t live long past her death; she died in February and he in November of 1834.
John’s mother, Maria Elisabeth Kieffer, was one of my many ancestors killed by Indians during the settlement of West Virginia. She died on the South Branch of the Potomac in an Indian raid about 1764, and John’s brother Jacob was a captive for more than ten years. John’s first wife, Elizabeth Wetherholt, was the daughter of Capt. Nicholas Wetherholt of Northampton County, Pennsylvania. His brother, Jacob, also a militia captain, was killed in an Indian raid in 1763. Jacob’s widow, Susanna, married Michael Kern, one of the founders of Morgantown, who had Kern’s Fort, which was in what is now South Park in Morgantown.
Egad, Sire, Truly 
Love getting bits of your family history, and the history of the region, this way, Lisa. This helps me to imagine this land 240 years ago, and think about the brave and desperate people who came here to live.
Glad to see that some of the family is keeping up with the history. I’ve been researching more on the Reger/Brake side. Got to keep it passed on.
John Brake is also my 4th ggfather. I’ve been working on genealogy for years, but have been delving into this side more recently.
I descend from John Brake and Elizabeth Weatherholt. Nancy Jackson
So much confusion regarding John’s first wife, Elizabeth Wetherholt. Many show her baptism date as her birth date (1762) However, if this is the case, thence had her daughter at age 10. Also, John and Elizabeth’s marriage date of 1778 is 6 years after her daughter, Elizabeth Wetherholt Brake’s date of birth. If anyone has documented information that clarifies, I would like to know.
I have 13 May 1762 for the christening of Elizabeth Wetherholt, but don’t have a documented source. I have a marriage date of about 1777 for her marriage to John Brake, an estimate, and a birth date of 11 Jan 1778 for their daughter Elizabeth Brake. 15 was unusual for Germans here in that period – around 25 was most common – but much younger was not unheard of. I’m descended from John Brake’s second wife Catherine Shook, and haven’t paid as much attention to documenting his other children.