Elizabeth Feake

Second wife of Capt. John Underhill, and the eldest daughter of Lieut. Robert Feake and Elizabeth Fones. She is a possible ancestor of Sarah (Underhill) Frost, through her son David Underhill; the step from Benjamin Underhill to David is the compilers’ guess (see Benjamin’s page). Her parents are ancestors of the Frosts in any case, through her sister Hannah (Feake) Bowne and her brother John Feke.

She was born about 1633, probably at Watertown, grew up at Greenwich, and after her father went to England in 1647 went with her mother and William Hallett to New London and, in 1649, to Long Island. In April 1656 Captain Underhill, then of Southold, wrote to John Winthrop Jr. of her sister Hannah’s engagement; his first wife Helena died at Southold in 1658, and he married Elizabeth before January 1659 (source, 2:18-19). They lived at Setauket and, from about 1661, at Oyster Bay and Killingworth on Matinecock. Her husband’s will of 1671 left “my whole Estate In possession of my wife Elizabeth Underhill During ye Time of her widowhood,” with John Bowne, Henry Townsend, Matthew Prior and his son John as overseers if she remarried, “that ye Children be not wronged” (record, p. 78). She died at Killingworth within three years of him. Of Robert Feake’s children, “three of whom, at least, Elisabeth, Hannah and John, became devoted members of the Society of Friends” (source, p. 14).

Her children, from the Flushing Friends’ records (source, 2:4): Deborah, born the 29th of the 9th month 1659, who married Henry Townsend; Nathaniel, born the 22nd of the 12th month 1663, who went to Westchester; Hannah, born the 2nd of the 10th month 1666, who married Richard Alsop; Elizabeth, born the 2nd of the 5th month 1669, who married Isaac Smith; and David, born in the 2nd month of 1672. By the Underhill Genealogy’s lines, Amelia Earhart descends from her son Nathaniel (see the research file).

Research: research/mcmillan/Frost_Underhill_Bowne_Feake.md.