OAKES, Urian (1631/32–1681)

Urian Oakes, the son of Edward and Jane Oakes, came from Dedham in Essex. He arrived in New England by 1642, with his parents. Oakes settled at Cambridge, where his father played a prominent role in town and church life. Urian Oakes graduated BA at Harvard in 1649, MA in 1652, and became a fellow of the college.

By 1650, Oakes was seriously considering a return to England. His fellow graduates Nathaniel* and Samuel Mather* were keen to see him follow them back across the Atlantic. His father seems to have been in London with Nathaniel Mather in March 1650/1, when Mather wrote to John Rogers in New England. Mather talked up the opportunities for graduates: he offered ‘great incouragement for any to come over, especially such as designe themselves for the ministry … it is with the honestest on both sides a matter of high account to have been a New England man’. Mather declared ‘Sergiant Oakes is so fully of this mind I thinke hee halfe repents that his son is not here, and he is resolved not to be any hindrance to his comming the next year.’