James Drake was born the eldest son of Samuel Drake at Drake's ferry, where James resided until the abandonment of the ferry. He received a fairly good education in the subscription schools of his neighborhood. He assisted his father with the work of the ferry until he was old enough to take charge of the same. He continued to run it until about 1830, when the construction of the canal through the Narrows took place, of which he was the first foreman. James later moved to the farm with his family, and built a log house which stands to this day at the forks of the road at the mouth of Long Hollow, just east of the Matilda Furnace property, known as the James Drake homestead. James lived there until his death in 1844, at the age of fifty-seven years old. In politics James was a Whig. James Drake was a member of the Presbyterian church, and a man of very industrious habits. He was strictly honest in all his dealings with hiss fellow-men. He was of a delicate constitution, and a great sufferer from rheumatism all his life.

He married Elizabeth Postlethwaite, daughter of John Postlethwaite and Susannah Irvin. To this union ten
children were born, four sons and six daughters. Nearly all of whom died early in life due to Consumption and Tuberculosis that ran rampant throughout the family. The children were as follows; Jane, Mary, Samuel, Thomas, James, John, Nancy, Elizabeth, Arabella, and Josephine Drake.

In the end it was Consumption or Tuberculosis that deeply affected the Drake family. The disease ran rampant through the family taking the life of everyone in it. No one in the family lived above the age of forty besides James and Elizabeth. James' son James, Jr. tried to escape the family's fate by running away to Iowa but unfortunately the disease followed him there.