Interesting story but one that I had not heard and am not certain of its validity.
If you are of the South Carolina Moaks, then you are probably descended from Andrew Moak who immigrated to South Carolina about 1740. All that we definitely know is that he had one child - Jacob Moak. There are a couple of other Moaks in the 1790 census that may be other children but most of the records were destroyed during the Civil War.
There are two major families of Moaks in America: those descended from Andrew Moak of South Carolina; and those descended from Hans Jacob Moak of New York. At this time, I have over 11,000 known descendants of Andrew Moak of South Carolina in my database.
Since Andrew Moak settled in the Saxe-Gotha area of South Carolina, it is believed that he is either Germany or Swiss origin, probably the latter. The European spelling of the name may have been Maag but again there are no records found to prove or disprove this.
Jacob Moak married a Mary (NOT Mary Magee - she married Jacob Moak of New York) and had 8 children. The first three children moved initially to Tennessee and many of them relocated to Williamson County, Illinois. The next three children all moved to southern Mississippi where many of their descendants still populate the Mississippi-Louisiana border counties.
Your story does bear a resemblance to that of Andrew Moak, son and fifth child of Jacob Moak. Andrew married Catharine Dominey who bore him seven children before she died. Andrew then married Catharine's sister, Susannah, who added another ten children to the family. All seventeen children lived to adulthood - a phenomenal accomplishment in the early 19th century.
I would be interested in learning about your particular family and where it fits into the Moak Family History.
Jefferson Moak
Jefferson.moak@verizon.net