by Rocky Macy
Sinai LEWIS was born on October 11th, 1815, in the state of Kentucky. She was the daughter of George Washington LEWIS and his wife, Macy MANKINS. Sinai (who was often called “Sina” or “Siney,”) married Thomas COOK on February 9th, 1832, in Vermillion County, Illinois, when she was sixteen-years-old. She died on January 28th, 1893, in Arkansas, at the age of seventy-seven.
Sinai LEWIS was my g-g-g-grandmother.
Sinai, whose middle name may have been “Lucinda,” and Thomas moved to Washington County, Arkansas, sometime not long after their marriage in 1832 because they were located there by the time their first child, Macy Mary COOK, was born on January 11th, 1833. Over the next twenty-four years they had ten more children, all born in the state of Arkansas.
The children born to Thomas and Sinai (LEWIS) COOK included Macy Mary COOK (1833-1915), John COOK (1834-1915), George Washington COOK (1837-1921), William Cook (1839-1865), Matilda J. COOK (1842-1904), Henry Clay COOK (1844-1862), Jasper “Doc” COOK (1847-1932), Jesse COOK (1849-1940), Philander Moses COOK ((1851-1929), Margaret “Kate” COOK (1854 - ?), and Isaac Newton COOK (1857-1915).
Of those children, Mary Macy COOK married Christian C. SAGER, John COOK remained single, George Washington COOK married Martha C. WANN, William COOK remained single, Matilda J. COOK married William J. ELLIS (my g-g-grandparents), Henry Clay COOK remained single, Jasper “Doc” COOK married 1.) Mary Ann ELLIS, and 2.) Leonora Matilda GODARD, Jesse COOK married Martha E. LUKER, Philander Moses “Mose” COOK married Esther “Elizabeth” MILES, Margaret “Kate” COOK (marriage information unknown), and Isaac Newton COOK married Mary Alice BARNES.
The couple and their growing family were at home in White River Township in east central Washington County when the 1840 and 1850 censuses were taken, but by 1860 they had relocated to a farm in Brush Creek Township, the northeastern-most township in the county. Brush Creek Township borders Benton and Madison Counties, and although the COOK farmhouse was located in Washington County, part of their land extended into Madison County - and both parents were buried at the Austin Cemetery in extreme southeastern Benton County. War Eagle Creek meanders through the area where the three counties converge.
The entire family was still intact when the 1860 US census was taken in Brush Creek Township of Washington County. Listed on that census were: Thomas (age 49), "Lini" (44), John (34 - an error), George (33 - also an error), William (21), Matilda (18), Henry (15), Jasper (14), "Jessee" (12), "Filander" (9), "Cathorise" (6), and Isaac (3).
Some of the Civil War came almost to the doorstep of the COOK farm. The Battle of Pea Ridge happened just a couple of hours north (on a good horse) of their location, and there were undoubtedly many local skirmishes and incidents related to the war, with neighbors joining in both sides of the conflict.
The COOKs appear to have lost two children as a result of the Civil War. Henry Clay COOK, the sixth child of eleven, died at the age of eighteen in 1862 when he was reportedly killed by bushwhackers somewhere in the vicinity of War Eagle Creek. Henry’s older brother, William, the fourth child in the family, was reported to have died on March 14th, 1865, at the age of twenty-six as a Confederate prisoner in the Alton (Illinois) Military Prison. The dates and details of those deaths have yet to be confirmed by this researcher.
The 1870 census, the first census taken after the death of Thomas COOK and sons Henry Clay and William, found the widow “Senia” (Sinai) living in Clear Creek Township of Washington County. (Clear Creek Township was the township that adjoined Brush Creek Township to the west. In 1876 its name was changed to Springdale Township.) Sinai had five of her children living at her residence in 1870: John (age 34, who never married), Jesse (22), “Phil” (Philander Moses, 19), "Kate" (Margaret, 16) and Newton (11).
By 1880 Sinai was again listed in Brush Creek Township. That census enumerator recorded her as “Sinie” (age 66), along with her bachelor son, John (46).
On February 3, 1883, Sinai COOK received title from the US government to eighty and 93/100s acres of land in Madison County, Arkansas. That land transfer was recorded at the land office in Harrison, Arkansas.
Sinai passed away on January 28th, 1893, in Arkansas. She is buried next to her husband, Thomas, at the Beacon Addition of the Austin Cemetery in southeastern Benton County, Arkansas. Her life had taken her from Kentucky to Illinois and on south into Arkansas. She had known the rigors of long migrations in covered wagons, homesteading, subsistence farming, giving birth to eleven children, losing children in a war, and running a family as a fairly young widow.
Sinai (LEWIS) COOK led a hard life, of that there can be no doubt, but her pioneering struggles helped to pave the way for countless individuals and descendants who followed her across the hardscrabble trails of life. Many today are in her debt.
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