Ancestor Archives: Thomas Cook (1813-1867)

 

by Rocky Macy

Thomas COOK was born in either North or South Carolina in September of 1813.  He was the son of John COOK and his wife, Hannah MACY.  Thomas married Sinai LEWIS on February 9th, 1832, in Vermillion County, Illinois.  He passed away on January 20, 1867, in northwest Arkansas.

Thomas COOK was my g-g-g-grandfather.

Thomas COOK’s dates of birth and death were established by information on his tombstone, and his marriage to Sinai (“Sina,””Siney”) LEWIS is a matter of public record in the state of Illinois and attested to by parental permission notice for Sinai to marry (she was sixteen-years-old) and a wedding license signed by the clerk of Vermillion County at Danville, Illinois.    Thomas was only alive for two US censuses in which place of birth is noted (1850 and 1860), and the first of those listed his birthplace as “NC,” while the second noted it as “South Carolina.”

Thomas and Sinai (LEWIS) COOK relocated to Washington County, Arkansas, during their first year of marriage.  That is where their oldest child, Macy Mary COOK, was born on January 11, 1833.   (Macy Mary COOK could have been named after her paternal grandmother, Hannah (MACY) COOK or after her maternal grandmother, Macy (MANKINS) LEWIS, or possibly both of those individuals.)

According to the federal census Thomas and Sinai were in White River Township of Washington County in 1840 and 1850.  White River Township is located in the central-eastern part of the county.   By the time of the 1860 census the COOK family was living in Brush Creek Township in extreme northeastern Washington County.  Their farm home was, in fact, in Washington County, and part of the farm was situated in Madison County.   The couple were eventually buried in nearby Austin Cemetery in extreme southeastern Benton County. War Eagle Creek runs through the area where those three counties converge.

Thomas and Sinai (LEWIS) COOK had a total of eleven children, all born in Arkansas.   They 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 Civil War undoubtedly had a major impact on the family of Thomas and Sinai (LEWIS) COOK because some of the fighting occurred very close to their home (the Battle of Pea Ridge, for instance), and several of their children were young adults during the war.  Some family accounts say that their son, Henry Clay COOK, who died at the age of eighteen, was, in fact, murdered by bushwhackers in the vicinity of War Eagle in Benton County in 1862, a crime that was most likely related to hostilities of the war.  There are also family stories saying that their son, William COOK, was a Confederate prisoner of war who died in the Alton (Illinois) Military Prison, on March 14th, 1865.   This researcher has yet to confirm either of those accounts.

Thomas COOK died on January 20th, 1867, shortly after the end of the Civil War.   He and Sinai (who died twenty-six years later in 1893) are both at rest in the Beacon Addition of the Austin Cemetery, in Benton County, Arkansas.  Thomas’s brief sojourn on Earth had brought him from the Carolinas to Illinois and on to Arkansas where he had established a homestead and fathered eleven children in turbulent times.  When Thomas died in 1867 at the relatively young age of fifty-three, he had outlived two of his sons, and had six children still at home with five of those being under the age of twenty.

Clearly Thomas COOK had work still to be completed when he passed away.