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BIOGRAPHIES
A Standard History
of
Erie County, Ohio
An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular
Attention
to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial,
Civic and Social Development. A Chronicle of the People, with Family
Lineage and Memoirs.
By
HEWSON L. PEEKE
Assisted by the Board of Advisory Editors
Volume I.
ILLUSTRATED
The Lewis Publishing Company
Chicago and New York
1916
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ELMER COOK.
The Cook family has many interesting associations
with Erie County and this part of Northern Ohio.
In the main they have been substantial farming people,
but the relationship also includes ministers of the
gospel, merchants, and several who have at different
times identified themselves with other lines of business
and the professions. Mr. Cook owns one of
the well-kept and managed farms of Berlin Township, his
home being on Rural Route No. 4 out of Norwalk.
His grandfather, Aaron Cook, was a native of New
York State and after his first marriage came to Huron
County about 1840. His first wife died there, and
he married for his second wife Rachel Barney
Some years later they moved to Michigan and improved a
farm west of Kalamazoo, where they died when full of
years. They were good Christian people and in
politics he was a republican. The children of the
second marriage were Harrison, Henry and Emily,
all of whom were married and lived in the western
states. By the first marriage the children were
Hiram, Lorin, Milo and Allen passed away in
Michigan. They were all natives of Cattaraugus
County, New York.
Milo Cook, father of Elmer, was born in
1818, and was a young man when his parents came to Huron
County. He married Adelia Vining, also a
native of Cattaraugus County, where she was born about
1820. She came out to Huron County with her
parents, where they died, and after her marriage in 1851
Milo and wife located at Townsend Station, now
Collins, and built a hotel, which they conducted until
1854. This hotel they traded for a large farm in
Jasper County, Indiana, moved to that locality, and Milo
died there in 1858, when in the prime of life. His
widow subsequently lived with her daughter lola, now
the wife of Richard Cook, an Englishman.
Richard Cook is a fruit and vegetable gardener, near
Norwalk, and his children are Elmer, Willis and
Gertrude. Mrs. Milo Cook
subsequently moved to Michigan, lived on a small farm
there, and in the spring of 1864 took her two children
to Missouri, but in the fall of the same year returned
to Ohio and located in Berlin Township of Erie County.
She died a few years later when about forty-three years
of age. She was a member of the Baptist Church.
Her father was Rev. Record Vining, a pioneer
Baptist minister throughout both Erie and Huron
counties, having come here from New York State. He
died in Jasper County, Indiana, when eighty years
of age. Though devoted to the cause of the church
which he served so faithfully, he preached without
remuneration, and supported himself and family largely
through his farming enterprise. His widow, whose
maiden name was Lydia Williams, subsequently
returned to Ohio and died in Berlin when past eighty
years. Record Vining was one of the best
known men in East Townsend and, as before stated, was a
preacher of the gospel without remuneration. He
reared a family of seven children, two sons and five
daughters: Ebenezer, of Ohio, was a farmer;
Jared died in Michigan; Mary married
Hiram Cook and lived and died in Montana; Lydia
who married Ansil Bryant, lived in Ohio, later
lived in Michigan for several years, and then returned
to Ohio, where both died; Abigail married
Edmund Waldron and lived and died in Ohio; Sarah
married Chester Jackson and lived and died in
Ohio; Adela became the mother of the subject of
this review.
Elmer Cook was born June 15, 1851. He grew
up in Ohio and Michigan and his education came from the
schools of Berlin and the normal school at Milan.
After his marriage he established himself on twenty-five
acres of well-improved land in Berlin Township, and has
lived there and made a success of agriculture. He
has a group of good buildings and a prominent feature of
his farm is an orchard of peach, apple and other fruit
trees. A few years ago he built a substantial barn
by his own labor.
In 1874, in Berlin Township, Mr. Cook married
Hattie Cook, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio, May 9,
1850, and was a young girl when her parents came to Erie
County in 1854. Her parents were John and
Hannah (Reeson) Cook. Her mother
was a daughter of Rev. Thomas Reeson,
an Englishman and a minister of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, who spent his life in England. His Bible
is now in the possession of Mrs. Cook, and
she values it highly for it many associations, and she
also has an old sickle handed down from the previous
generation. John Cook, her father, was born
in 1802 and died in Berlin Township in 1899, where his
wife was born in 1812 and died at the home of her
daughter, Mrs. cook, in 1896. Mrs. Cook's
parents were married in England in 1834, and after the
birth of five children there they all came to the United
States on a sailing vessel in 1848, spending six weeks
in the voyage. From New York they went on to
Cleveland, and arrived there without a cent of money.
The entire family lived in one room for a time until the
father was able to get a start in the New World, and in
1865 they came to Erie County, where John Cook
followed farming and made a success of the business.
Two other children were born to them after they came to
this country. One son, Henry, served in the
Ohio regiment through three years of the Civil war, was
wounded in the side at Chickamauga, but returned and
died some years after the war.
Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Cook have three children.
Walter is unmarried and still at home.
Elma is the wife of Clifford McLaughlin, a
merchant at Berlinville, and they have a son, Lewis
C. Mary is the wife of Henry Benbower,
who is connected with the Western Automatic Machine
Company, Elyria, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Cook
are members of the Berlinville Friends Church, in which
he formerly served as an elder. Long a resident of
Berlin Township, he has commended himself to the
confidence of the people and has held several local
offices. He is one of the pioneer prohibitionists
in Erie County, and has advocated that doctrine since
the time of St. John.
Source: The Standard History of Erie County,
Ohio - Published 1916 - Page 600 |
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CHARLES EDDY COOKE.
Of the families and individuals who had most to do with
the early settlement, development and latter day growth
of the City of Sandusky, one that deserves conspicuous
mention was represented by the late Charles Eddy
Cooke, who was for many years a prominent merchant
at Sandusky and whose death took away from that city a
man whose death took away from that city a man whose
business and personal character was of the highest type.
Charles Eddy Cooke was born in Perkins Township
in Erie County, Ohio. His father was Prof.
Augustus Cooke, a native of Connecticut, and what
was uncommon at that time a man of college education.
He came to Erie County about 1830 and was usefully
identified with the community in the capacity of an
educator and lived here until his death.
Augustus Cooke was twice married, and the maiden
name of his second wife was Mary Ann Eddy.
She was born in Connecticut, a daughter of Roswell
Eddy. Roswell Eddy was also a native of
Connecticut, was reared and married there, but soon
after the War of 1812 joined a company of several
families and came out to Ohio. They came over the
mountains and out to the Southern shore of Lake Erie
with wagons and teams, bringing household goods, farm
implements, live stock and poultry. The chickens
and turkeys were driven ahead of the teams by the
children. At night these fowls would take to the
trees and then the company camped wherever the poultry
determined upon a roosting place. After
several weeks of travel they reached what is now Perkins
township in Erie County, but then a portion of Huron
County. There Mr. Eddy bought a tract of
timbered land, erected a typical log cabin, and began
life in what was then westernmost state in the Union,
all the country to the west as far as the Mississippi
being a sparsely inhabited region under territorial form
of government. Mr. Eddy cleared up a farm
out of the wilderness, and continued to live there until
his death. Roswell Eddy married a Miss
Taylor. Their daughter, Mary Ann (Eddy)
Cooke survived by her husband many years and died at
the home of her son William at the age of eighty-four.
She reared three sons: Charles Eddy; William
Joseph, who was for many years bookkeeper in
banks in Sandusky, and George Augustus,
who was associated with his brother Charles in
business.
Charles Eddy Cooke was twelve years old when his
father died, and after that he lived with his maternal
grandparents. He was given a good education, and
was advised to take up the profession of medicine, and
acting on this counsel he studied for a time with
Doctor Tilden. The profession not
proving to his liking, he turned to merchandising, and
became clerk in the store of David Everett
at Sandusky. He soon mastered the details of the
business, saved his earnings, and then invested in a
stock of goods and began business on his own account.
His brother George soon afterwards became
associated with him, and by close attention to their
work and with increasing capital they enjoyed a position
among the foremost merchants. Mr. Cooke
invested his surplus capital in city real estate, and
after disposing of his business ten or fifteen years ago
devoted all his time to the management of a property
which had greatly increased in value. He died at
Sandusky in 1909.
Charles Eddy Cooke married Mary A. Turney.
She was born in Syracuse, New York. Her father,
William Latta Turney, was born in Philadelphia, a
son of Prof. Samuel Turney, who was a native of
Connecticut and of early English ancestry. He was
a lineal descendant of Nicholas Pynchon, at one
time Lord Mayor of London. The line of descent is
as follows: Judge William Pynchon, son of
Nicholas, came to America and was treasurer of
the Massachusetts Bay Colony; his son, Col. John
Pynchon, has been referred to in history as one of
the "Connecticut River Gods" (see History of
Springfield, Massachusetts, and Encyclopedia Brittanica);
he married Amy Wyllys, daughter of Gov. George
Wyllys; their son Col. John Pynchon, Jr.,
married Margaret Hubbard; their son Maj. John
Pynchon married Bathsheba Taylor; their son
Joseph was the father of Margaret Pynchon,
who in turn was the grandmother of Prof. Samuel
Turney. Prof. Samuel Turney was a college
graduate, held the position of tutor in Yale College,
and after his marriage removed to Philadelphia and was
in educational work in Pennsylvania until failing health
caused him to go South to South Carolina where he was a
tutor in the family of Governor Laurens His
death occurred in middle life. William Latta
Turney father of Mrs. Cooke, was still a boy
when his father died, and thereafter lived with his
uncle and grandparents in Connecticut, where he has
given a liberal education. He inherited the estate
of his uncle, and going to New York engaged in
mercantile business in that state, and was a prominent
man at Syracuse until the early '50s. He was
attracted to the new State of California, shipping a
stock of goods around the cape and himself crossing the
Isthmus. He contracted a disease during the voyage
and died soon after landing in California.
William L. Turney married Azuba Hoyt, who,
after the death of her husband, went to Wisconsin and
lived in Portage City for a time, but spent her last
yeas with Mrs. Cooke in Sandusky. She
reared three daughters: Elizabeth K.,
Mary Augusta and Josephine A. The first
of these daughters lives in Minneapolis and the last
with Mrs. Cooke.
Mr. and Mrs. Cooke reared two daughters, Ella
and May. They also had a son
Augustus who died in his fourth year. The
daughter Ella married Henry A. Morgan and
has two daughters named Mary and Josephine.
May married Lewis Lea, and at her death
left six children, named, Charles, George, Margaret,
Mary Virginia, Richard James and Elizabeth
Kathryn.
The late Mr. Cooke
was a Methodist, while Mrs. Cooke and her sister
have membership in Grace Episcopal Church at Sandusky.
The home which Mrs. Cooke occupies on Wayne
Street at the corner of Adams is one of the attractive
landmarks of the Sandusky residence district. It
was built by Mr. Bell being a bachelor the home
was built to suit his special requirements. It was
put up in the early '40s, and has been standing on Wayne
Street for seventy years or more. It is a stone
building, with very thick walls, with well arranged
interior, large windows, and is both a comfortable and
quaint old place. This home was once the scene of
entertainment by Major Camp (a retired U. S. A.
officer, who had acquired the home, before it was
finished) of Gen. Winfield Scott with his entire
suite. Mrs. Cooke maintains the old home,
the walls adorned with many fine paintings, and teh
visitor finds a constant charm and interest in the large
collection of objects which have been purchased and
gathered by Mrs. Cooke while traveling abroad.
Source: The Standard History of Erie County,
Ohio - Published 1916 - Page 520 |
NOTES:
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