Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 02.djvu/384

 COOKE

COOKE

was broken for the Mad river and Lake Erie railroad, he delivered the address, General Harri- son, Governor Lucas and other distinguished men being present. He was married in 1816 to Martha, daughter of David Casswell. He died in Sandusky, Ohio, Dec. 27. 1864.

COOKE, Qeorge Willis, author, was born in Comstock, Mich., April 23, 1848; son of Hiram and Susan Jane (Earl) Cooke. He attended Olivet college, Mich., Jefferson institute, Wis., and Meadville theological school. Pa., being ordained to the Unitarian ministry in 1872. He held various pastorates in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and Massachusetts, and in 1898 took charge of the First Parish church in Dublin, N.H., spending his winters in Boston in literary pursuits. He delivered two lectures before the Concord school of philosophy in 1883-85, and a course before the Peabody institute of Baltimore, Md. In the winter of 1897-98 he gave a course of six lectures before the Cambridge conferences on "The Place of Woman in the History of Civilization," published in book form in 1898. His published writings, besides numerous contri- butions to periodical literature, include: EaJph Waldo Emerson : His Life, Writings and Philosophy (1881) ; George Eliot; a Critical Study of her Life, Writings and Philosophy (1883) ; Poets and Problems (1886) ; The Clapboardtrees Parish, Dedham, Mass. : ■a History (ISSl) ; A Guide Book to the Poetic and Dramatic Works of Eobert Browning (1891) ; Early Letters of George William Ciirtis to John S. Dwight : Brook Farm and Concord (1898) ;JohnS. Dicight, a Biography (1898). He edited Tlie Poets of Transcendentalism ( 1903).

COOKE, Henry David, governor of the Dis- trict of Columbia, was born in Sandusky, Ohio, Nov. 23, 1825; son of Eleutheros and Martha (Casswell) Cooke, and brother of Jay Cooke. He was graduated at Transylvania university in 1844 and in 1847 was appointed attache to William G. Moorhead, U.S. consul at Valimraiso and act- ing charge d'affaires at Santiago, Chili. Being delayed on the outward passage by the shipwreck of their vessel, the barge Hortsensia from Balti- more, they were detained for weeks at St. Thomas. Finally, instead of going around Cape Horn, they chartered a fishing smack, went to the Isthmus of Panama, and at last reached Valparaiso by the new route. This led him to agitate the feasibilitj^ of a steamship line from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, via the Isthmus of Panama, in letters to the United States Gazette of Philadelphia and the Courier and Enquirer of New York. Public attention was attracted and as a result a company was organized in 1849. He made two voyages from Valparaiso to San Fran- cisco as supercargo on a ship fitted out by Mr. Moorhead and some English merchants to trade

in the new market then just opened. He was in California at the time of the discovery of gold in the Sacramento river, oi)tained specimens of the metal, and on his return trip to Valparaiso devi- ate^ from his course at the request of the com- mander of the U.S. army in California, in order that Lieutenant Beale might carry dispatches by way of the Isthmus to Washington, D.C. He sent by Lieutenant Beale his nuggets — the first California gold ever seen in the east — to his brother. Jay Cooke, who was a banker in Philadelphia, and in this way the news first reached the east of the discovery of gold in California. He was afterward unfortunate in financial affairs and returned to his native city, where he became a member of the editorial staff of the Begister, and later purchased an interest in the paper. He was also part owner of the Co- lumbus State Journal. He was a presidential elector on the Fremont ticket in 1856. In 1861 he removed to Georgetown, D.C, and was ad- mitted as a partner in the Washington banking house of his brother, Jay Cooke. In 1871, when the District of Columbia was organized under a territorial government, he was appointed its first governor, and held the office until his resig- nation four years later. He organized the system of improved streets and highways in the District of Columbia and his plans as formulated and put into partial operation during his two official terms of office were carried out in detail by Governor Shepherd, his successor. Among his many gifts to Georgetown were a Mission church and §20,000 toward an Episcopal church. He died in Georgetown, D.C, Feb. 29, 1881.

COOKE, Jay, financier, was born in Sandusky, Ohio, Avig. 10, 1821 ; son of the Hon. Eleutheros (1787-1864) and Martha Cooke, and a lineal de- scendant of Francis Cooke, who came to America on the 3Iayfloioer in 1620 and built the third house erected in Plymouth. He attended the pri- mary schools and as a boy was employed as a clerk in the ex- tensive stores of Hubbard & Lister in Sandusky and in 1836 became clerk in a mercantile house in St. Louis. In 1837 he returned to Sandusky, spent a few months at school and then went with his brother-in-law, William G. Moor- head, to Philadelphia, where he was employed by