William Cook

(c1730 – 1801)

The first mention of him is in the 1756 ledgers of Partridge & Company, where both he and his father had an account.  William Cook’s account shows a credit on 28 October “by his father”[1], and the account for Benjamin Cook shows a debit on the same date “pd his son William”.[2]   Whether William Cook was living in Louisa or Hanover County is uncertain, but he described himself as “of Louisa” four years later.  On 28 October 1760, William Cook of St. Martin’s Parish in Louisa County sold 200 acres to Anthony Waddy that was “part of a tract granted to Benjamin Cook by patent…and by the sd. Benjamin Cook in his last will and testament, bearing date 6 August 1759, given to sd. Cook.”[3]  William Cook and his wife Keziah appeared in the Louisa court the same day to acknowledge the deed. 

Other than this deed, I could not find any reference to William Cook in Louisa County.  From later records it seems certain that his wife was the daughter of Hannah Cheadle and Thomas Burch, whose will dated 17 January 1774 in Albemarle County names fourteen children, one of whom was “Keziah Cook”.  [At least three of Keziah’s siblings were later neighbors of William Cook in Surry County, North Carolina, where they appear together in numerous records.  In addition, his son Benjamin Cook, who never migrated to Surry, named a child Hannah Cheadle Cook.]   It is possible that William Cook would have appeared in the records of Hanover County (which are now lost) prior to 1760.  His father’s land was only five miles west of the Louisa-Hanover line, and that might explain how he came to meet Keziah Burch, whose father was living in either Caroline or Hanover during the 1750s when the marriage occurred.

After selling his inherited land, William Cook and his wife Keziah apparently moved into the part of Lunenburg County which subsequently became Charlotte County, where we know his three of his sons lived or married.    Indeed, there was a William Cook on the 1764 tithables of Lunenburg County listed with one slave and 200 acres, in the parish that became Charlotte County a year later.  [He was listed one name away from Sackville Brewer, whose daughters married two sons of William Cook, and who had also come from Louisa County.]  William Cook bought land adjacent to his existing holding on 14 October 1765[4] and later added several other parcels in the same area.[5]  His land was located in central Charlotte County just above the Roanoke (aka Staunton) River between Wallace’s Creek and Ward’s Fork.  He subsequently appears several times in Charlotte County records, although not all later references are attributable since we eventually find more than one William Cook in the area.  The final reference of which we can be certain was on 5 October 1778, when he produced an accounting of the estate of an orphan named Sarah Thomas, for whom he had been made guardian nine years earlier.[6]  He was probably the William Cook, “gentleman”, commissioned a Lieutenant in the Charlotte County militia in August 1777, though there are no records of actual service.[7]   Sometime in 1778 or 1779 he moved to Surry County, North Carolina.  He retained most of his lands in Charlotte County, evidently leaving them in the occupation of his son Benjamin Cook.[8] 

Although the records of Surry County show a William Cook present in 1774 shortly after its formation from Rowan County, he was not the same William Cook.[9]   The task of sorting out the Surry records is complicated by the presence of at least six different William Cooks living in Surry County at the same time, although, the location of their lands helps to differentiate them (see end note). 

Our William Cook first appears in Surry’s records on 16 July 1778 entering a claim for 640 acres on the south side of the Yadkin River, described as including the improvement formerly Ambrose Bramlett’s as well as “the improvement whereon Joseph Johnson now lives”.[10]  Joseph Johnson filed his own claim for a portion of the same land on 13 August 1778, resulting in the deletion of 140 acres to satisfy Johnson’s caveat, and William Cook’s warrant was issued for 500 acres.  The land was adjacent Nathan Carter and William Cruchfield, on the south bank of the Yadkin River.  This grant was recorded in the Surry books on 24 December 1792, fourteen years later, just before William Cook sold the land. [11]   

It is not clear exactly when William Cook moved onto this land, for it was surely him appearing in Charlotte County in October of 1778 (see above).  He may also have been the same William Cook who was surety in Charlotte County for the marriage of his son Benjamin in December 1779.  However, he was clearly in Surry County by 30 April 1780 when he and his brother-in-law John Burch witnessed the will of Benjamin Bowles.[12]  The Surry tax lists from 1776 through 1781 are lost, but he appears on the 1782, 1784, 1785, and 1786 tax lists [the only surviving lists of the period] paying taxes on the 500-acre grant, and for one white poll and five slaves.[13]  His son William Cook Jr. apparently accompanied him to Surry, as he appeared on the 1782 and subsequent tax lists as well.

William Cook’s land was located on the south side of the Yadkin River, which is called the Pee Dee further south, within two or three miles of the Wilkes County line and probably within the present city limits of the town of Jonesville.[14]  This area, which is now northwestern Yadkin County,  is a few miles west of the “Great Wagon Road” which led settlers from Philadelphia and central Virginia to points west and south.  [This road crossed the Yadkin River at Shallowford in the southeastern part of present-day Yadkin County.]

William Cook lost little time establishing himself in the Surry community.  On 14 May 1780 he was appointed the justice for Salathiel Martin’s district.[15]  He would serve as a justice continuously for the next twenty years.  [That means he is generally referred to in court records as “William Cook Esq.”, which helps to differentiate him in the court records from the other William Cooks.]  He also served as the county coroner from 1781 to 1785, and several times served as a tax taker.  He was a census and elections official for the 1786 state census, served as Sheriff in 1793-1795, and as county treasurer in 1795.  He also appears frequently as a witness to deeds, wills and bonds for neighboring landowners, sometimes jointly with his wife Keziah, and often with his Burch in-laws.  In total, he appears more than two hundred times in Surry records between 1780 and his death in 1801.

The state census, returned in February 1786 for Surry County, lists two William Cooks, but neither is ours.  Most of the census returns were subsequently lost, the result being that the surviving census is missing at least eight Cooks, including our William and his sons.  In the 1790 census, he is the William Cook shown with a household of three males over sixteen, five females, and ten slaves.  Apparently the household included his sons Samuel and David and the four youngest daughters.  His son William Cook Jr. is separately enumerated, and his sons John and Benjamin are elsewhere. 

The Surry tax lists of 1787 through 1789 are missing.  By the time he appeared in the tax list of 1790, William Cook had acquired an additional 200 acres by deed from Nathaniel Woodruff in 1788.[16]  He sold that land to two of the Ridge orphans on 6 August 1791.[17]   In 1790 he was taxed on two white polls, himself and probably David (Samuel being not yet 21).   He appears with only five taxable slaves, though a total of ten were attributed to him in the 1790 census.[18]

On 6 July 1790, as “William Cook Sr.”, he purchased 14 acres on the south side of the Yadkin from Peter Salley for £7.[19]  In a letter dated 23 February 1791, he stated that “I have sold my land yesterday  and I expect to move to Georgia next fall.”[20]  The only record of a sale of his land was dated almost seven years later, so he must have changed his mind.  In fact, later that year, on 1 December 1791, he purchased a total of 961 acres from William Terrell Lewis in four separate deeds, paying a total of £1,461, quite a substantial sum.[21]  This land was on the south side of the Yadkin River, on both sides of Cobb Creek, which today runs through the town of Jonesville in what is now the extreme northwestern corner of Yadkin County.  From these and later deed descriptions, the land seems to be adjacent, or nearly so, to the land he had earlier patented.

Beginning with the tax list of 1792, he is shown with this total holding of 975 acres.  After 1791, he did not pay tax on the 500 acres he was granted in 1778, but he didn’t actually dispose of this land until he sold it to James Downey on 2 December 1797.[22]  His acreage on the tax lists also began to decline after 1792, from 975 acres to 450 acres in 1795.  The deed records account for this decline of 525 acres.  He and his wife Keziah sold 300 acres to William Richards on 19 June 1795, described as being on the dividing line “between William Cook and his son David Cook”, and adjacent Abraham Downey and Salathiel Martin.[23]   On 10 October 1795 he sold his son David Cook 225 acres adjacent William T. Lewis, Peter Salley, and James Downey, which also refers to the dividing line between William and David Cook. [24]   

By 1800 (the last available tax list until 1812), the tax list shows William Cook with 450 acres, no polls, and three eligible slaves.[25]  His sons William, David, and Samuel appear nearby, also as slaveowners. He appears in the 1800 census of Surry County with one male 16-26 (Samuel), one female 16-26 and another 26-45 (presumably Frances and Elizabeth), his wife, and nine slaves.

On 25 April 1801, William Cook and his 26-year old youngest son, Samuel Cook, executed an interesting contract.[26]  It provided that Samuel would pay his father’s future debts to the amount of $600 and in exchange William Cook would immediately give Samuel half his plantation and would leave him the other half in his will.  William and Keziah Cook were to live on their half of the land until their deaths.  The agreement further provided that William would give Samuel a slave named George, and in exchange Samuel would purchase a young slave girl as well as a horse worth at least $50 for his sister Frances.  William Cook also agreed to give Samuel a slave named Tom and a “young Cumberland filly mare”, in exchange for which Samuel would purchase a horse worth $50 “for his sister as soon as he possibly can.”  Finally, Samuel was “to overlook my Negroes as well as his own and lay in grain of every kind sufficient to support my family and stock of every sort…also he is to furnish me with one hogshead of good tobacco every fall, or the worth of it in cash, for me to lay out for such necessaries as we want.  The rest of the crop he may dispose of as he pleases.”  William Cook also directed that this document be kept with, and recorded with, his will.

William Cook died shortly thereafter, sometime in mid-1801.  He was still alive on 14 May 1801 when he was appointed to a road jury but deceased by 12 August 1801 when his will was proved.  William Cook’s will, signed “William. Cook Senr.”, was dated two days after the above agreement, on 27 April 1801 and proved on 12 August 1801, when Keziah, William Jr., and Samuel qualified as executors. [27] [28]  The above agreement was recorded the same day, on the oath of Keziah Cook. [29]  The will, as agreed, left two slaves and half the home place to his son Samuel:

“…My will is on condition my son, Samuel Cook, complies[with] and signs the article I have now drawn.  He is to have half the land and plantation I now live on from this time and forward, and after the death of his mother the other half to him…Also I give to my son Samuel a negro fellow named George and on his compliance with said article above mentioned he is to have the negro fellow Tom…with a feather bed and furniture…I give to my daughter Frances Cook a Negro girl to be purchased by son Samuel…also a little negro boy named Berry, a feather bed and furniture with a fifty dollar horse as mentioned in said article…  I lend to my eldest daughter Mary after the death of her mother a negro wench named Susey with her increase hereafter during her life and after her death to be equally divided between her three daughters Nancy, Polly, and Elizabeth Shores…I give to my son Benjamin Cook and son David Cook ten pounds hard money each to be raised out of my estate…All the rest and residue of my estate consisting of the following negros, viz,  Old Sam and Jane, Hall, Susey and Ransom, with all my other moveable estate whatsoever, I leave in the hands and possession of my wife, during her life, for her maintenance, as also half the land and plantation during her natural life, then after her death everything to be sold…and the money arising to be equally divided between the following children (to wit) John Cook, William Cook, Hannah Meredith, Elizabeth Cook, Sarah Jones, Frances Cook, and Keziah Dejarnete …I constitute and appoint my loving wife Keziah Cook, [and] sons William and Samuel Cook executors.” 

Note that the will makes specific bequests to Samuel, Benjamin, David, Mary, and the unmarried daughters Frances and Elizabeth, and directs that the residual estate, after Keziah’s death, is to be divided among the two unmarried daughters  and five different children John, William, Hannah, Sarah, and Keziah.  A total of eleven children are named.  We can’t be certain that all the children were named, but it seems likely especially since we have no reason to think otherwise.  Unfortunately, no records of the distribution of the estate survive.

Samuel Cook, who had the greatest stake in the estate, seems have acted as the chief executor.  Estate accountings recorded in March 1803 and November 1806 contained payments to Samuel Cook for his services but not to the other two executors. [30]  The final settlement of the estate was recorded on the oath of Daniel DeJarnette on 29 October 1806 and jointly signed by the three executors Samuel, William, and Keziah Cook.[31]  Samuel Cook owed the estate a net of £10 after “giving him credit for $600 that he was bound to pay to said estate by an article made & entered into between him & his father.”

The recorded accountings are summaries which do not contain any clues to the places of residence of the children.  When William Cook died, he owned a 450 acre plantation.  His agreement with Samuel was to give him half outright and leave him the other half in his will, with possession subject to his mother’s death.  Although there is no instrument recorded among the estate papers or court records, it is apparent from the tax lists that Samuel left the inherited half of the estate in his mother’s hands and made some arrangement to have it distributed to Daniel DeJarnette after his mother’s death.  He sold the half he received outright and removed to Georgia in 1808.  If he received anything after his mother’s death, it is not recorded. 

Keziah Cook, the widow, appeared as a head of household in the 1810 censuses of Surry County.  The household included six slaves, a male under 10 and a female 10-16 in addition to Keziah.  These were surely either unrelated people or grandchildren.  She was enumerated consecutively with Isaac Cook (aged 16-26), his mother Betsy Cook (apparently the widow of John Cook, with seven children), and Ezekiel Hendrick (Samuel Cook’s father-in-law).   Keziah Cook was also in the 1812 and subsequent tax lists, with 225 acres (half the plantation), a few slaves, and no polls.  Two court records in 1818 mention “Keziah Cook’s canoe landing”, evidently a landmark on the Yadkin River near the mouth of Cobb’s Creek.[32]  She was in the 1820 tax list with the same 225 acres and 10 slaves, but not in the 1820 census.  [She was likely the older female in the 1820 household of Daniel DeJarnette.]   The 1821 tax list shows the taxpayer for her land as “the estate of William Cook, dec’d”.  Several secondary sources give her date of death as 11 July 1821, apparently from the Bible of Pleasant B. Roberts.[33] The only record of this Bible I have seen in print gives her date of death as 11 July 1819, but this is evidently a typographical error. [34]  A typewritten copy of the Bible record which predates this publication has the year as 1821, which seems to fit the facts better.

There are no records of the administration of her estate, because she merely had a lifetime interest in the plantation and other property.  There is, however, a sale of items from the estate of William Cook dated 24 October 1821 among the loose records of Surry County.[35]  The sale was conducted by Daniel DeJarnette, Keziah’s son-in-law.  Robert Holbrook and a William Cook (not the son), among others, were heavy buyers.  There are no surviving records of the final distribution which, under the terms of the will, was to be made equally to the seven named children.

See the separate page on William Cook’s neighbor and contemporary, William Nichols Cook for a discussion of his children, who are often confused with the children of William Cook.  The eleven children of William Cook and Keziah Burch were the following, not necessarily in birth order:

1.      Benjamin Cook (8 April 1758 – 27 March 1806).  He remained in Charlotte County, Virginia until his death.  He apparently lived on his father’s land, and was the only Cook in that district in the 1782 tax list.  His widow applied (successfully) for a pension for his Revolutionary War service on 23 August 1839 as a resident of Green County, Kentucky. [36]  In that application she gives his birth and death dates from her family Bible, and states that he lived and died in Charlotte County.  She states she was Catherine Brewer before marriage and married Benjamin Cook in Charlotte County on 25 December 1779.  There is a marriage bond in Charlotte County for this marriage dated the previous day, 24 December 1779, with William Cook the surety.[37]  [It identifies Catherine as the daughter of Sackville Brewer.  Note that another daughter of Sackville Brewer married Benjamin’s brother David Cook, and Sackville Brewer served as surety for the marriage of William Cook Jr.  He was enumerated one name away from William Cook in Cornwall Parish of Lunenburg County in 1764, and near Benjamin Cook in 1782.]   As part of the pension file, a Thomas Gains deposed that he was acquainted with Benjamin Cook “from childhood”, deposing that he himself was born in Hanover County and moved to Charlotte County about 1762 or 1763.  The file further states that Benjamin Cook enlisted in 1776 for a year in the First Battalion of Georgia troops[38], then volunteered again in the Virginia line in early 1781.  I found no mention of him whatsoever in the Surry County records.  The 1782 and 1787 tax lists of Charlotte County list Benjamin Cook located near Sackville Brewer, the only Cook in that district, and he is mentioned several times in Charlotte County records, so he evidently never went to North Carolina.  Benjamin Cook’s will in Charlotte County was dated 26 March 1806 and proved on 7 April 1806.  The will speaks of a tract of land in Green County, Kentucky he had purchased of James Lynn, which was left to his wife as a lifetime estate.  The only children named are William B. Cook and “son-in-law” Stephen Cooke (the wife of Martha Cook from other records), who were named co-executors with his wife Catherine.  The rest of the children, were minors.  The will was later recorded in Green County on 23 April 1807, after the widow and children had moved there.[39]  An 1815 Green County court case lists the children as Keziah (wife of William Embry), Eliza (wife of Silas Creel),  Patsey (wife of Stephen Cook), William B(rewer), Benjamin B., John, Samuel (a minor), and Hannah Cheadle Cook (then a minor).  Patsy is separately identified as Martha White Cook (the eldest, born 25 Jan 1781), named for her maternal grandmother. 

2.      John Cook (c1755 - ?)   He may have been the eldest son, for a John Cook witnessed a deed by William Cook on 8 June 1772, and both William and John Cook witnessed two deeds in 1774.[40]  It appears he initially came to Surry County with his father, as John Cook entered a claim for 640 acres on the south side of the Yadkin River in Surry County on 24 April 1778.[41]  The claim was amended to 461 acres on 29 June 1778[42], and recorded on 24 October 1782.[43]  That he was William Cook’s son is proven by two subsequent records.  A court record dated 17 February 1782 references an order that the “tract of land whereon John Cook formerly lived be restored into possession of Wm. Cook, Esq. and court to give up rent to Wm. Cook as rent is considered illegal by the court.”[44]  On 10 July 1782, as “John Cook of Charlotte County, Virginia” he executed a power of attorney to “my father William Cook” of Surry County to sell the same 461 acre grant to John Brewer; witnesses were William N. Cook and Benjamin Burch, meaning he must have executed the document in Surry County.  The land was sold by William Cook in 1784, not to Brewer, but to Samuel Greenwood, and was described as being adjacent to Nathan Brewer.[45]  Naturally, this raises the question of where John Cook was in 1782 and thereafter.  A John Cook, clearly not him, was listed in the 1782 Surry tax list with no land (but 5 horses and 11 cows), but no John Cook appears in the Charlotte County tax list the same year.  [Nor does a John Cook appear in later Charlotte County records.]   I don’t know what happened to him after this, but David Cook’s letter of 1 December 1816 reports “my brother John and William and families were well not long since” indicating that John Cook was alive at that time.  Whether David Cook had visited or received word by letter is not clear, thus we don’t know where John Cook was in 1816.  The John Cook who reappeared in Surry County in 1783 and who died in 1805 was obviously not the same person. 

3.      William Cook Jr. (c1760 - ?)  His first appearance in the Surry records is on 15 August 1781, when William Cook Jr. and several of his father’s near neighbors were assigned to a road viewing.[46]  He is not mentioned again until 15 February 1787, when Fload Carlton, orphan of Blake Carlton, was bound to William Cook Jr. for 22 months to “learn the Art and Mistry of Saddler” and William Cook Jr. was appointed to both a road survey and a jury.[47]   He first appears in the tax lists in 1782 as a poll over 21, when he was taxed on 400 acres and listed one name away from his father.  He appears on the 1784, 1785, and 1786 tax lists with the same 400 acres and one poll.  The land was apparently a claim for 400 acres next his father which he did not formally enter until 1784[48], and which he sold in 1789 with William Cook Sr. a witness.[49]   He had actually entered an earlier claim, on 18 February 1780, for 100 acres on Pipes Creek (a few miles west of his father) which was not recorded for another twenty-two years.[50]  This grant is very helpful in establish who he was, for he augmented it with a purchase from Peter Downey on 1 December 1791, of 140 acres on the mouth of Pipes Creek[51] “including the plantation Wm. Cook Junr. now lives on.”[52]  William Cook Sr. was again a witness.  He is taxed on that 140 acres from 1790 through 1800, as well as on the 100 acres adjoining from his grant.  He seems to be the “William Coock Jr.“ enumerated in the 1790 Surry census with four males under 16 and three females.  He sold his 1791 purchase, then surveyed at 148 acres, to Moses Woodruff on 16 February 1805.[53]   He was clearly still in Surry County more than a year later, when he signed the final settlement of his father’s estate as executor on 27 October 1806.[54]  But at that point, it is not clear whether later references are to him or to a different William Cook.  I did not find a sale of his 100-acre grant, meaning that it was probably not recorded until much later.  He may be the same William Cook who, on 9 November 1805, bought 300 acres nearby from Grove Cook, with Samuel and William McBride as witnesses.[55]  On 31 August 1809, that same William Cook bought 125 acres from Stage Cook with William McBride and Isaac Cook witnesses.[56]  He was on the 1810 census of Surry, but sold the land purchased from Stage Cook in an undated deed probably written about 1810-11.[57]  He was perhaps the same William Cook who was a founding member of the Island Ford Baptist Church in 1809 and a delegate from it to the Yadkin Association in early 1811.[58]  William Cook must have left Surry about 1811 for he is not in the 1812 or later tax lists, the next available lists after 1800.   Nor did he participate in the 1821 sales of his father’s estate.  He evidently left the area and lived somewhere near David Cook by 1816, for David Cook’s 1816 letter to his mother contains the statement “my brothers John and William and families were well not long since.”  William Cook seems nearly certain to be the same William Cook who married Anne Baker, daughter of Martin Baker, in Charlotte County, Virginia by bond dated 26 December 1780.  Significantly, his surety was Sackville Brewer, father-in-law of two of his brothers.  [Although his parents had left Charlotte County by the marriage, at least one of his brothers had remained there.]  According to a correspondent, they had children named Mary (19 Jan 1782), Keziah (4 Nov 1785), Elizabeth (4 Apr 1788), David Martin (24 Sep 1790), Sarah (1 Aug 1793), William Burch (15 May 1796), Martin Baker (4 Apr 1799), and two illegibly-named twins (20 Jan 1802).[59]  I note that the birthdates of the children perfectly match the 1800 census[60] and the 1810 census[61] households.  He may be the William Cook who was named executor in Martin Baker’s will dated 12 July 1812 in Nicholas County, Kentucky.  That person was evidently the William Cook in the 1820 (age over 45) and 1830 (aged 70-80) Nicholas County censuses.

4.      Mary Cook  (c1760 -?)  Named “my eldest daughter Mary” in William Cook’s will, she had three daughters mentioned in the will:  Nancy, Polly, and Elizabeth Shores.  Assuming she was herself named Shores, she was probably the Mary Shores who, with William Cook, witnessed a deed to his son Samuel Cook in 1795.[62]  She may have been the wife of Reuben Shores Jr.[63]  Reuben Shores Jr. had appeared in the Surry tax lists at least by 1785 and was enumerated in the 1790 census with one male under 16 and what appears to be eight females.[64]  He had left Surry County before the 1800 census, and appears in the 1801-1804 tax lists of Wayne County, Kentucky along with his brother William Shores.[65]  In 1806 a Nancy Shores, identified as the daughter of Reuben Shores, married in Wayne County and in 1806 an Elizabeth Shores married (though not identified as Reuben’s daughter).  Thus it is possible that Nancy, at least, was the Nancy Shores named in William Cook’s will.  Reuben was still in Wayne County on 31 December 1806 but was apparently in Davidson County, Tennessee by late 1807.[66]  By 30 October 1812 he was living in Dickson County, Tennessee when he bought land in Wayne County.[67]  He sold that land in three transactions a year later, again as a resident of Dickson County, Tennessee.[68]  He may be the same Reuben Shores who appears in Wayne County, Illinois in 1820.  Many researchers have theorized that William Cook’s daughter Mary was the same Mary Cook who married Salathiel Martin, but it seems more likely to me that Salathiel Martin’s wife was a daughter of William Nichols Cook [see separate page for more on this topic.]

5.      David Cook (c1767 – aft1820)  He does not appear as a poll in 1786, but is apparently the second white poll of his father in the next available tax list in 1790, thus was born after 1765.  He appears in the Surry County records for the first time in a 1789 court record.[69]  He was apparently still living in his father’s household in 1790, but entered a claim for 300 acres adjacent to his father on Cobb Creek on 4 February 1793.[70]  By 1793 he appeared separately on the tax lists, being taxed on that land through 1800 but not in 1812 or later.  He subsequently appears frequently in Surry court and deed records.  A deed by his father, witnessed by David Cook, dated 19 June 1795 refers to “the dividing line between William Cook and his son David Cook.”[71]  As mentioned above, his father sold him 225 acres in 1795, though he was never taxed on the land and may have sold it.[72]  He was in the Surry census of 1800 with three males and two females under 10, he and his wife both aged 26-45.  He was the bondsman for his brother Samuel’s marriage in 1803 and Samuel, in turn, was witness of David Cook’s purchase of 27 acres from Daniel DeJarnette in 1801.[73]  On 1 October 1804 David Cook purchased the same land his father had earlier sold to William Richards.[74]  On 10 November 1804, he sold slaves and horses to Ezekiel Hendrick, Samuel Cook’s father-in-law, taking a mortgage which he relinquished on 27 March 1809.[75]  He appears to be the same David Cook who married Martha Brewer, another daughter of Sackville Brewer, by bond in Charlotte County, Virginia dated 29 December 1791, with Benjamin Cook the bondsman.[76]  Indeed, his wife was named Martha when David Cook and his wife Martha Cook sold 136 acres to James Fletcher on 2 July 1808.[77]   In a deed dated 21 January 1809, David Cook sold the 300 acre grant on Cobb Creek that had adjoined his father.[78]  By the time the deed was recorded in August 1820 “the executor and witnesses are out of the State”, and Obediah Martin proved the deed.  David had moved to Barren County, Kentucky in time to appear in the 1810 census.[79]  There are two old letters written by David Cook to his mother Keziah and his brother-in-law Daniel DeJarnette, both dated December 1816 which name four of his children:  William, Thomas, Keziah, and Martha.[80]  The 1800 and 1810 census suggest he had four sons and four daughters.  These letters suggest he was still living in Barren County, Kentucky in 1816 but was contemplating a move to northern Alabama.  Given that his son-in-law appeared in Franklin County, Alabama in 1820 and 1830, it was perhaps this David Cook in Franklin County in 1820.[81]  His daughters Keziah B. Cook had married Richard Waggoner in Barren County in 12 February 1812 and her sister Martha W. Cook had married Reuben Waggoner on 15 December 1815.  [For more on this family, see the separate page on his two letters of 1816.]

6.      Hannah Cook (c1767 – 13 Sept 1848)  Called “Hannah Meredith” in her father’s will, she had married Daniel Meredith in Surry County by bond dated 12 January 1787, with Benjamin Burch as bondsman.  Daniel Meredith (1762-1826) was the son of the James Meredith and Mildred Bagby whose wills are mentioned above.[82]  [He was also the uncle of the Jane Meredith, who married the unrelated Philip Cook.]  Daniel Meredith inherited a piece of land in Stokes County from his father but did not live on it.  Interestingly, the Merediths appear to have been in Georgia briefly in the early 1790s, but were in Adair County, Kentucky about 1806, then moved to Logan County, and about 1820 to Bond County, Illinois.  Daniel Meredith died in Montgomery County (formed from Bond) in 1826.  There is a Bible of one of their daughters, Sarah Coffey, which records their death dates.  Hannah died in Pike County, Illinois, according to a descendant.  Their children were:  William (1788-1839), Sarah (1789-1833), Keziah B. (1791-1880), Elizabeth, James, Thurza, and Thomas C. Meredith (1811-1880)

7.      Sarah Cook (c1769 – c1849)  Called “Sarah Jones” in her father’s will, she seems to have been the wife of Lemuel Jones.  She and her three younger sisters, with their mother, would account for the five females in Samuel Cook’s 1790 household.  A damaged marriage bond dated 14 October 1790 exists for Lemuel Jones and an unreadable female name.  This was probably Sarah Cook.  Lemuel Jones was dead by 15 August 1805, when his widow Sarah was appointed guardian to their children James, Elizabeth, Reziah, and Francis Jones, with her sureties being David Cook and Thomas C. Burch.[83]   Sarah remarried to Daniel Cockerham in Surry County by bond dated 16 October 1808, with John Shugart the surety.  The 1810 census shows Cockerham as head of a household of seven.  They remained in Surry County, both dying there in the 1840s.  The Pleasant B. Roberts Bible has Daniel Cockerham’s date of death as 11 December 1843.  He was a Revolutionary soldier, applying for a pension in 1832.[84]

8.      Samuel Cook (12 September 1774  – 13 July 1828)  He married Elizabeth Hendrick, daughter of Ezekiel Hendrick and Mary Wood, in Surry County on 23 January 1803.  Samuel struck an agreement with his father to receive half his father’s plantation in 1801 and the other half upon his mother’s death.  He sold the half he possessed about 1807/8 and removed to Jones County Georgia in 1808, where he died in 1828.  [See separate page]

9.      Elizabeth Cook  (c1776 – c1861)   Elizabeth was unmarried when her father wrote his will, and seems likely to have been the female over 26 in his 1800 household.  Although most researchers identify her as the same Elizabeth Cook who married Thomas Golding, that appears to be a different person for several reasons.[85]  David Cook’s 1816 letter to his mother, which mentions his brothers John, William, and Samuel and sisters Hannah Meredith and Keziah DeJarnette, also states “sister Meredith and sister Shugart are well and families”.   By elimination, “sister Shugart” must have been Elizabeth Cook.  She was probably married to John Shugart, who was also mentioned prominently in the same letters, apparently living somewhere in Kentucky [see file].  John Shugart had owned land adjoining David Cook in Surry County.[86]  He also witnessed David Cook’s final sale of his Surry land, and was bondsman for Sarah Cook Jones’ remarriage to Daniel Cockerham.  John Shugart (sometimes recorded as “Sugart”) was not a head of household in 1800, but is in the 1810 Surry census with one male under 10 and another (perhaps a brother)16-26, with a wife aged 26-45.   David Cook’s letters imply he lived close enough to Barren County, Kentucky to visit.  He thus seems likely to be the John “Sugart” in the 1820 census of Madison County[87] and in the 1830 census of Cumberland County, Kentucky. [88]  Both censuses appear to be consistent with what we know of this couple. 

10.  Keziah Cook (c1778 – aft1860).  Called “Keziah Dejarnete” in her father’s will, she was the wife of Daniel DeJarnette, probably married about 1797-8.  Interestingly, DeJarnette was also from Charlotte County, Virginia where he resided until the late 1790s.  He appears as a witness to the 10 October 1795 deed from William Cook to his son David Cook[89] and a few months later appears along with William Cook as a witness to another deed 1796.[90]  However, he does not appear in the Surry tax lists until 1797.  Daniel DeJarnette bought 27 acres in Surry on 1 May 1799 with both William and David Cook as witnesses.[91]  [I note, though, that he was taxed on that land the prior year, in 1798.]  He later sold that land to his brother-in-law David Cook.[92]  He appears in the 1800 Surry census with one male under 10 (Keziah being aged 16-26).   By 1810, Daniel DeJarnette is head of a household of three sons and three daughters, Keziah now aged 26-45.   They remained in Surry County, Keziah appearing as age 60-70 in the 1840 census and as age 71 in the 1850 household of her son William Cook DeJarnette.[93]  Daniel DeJarnette apparently retained some connection to Charlotte County, for he sold land there as a Surry resident in 1826.[94]  He was administrator of William Cook’s estate in 1821, when the remaining assets were sold after the death of Keziah Cook.  According to descendants, Daniel and Keziah had six known children:  Elizabeth, Martha, Margaret, George Washington, William Cook, and John Cook DeJarnette.  William Cook Jarnette’s wife, Huldah Roberts,  was a daughter of the Pleasant B. Roberts who kept the Bible mentioned above.

11.  Frances Cook  (c1780? - ?)  Evidently the youngest daughter, judging from the 1801 agreement between her father and her brother, she is probably the Frances Cook, then of age, who married Robert Holbrook in Surry by bond dated 20 July 1803.  Holbrook, a heavy purchaser at the 1821 sale of the William Cook estate, died in Surry County in 1826 leaving a will naming his wife Frances.[95]   She was apparently Holbrook’s second wife, for it was presumably he who was head of a family of four in the 1790 Wilkes County census and of a family of eight in the 1800 Surry County census.  In 1810, the Surry Census shows eight children, and the 1820 census shows seven still in the household.   There is no sign of Frances, as a Holbrook, in the 1830 census nor is there a subsequent marriage record for her.