Biography of Emory B. Cook
This is a biography that was given to me by a new-found cousin last year. It’s a short biography of my Great Great Great Grandfather Emory B. Cook who moved here from New York in 1869.
EMORY COOK is a native of Chautauqua County, N.Y., and comes of New York ancestry on both sides. The people from whom he is descended run back into the early-settled families of the Empire State. His father, Benjamin S. Cook, and his grandfather, Stephen Cook, were both natives of Washington county, N. Y., and were both farmers and devoted their lives to their calling. Each lived to a good old age, the grandfather dying at the age of seventy-six and the father at the age of eighty-six-the latter having been born November 4, 1800, and dying April 6, 1887. Both were well preserved down to their last days and died in the full possession of their faculties.
Mr. Cook’s mother bore the maiden of Susan Kenyon and was born in Washington County, N. Y., November 23, 1809. She was a daughter of William Kenyon, also a native of N.Y. She died in Chautauqua County, N.Y. There were nine children in the family to which our subject belonged, he being the third in point of age, and the only boy of the family, of whom only four, besides himself, are now living.
Emory Cook was born February 17, 1829. He was reared in his native county, having been brought up on the farm and receiving a meager common-school education, getting his school training from the local schools of the community where he was reared, his attendance at these being restricted to the usual three months during winter when the weather was unfit for out-door employment. He learned the carpenter’s
trade when a youth, and followed this on growing up. He went from his native county to Onondaga county, N.Y., after he reached his maturity, and resided there two years, engaged in farming. From there he went to Oswego county, that state, and resided there for seventeen or eighteen years, engaged in farming, working at his trade as carpenter, and, during the winters, in freighting and teaming in the lumber districts of that county. From there he came to Iowa, reaching Delaware county April 7, 1869. On settling here he rented a farm two and a half miles east of Manchester, where he engaged again in farming, and where he resided for three years. He then moved into Coffin’s Grove township, northwest of Manchester, going on to Judge Joel Bailey’s place, where he resided for nine years. In the meantime he purchased a tract of land of eighty acres in Coffin’s Grove, but subsequently sold it, and, buying another tract in the same township, settled on it and ha there since resided. He owns a farm now of one hundred and eighteen acres, most of which he has well improved, a large part of it being under plow and the remainder in good pasture and valuable timber land-all of which represent his earnings during the past fifteen or eighteen years. He is recognized as one of the progressive, representative farmers of his community, enjoying the esteem and confidence of all who know him.
Mr. Cook married April 4, 1853, taking as his wife Miss Mary J. Benson, a native of Oswego county, N. Y., she having been born in the town of Parish, that county, June 16, 1833. Mr. and Mrs. Cook have had born to them a family of six children, all but one of whom are now living, one having died in infancy. Their eldest son, Malcolm B., was born April 2, 1854; Ranford E. was born February 29, 1856; Edward W. was born December 14, 1858; Helen M. was born August 17, 1863, and Susan E. was born August 17, 1870.
Mr. Cook has held the usual number of local offices, the duties of which he has discharged creditably to himself and with satisfaction to those concerned. He has never taken much interest in politics, but is nevertheless a staunch Republican, and supports his party’s ticket with zeal when occasion demands. Personally, he is a man whom one can like, and is well spoken of by his neighbors.