John Cooke, of Gravesend

John Cooke

• born 1618 <Colletmoor (Collopmoor), Surrey>, England
• died after 15 March 1679 / before February 1680, Staten Island, New York
• father: <Robert Cooke> born about 1582 Collopmore, Surrey, England
• mother: <Mabel Stillwell> born 1586 Surrey, England christened 31 July 1586 St. Martin's Church, Dorking, Surrey, England married 4 May 1619 Dorking, Surrey, England
• siblings: unknown
• spouse: Sarah, wife of John Cooke (end of information)

Children

• Sarah Cooke, baptized 19 October 1640, Salem. Married Mr. Whitman.
• Elizabeth Cooke, baptized 16 June 1641, Salem. Married Obadiah Holmes (ll).
• Mary Cooke, baptized October 1643 Salem, died after October 1691 Richmond County, New York. Married Richard Stillwell.

Biography

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Cooke-1768

John Cooke was born about 1618 in England.[1][2] This John Cooke came to Salem, Massachusetts in 1635, age 17, a servant, aboard the Abigail.[3]

A John Cooke was a proprietor in Salem (Massachusetts) in 1636, and (another?) was made a Freeman there on 8 May 1642.[4] This cannot be the man who arrived in 1635 as a 17-year-old servant, because a man of 18 years was too young to have been a proprietor in 1636.

John Cooke married Sarah between 1635 and 1642.[5]

John Cooke was among the first settlers at Gravesend, Long Island, when he received a house lot there on 20 Feb 1646. At Gravesend he was allotted plantation no.8 on 16 Mar 1650; contributed to the common charges on 17 Jan 1651; and appraised the estate of John Morris on 15 Jan 1656. He was elected shout (constable) at Gravesend on 20 Mar 1656, and Magistrate in Apr 1659. He was named as one of the patentees of the Monmouth Tract in New Jersey in Apr 1665, but apparently never settled there. In 1676, John Cooke and John Tilton both refused to take the oath, being Quakers, but gave their engagements.[6]

His unrecorded will read, " I leave to my daughter, Sarah Whitman, two oxen and all the money due me in the hands of Mr. Nicholas Mayor. To my daughter, Elizabeth Holmes, 2 cows and to her husband Obadiah Holmes all my iron ware and 1/2 my horses. To my daughter, Mary Stillwell, 2 cows and 100 guilders, and to her husband, Richard Stillwell, 1/2 my horses, and I give the sheep which are in his hands to his children, Thomas and Martha Stillwell. And this is my will and pleasure for to do. - Dated ye 15th of ye first month called March, 1679, Witnesses, Obadiah Williams, John Corsons."

His will although dated on 15 Mar 1679/80 was not proved until 11 Sep 1699 which may have been shortly after his wife died.[7]

John Cooke died before February 1680 at Gravesend, Long Island; when his widow, "Sarah Cook, widow and executrix of her late husband, John Cook, deceased," authorized her son Obadiah Holmes of Staten Island to sell all the lands of her deceased husband in Gravesend.[8]

Notes

OBADIAH HOLMES: Obadiah Holmes, son of Obadiah and Katherine Hyde Holmes, was born in America and was baptized at Salem on June 9, 1644. He married Elizabeth Cooke, daughter of John and Sarah Cooke of Gravesend, Long Island, and first settled on Staten Island, New York

Records

https://ma-vitalrecords.org/MA/Essex/Salem/cBirthsC.shtml COOKE (Cook) CR1 First Church.

• Sarah, d. –––––, bp. 19: 7m: 1640. CR1
• Elizabeth, d. John, bp. 16: 3m: 1641. CR1
• Mary, d. John, bp. 22: 8m: 1643. CR1

References

• John Cooke in New England, The Great Migration and The Great Migration Begins, 1620-1635. <AncestryImage>
• 7. John E. Stillwell, The History of Captain Richard Stillwell, Son of Lieutenant Nicholas Stillwell, and His Descendants (New York, 1930) p. 113, 114.
• REGISTER In Alphabetical Order, Early Settlers of Kings County, LONG ISLAND, N. Y., FROM ITS First Settlement by Europeans to 1700; … By TEUNIS G. BERGEN, Author of Bergen, Van Brunt, and Lefferts Genealogies. Page 68. <Archive.Org>
• http://www.mathematical.com/cookejohn1618.html biographical and/or anecdotal: notes or source: HBJ
• The Holmes Family: The Reverend Obadiah Holmes to Susannah Holmes, Wife of Joseph Masters and Mother of Margaret Masters of Harrison County, Ohio. Compilation of Stephen Allen Leeper as of December 2016. <PDF>