The Cook brothers: Early leaders in Missouri and Illinois

Louis Houck once wrote, "In the anxiety and struggle, excitement and enjoyment of the present we too often forget the men of the past. Soon all memory of their labor vanishes from the common recollection of men. Soon their very names become an unfamiliar sound...." So it is with three brothers, Nathaniel, John D. and Daniel P. Cook, who were instrumental in the early history of Southeast Missouri and Illinois. From humble beginnings, these men all achieved prominence in our region.

The brothers were sons of John D. and Mary Ann Mothershead Cook, who moved from Virginia to Scott County, Kentucky, after 1790. The oldest, Nathaniel, led a party of slave-owning Kentucky families to the Ste. Genevieve District of Upper Louisiana. The group obtained land in 1799-1800 near what is now Libertyville in St. Francois County.

The new Cook's Settlement prospered as a farming community. Nathaniel became a deputy surveyor for the U.S. after the Louisiana Purchase. He also bought land in 1812 adjacent to St. Michel, then sold it in 1819 as the site of Fredericktown. Cook served in several capacities for the new Madison County, and was elected representative to the Missouri Constitutional Convention in 1820. He stood as a candidate for first U.S. Senate from Missouri, but was defeated by Thomas Hart Benton. Nathaniel continued as a local official, speculated in land, and was the last of the brothers to die in 1852.

The most widely-known brother in Missouri was John D. Cook, born in 1789 in Virginia. He was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1814. John arrived in Missouri in 1816 and opened a law office in Ste. Genevieve. Voters chose him for the Territorial Council in 1818, then as a Ste. Genevieve County delegate to the Missouri Constitutional Convention in 1820. Governor McNair appointed John to the first Missouri Supreme Court in 1820.

He resigned in 1823 to become judge of the Tenth Judicial Circuit in southeastern Missouri. He moved to Cape Girardeau at that time, and served until 1848. He oversaw the expansion of the circuit to include Stoddard, Mississippi, and Dunklin counties. John served as U.S. district attorney for eastern Missouri from 1848 until his death in 1852.

John was known as an extremely ugly man, and one story involves a bet during a steamboat trip over whether he was uglier than a Judge Wright from Ohio. He was well-known for his charitable contributions, and for his amiable wit, which could be turned to sarcasm as the situation dictated. Judge Cook has descendants who live in the Cape Girardeau area.

Daniel P. Cook, the youngest son, was a respected lawyer, publisher, and anti-slavery politician whose home became Kaskaskia, Illinois. He served in several public service jobs, most notably as the second elected representative to the U.S. House from Illinois. A frail and soft-spoken man, he died at age 33 on Oct. 16, 1827. Four years later, Illinois named the new county of Cook in his honor.