John Cook (#772) and Mary Borden (#773)

772. JOHN COOK
773. MARY BORDEN
Parents: Thomas Cooke (#1544) and Mary ? (1545)
Parents: Richard Borden (1546) and Joan Fowle (#1547)
BAPT: 30 Mar, 1630
BORN: 13 Jan, 1632
Netherbury, Dorset, England
Headcorn, Kent, England
DIED: 16 May, 1691
DIED: 23 Dec, 1690
Portsmouth, Rhode Island
Portsmouth, Rhode Island

MARRIED: ca 1652 in Portsmouth, Rhode Island

CHILDREN


i.
Elizabeth
b. ca. 1653,

ii.
John
b. ca. 1655

iii.
Mary
b. ca 1656

iv.
Sarah
b. ca. 1658

v.
Hannah
b. ca 1660
386.
vi.
Joseph
b. ca 1662

vii.
Thomas
b. ca 1664

viii.
Deborah
b. ca 1666

ix.
Martha
b. ca 1668

x.
Amy
b. ca 1671

xi.
Samuel
b. ca. 1674

Both John Cook and Mary Borden were born in England, and traveled as children with their families to Massachusetts. (John was born a Cooke, but dropped the “e” from his surname when in America.) The Bordens moved to Portsmouth, Rhode Island in 1638, while the Cooks arrived five years later. John and Mary were married circa 1652. The Cooks were Baptists and the Bordens were Quakers, but it’s unclear what religion John and Mary’s new family followed. Their children, however, primarily married into Quaker families.

John undoubtedly started life as a farmer, but he soon diversified his interests. In 1654, he registered a distinctive mark he placed on his cattle’s ear, a common practice since all the town’s livestock grazed on a common field. John’s first recorded real estate acquisition occurred in March, 1656, when he took part in the Coanicut purchase. He received 1/250 of the island, now known as Jamestown. In 1660, John’s parents granted him sixty acres in the north of Portsmouth, which may have been used as a lumber business. In 1668, he and Daniel Wilcox were awarded the franchise for running the ferry between Portsmouth and Tiverton. At a much later date, the ferry route was replaced by the Stone Bridge, whose abutments jutting into the water can be seen in the photo below. The Stone Bridge was about a mile south of the current bridge connecting Portsmouth to Tiverton.

The "bridge" picture goes here.

In March, 1669 he received a shipment of “six hundred and three quarters and three” pounds of iron, which I assume is 678 pounds. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, John’s father had received a large amount of iron, so perhaps this shipment was in connection with this family blacksmith business.

John continued buying and selling real estate. In 1671 he purchased land in Dartmouth, Massachusetts and in 1673 sold land in Portapeage, New Jersey. In 1680 he sold the land in Dartmouth for a sixty percent profit. In April, 1680 John made his largest real estate acquisition, buying two parcels from his son-in-law, William Manchester for one hundred thirty pounds (approximately $400,000 in today’s economic power). As a result of King Philip’s War, Plymouth Colony was heavily indebted, and agreed to sell Tiverton to a group of eight investors, including William Manchester. William received five shares in March, and sold two of these shares to John a month later. On the same day, John purchased half of William’s holdings in Puncatest Neck, which is now part of present-day Tiverton. (Incidentally, William had purchased this land from our ancestor Thomas Lawton in 1687). Over the next decade, John continued buying and selling smaller plots of land in Puncatest Neck and Portsmouth, often involving the Sissons and Browns.

John also took on several government responsibilities in tandem with his business dealings. In 1665 he served on a special committee to raise a tax to pay for Rev. John Clarke’s mission to England to secure a royal charter for the colony. He served on the grand jury in 1667, 1669 and 1673, as a deputy to the General Assembly in 1670, and as Portsmouth’s constable in 1671. He appears once more in town records, in 1676, as a witness in the murder of Zoeth Howland by a group of Indians in Little Compton.

John’s wife Mary died in December, 1690, possibly of smallpox. Five months later, on 15 May, 1691 John prepared his will, stating that although he was of sound memory and understanding, “yet being aged and calling to mind the brevity and uncertainty of this life not knowing how soon the Lord may call me from hence, Especially considering the sore visitation of the smallpox wherewith many are now visited and many have been taken away.” This preamble sounds like John was merely being prudent and putting his affairs in order, but surprisingly he died the next day, on 16 May. Eldest son John received 150 acres of farmland and a house in Puncatest Neck, and four acres of meadowland, cattle and a house at Little Compton. He also received the “Negro woman Betty”. Thomas received land in Tiverton. Our ancestor Joseph (#386) was appointed executor of the will, and received the bulk of John’s property in Portsmouth, including the family home and main farm. Joseph also received “the Negro man called Jack who is of service for time of his Life”, as well as the Indian woman Maria, who was to serve Joseph for ten years and then freed, and the Indian boy Goan Francisco, to serve Joseph until he turned 24, at which time he was to be put in good apparel, given corn and a horse, and freed.

Joseph was responsible for the remainder of the estate bequests. He was to give sister Mary ten pounds and ten sheep, and sisters Elizabeth, Sarah, Hannah, Amy and Martha ten pounds. Sister Deborah received only one shilling, and each of the sisters also received one cow (except Amy, who lived in New Jersey so cow delivery was impractical). Samuel received land in Tiverton, but for reasons discussed below he was unable to sell the land without the approval of Joseph and the two overseers (George Sisson and Isaac Lawton).

John and Mary are buried in a small burial ground in what is now an open field on the Glen Farm in Portsmouth, on the south side of Glen Road about three tenths of a mile east of East Main Road. John’s stone reads that he “lived neare 60 years”. Mary’s stone is broken, but states that she was 57 years old. In 1860 there were forty graves in this Cook cemetery, but now only the stones of John, Mary, their grandson Joseph Cook Jr and Joseph’s infant son Paul are visible.

John and Mary had eleven children, the youngest of whom, Samuel (xi) was mentally challenged. As mentioned above, he received some land from his father, but wasn’t allowed to dispose of it. Our ancestor Joseph (#386) took care of Samuel. In 1701 the Superior Court at Bristol granted Joseph one hundred pounds raised from the profits of Samuel’s land for having maintained Samuel, “he being an Idiott and not able to provide for himself.”

Elizabeth (i) married William Briggs, the son of our ancestors John Briggs (#1548) and Sarah Cornell (#1549). This was the first of three marriages between the children of John Briggs and John Cook, who must have been close friends. William and Elizabeth lived in Little Compton, (now Rhode Island, but part of Massachusetts at the time). They lived on a 100 acre farm encompassing what is now Briggs Beach and Briggs Marsh, off of Shaw Road. The Briggs House, pictured here, was built by William.

House picture goes here.

William and Elizabeth died in 1716 in a smallpox epidemic, along with one of their children. They left an estate of 3,043 pounds (approximately $9 million in today’s economic power) to their five surviving children. William and Elizabeth, along with many generations of their descendants, are buried in the Briggs cemetery on this property.

John (ii) married Ruth Shaw of Little Compton. John and Ruth lived in Tiverton, on the land John inherited from his father. They had seven children, my favorite being daughter Ruth, solely due to the name of her husband, Preserved Fish. John died in 1737, and his wife died sometime after him. Alfred Deakin, Australia’s second prime minister, is descended from John and Ruth.

Mary (iii) married William Manchester, one of the eight original purchasers of Tiverton from Plymouth Colony. As mentioned above, William subsequently sold a portion of his Tiverton shares to his father in law, John Cook. They resided in Tiverton and raised eleven children. Mary died in 1716, quite possibly of smallpox since that is the year her sister Elizabeth and her husband died of smallpox in Little Compton. William may have had smallpox as well, since he wrote his will around the time of Mary’s death, although he didn’t die until 1718. He left an estate of 1,586 pounds, (approximately $4.5 million in economic power).

Sarah (iv) married Thomas Waite. They moved frequently between Tiverton and Little Compton. His name appears often in the early records, mostly involving land sales or mortgaging of property. I may be reading too much into this, but from the records I have seen he seemed to struggle financially. He probably inherited land from his father, and he made one acquisition, as the smallest shareholder in the purchase of Tiverton, with one share. He immediately sold one fourth of that share, and land in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. In this transaction he was referred to as a tailor. He continued selling land and buildings, and in 1691 he was in Little Compton, and owned a windmill. In 1697 he conveyed three separate land parcels, and in 1699 he posted a huge bond of
2,012 pounds to Thomas Walker & Sons of Boston. The following year he had to grant land to the bondsmen. In 1700 he conveyed land to our ancestors George Sisson and Joseph Cooke, and his wife (who was also Joseph Cooke’s sister) had to sign away any claims to the land as well. In the same year he issued a mortgage against his home and farm in Tiverton to Joseph Cooke. Conveyances continued, but at a slower rate, possibly because he was running out of assets. Our ancestor William Peabody obtained land and the windmill in Little Compton, and Job Briggs received the last holdings in Tiverton. Thomas and Sarah are shown as living in Dartmouth, Massachusetts in 1727. Thomas died in 1733, and was apparently a tailor again judging from the inventory compiled by his wife. The inventory consisted of a substantial amount of apparel, three wheels of linen and two wheels of wool, in addition to two bibles, some livestock and some silver cups and spoons. They had three children.

Hannah (v) married Daniel Wilcox circa 1680 in Portsmouth. They had five children, the last of whom was born in 1689. The record then becomes very confusing. There are three children born in the 1690’s to Hannah Cook and Enoch Briggs, another son of our ancestors John Briggs and Sarah Cornell. Then, Hannah, referred to as “widow of Daniel” and Enoch were married in Portsmouth on 2 March, 1699. Obviously, having children before getting married was hardly the norm in colonial New England. One additional unusual fact here is a marriage between Daniel Wilcox and Mary Wordell in 1697. On 23 March, 1697, the Rhode Island General Assembly took the unusual step of declaring this marriage illegal, and impeaching William Gibson, Assistant, for “marrying Daniel Wilcox and Mary Wordell contrary to the laws of this colony”. There are no definite records confirming this Daniel Wilcox was Hannah’s first husband, but it seems likely. Jane Fletcher Fiske, author of “Thomas Cooke of Rhode Island” has a theory tying these facts together that seems plausible. She believes that Daniel Wilcox abandoned Hannah circa 1690 and disappeared. Hannah was unable to remarry while Daniel was missing, so she began a common law family with Enoch Briggs. Ten years after his disappearance she was probably able to get a statutory declaration that Daniel was dead, and she was then free to marry Enoch. Her missing husband meanwhile had moved somewhere else in Rhode Island, started a new life, and married Mary Wordell around the same time he was being declared dead in Portsmouth. Of course this means that he legally had two wives at the time, and this provoked the General Assembly to declare the second marriage illegal and impeach the wedding officiant. It is unclear how this mess affected Hannah’s second marriage, since she would also have been married to two men at this time as well. Enoch died in April, 1734, leaving his estate to his wife, with the request that she leave everything only to the three children they had together. Hannah died two years later, and followed her husband’s wishes, except for the bequest of a white chest to her granddaughter Hannah Wilcox, daughter of her son Daniel by her first husband. Hannah’s most illustrious descendant was Sir Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister during the seond world war.

Our ancestor Joseph (#386) married the third of the Briggs siblings, Susanna, and will be covered in the next chapter. Thomas (vii) married Mary Cory, daughter of William Cory and Mary Earle, in 1692. He had inherited substantial land in Tiverton in 1691 from his father, but Thomas and Mary remained in Portsmouth initially. Thomas was a cordwainer (a high end shoe maker, as opposed to a cobbler, who repaired shoes and made rough work shoes). They had two children while in Portsmouth, before moving to their farm in Tiverton around 1698. They had four more children in Tiverton. Thomas was elected town constable four times, and the town’s sealer of leather for at least ten years. Thomas died in June, 1726, while Mary died sometime after 1744.

Deborah Cook (viii) married William Almy, the son of Christopher Almy and Elizabeth Cornell, in July, 1688. William’s father was another of the eight investors who purchased Tiverton from Plymouth Colony. Christopher amassed considerable wealth and held many public offices, culminating in his being elected governor of Rhode Island, a position he refused to accept. His excuse was he hadn’t the time to devote to the position, and accepted the assistant role instead. William expanded on his father’s land holdings, acquiring substantial land in Dartmouth, Tiverton and Puncatest Neck. Deborah died sometime prior to 1722, when he remarried to Hope Borden. William died in 1747, leaving an estate valued at 7,500 pounds ($22 million in economic power). The Dartmouth Historical Society has a series of photos of William’s various manor homes in Tiverton, Portsmouth, Newport and Dartmouth. The descendants of William and Deborah were prominent industrialists in Fall River (originally part of Tiverton), often allied with our relatives the Bordens. Their most famous descendant was William Durant, the founder of General Motors.

Martha (ix) married William Cory, the brother of Thomas’s (vii) wife. Martha and William lived in Portsmouth, where they had eight children. Martha and William died in May, 1704. They were both in their forties, so presumably they died of a contagious sickness. Lastly, Amy (x) married William Clayton. They moved to Monmouth County, New Jersey, where they had five children. David died in 1730, and Amy in 1740.