Francis Cook Sr. (1702 - 1779)

Born 23 Jan 1702 in York County, Virginia

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 1779 at about age 76 in York County, Virginia

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Research Notes

FRANCIS COOK is not listed as a son in the will of the linked father, WILLIAM COOK, III.

Biography

Francis Cook was born January 23, 1703, in Charles River Parish in York County, Virginia, the sixth child of William Cooke and Mary Ann. Francis Was the 4th generation to live in York County area of the Virginia Colony. His family probably raised tobacco as a money crop, and he may have supplemented his income by raising cattle or using his other skills. There is no evidence that they were large landowners. It is believed that he married Mary Patrick and had at least 5 children to live to the age of majority.

When Francis was in his early 20’s, James Oglethorpe convinced the British government to authorize the colony of Georgia. It had been over 50 years since the government had authorized a new colony in the Americas. Oglethorpe and the other Trustees envisioned Georgia as a place where the colonists could make a comfortable living through their own efforts. Slavery and alcohol were prohibited in the new colony; however, Oglethorpe did hire slave laborers from South Carolina to clear the land for the new city of Savannah. When Oglethorpe and the other Trustees were looking for potential colonists for the new colony, they were looking for carpenters, tailors, bakers, farmers, merchants, and other skilled laborers to help insure a successful colony. They wanted to establish an egalitarian society. They did not want to establish a colony of wealthy planters. Despite the popular myth, there were no settlers from the debtor prisons in Georgia and there were Jewish settlers as part of the first group to establish the colony. All of this was happening as cheap land was becoming rare in the other colonies, which was a driving factor in migration to other colonies.

Georgia was becoming an area for individuals seeking better land and better opportunities. Francis's second son, Francis, would be the first child to leave Virginia seeking a better future and would end up in Elbert County, Georgia.

Francis’s children would have seen the ravages of war play out near their home during the American Revolution. Travel was becoming easier and less dangerous even though the Indians were becoming more hostile to the colonists for encroaching on their hunting grounds and grounds where they planted their crops.

It is believed that Mary predeceased Francis in 1774 and that Francis died in 1779. They would be the last of my Cook family to live their entire life in York County, Virginia.

Sources

• https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/76408826/person/42342035886/facts

• Kinard, June. York County, Virginia, Charles Parish Records, 1648-1789 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 1998. COOK FRANCIS, son of William by Maryan, b. Jan. 23, 17(03)

• Bell, Landon Covington, Charles parish: York county, Virginia, history and registers, births 1648-1789, deaths 1665-1787, Richmond: Division of purchase and printing, 1932. page 70, citing Francis Cook, Digital images: HathiTrust Digital Library, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015019775124&view=1up&seq=90

• Taylor, Marie Kellogg. Grandma, Where Are You?, Cook/Cooke Cousins of the South. Sheveport, LA: J & W Enterprises, 1996.