John Cooper (abt. 1642 - abt. 1668)

Born about 1642 in England [uncertain]

Husband of Susanna (Brayfield) Cooper — married about 28 May 1667 in Monie, Somerset, Maryland [uncertain]

Descendants

Died about 1668 at about age 26 in Somerset, Maryland

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Mark Summers [send private message]

Biography

John was born about 1642. John Cooper ... He passed away about 1668. ^[1]

http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/stagser/s1400/s1437/html/1437so. html

Old Somerset of the Eastern Shore of Maryland http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/_glc_/1122/index.html The remarkably interesting foundations of "Old Somerset," which have been disclosed by our exploration and exacavation of the ground of the past, quite naturally raise the question of the origins of the people by whom they were laid. As we examine these foundations we find as it were graven in the imperishable stuff of which they were made the names of certain human beings whose method in laying them has left ineradicable impress of certain characters on the substance out which they were fashioned. Who were these founders and first settlers of "Old Somerset"; whence did they come and out of what conditions of living? Certain it is that the early settlers--founders in truest sense of this historically fascinating colonial community--were people alive with a spirit for arduous undertaking and with a power to sustain such an adventure. Stout hearts, as well as strong hands; able minds governed by a will to accomplish, as well as strong bodies, were required for making and laying such imperishable foundations as we find in the soil of Somerset's history. The county of "Northampton otherwise called Accomack in VA" gave to Maryland the first settlers for the section of "the Eastern Shore below Choptank River," from whose southernmost area (south of Nanticoke River) the county of Somerset was erected in August, 1666. The section of VA from which these founders of Somerset came was immediately south of the MD-VA boundary line on the "Eastern Shore." "Northampton otherwise called Accomack," an ancient settlement dating back to very beginnings of VA, was a section noted for the hardihood of its inhabitants; not only physical, but mental and moral as well. Separation from the mainland and center of the VA colony's life by the wide reach of Chesapeake Bay developed in the inhabitants of this eastern outpost section a markedly independent spirit of living. They were fearless in meeting current issues, in thought, and had a courageous method of dealing with current events. The very geographical position of this section, with open seacoast to the east and comfortable harbors furnished by the quiet western waterboundary of Chesapeake Bay, with its wide creek inlets to the land, seemed to invite contacts with the traveling and trading public of the day. First and last, "Northampton-Accomack" drew to its shores men who were constantly in touch with the life of the world outside. In such an environment it was not unnatural that the people should develop an attitude both liberal and receptive towards experiments in religious faith and practical politics with which the mid-seventeenth century world was teeming. In "Northampton otherwise called Accomack in VA" we find among "the people" a cordial attitude towards "non-conformity," questioning as it were the declared sacrosanct nature of an established Church and "the divine right of kings." When rebellion rose against these theories and their accompanying practices in the mother country, in the mid-seventeenth century, "Northampton otherwise called Accomack in VA" was not long in feeling its effects. Here, indeed, were to be found stout loyalists; but among the people of all social classes there were degress of liberality in the matter of thinking about these things and the life of the section was honeycombed with "non-conformity." In such an environment, which we are able barely to suggest, but which is an inescapable atmosphere to him who delves among the recorded transactions of this section's past at that time, the first settlers of the area which later became Somerset County in MD were nurtured. The founders and first settlers of "Old Somerset" were truly "of the people" of this "Northampton otherwise called Accomack in VA" settlement; and as the restored "Stuart government" in VA attempted by law to eradicate the most radical non-conformist element of that day--the Quakers--from the population, certain rebellious spirits led an exodus from this section to that area across the MD-VA boundary line and became the founders of Somerset County in MD. Lord Baltimore desired the lands in this section of his province settled and the tradition and law of his province was congenial to such non-conformist spirits. There was mutuality of appeal. While it is true that certain rebellious non-conformists from "Northampton otherwise called Accomack in VA" were the leaders in establishing the settlement which developed into Somerset County, in MD, we also know that there were many people among the first settlers whose attitude towards religious conformity differed from that of the leaders; and though the body of first settlers was made up of the more liberal, or at least tolerant, element from the VA area, yet all of them were not impelled to leave VA by motives of conscience in matters of religion. Some of these people could have remained there. Nor will we say that Lord Baltimore bid the incoming Virginians welcome from the ground of an unmixed motive:--the motive to give refuge to people hampered by law in the exercise of conscience in matters of religion. The lower Eastern Shore of MD had been opened up by the Lord Proprietor for settlement as part of his policy to insure and protect this area of his province adjoining the boundary line between MD and VA, and the fertile lands in this area appealed to settlers not alone because they were within a government where "religious toleration" was both tradition and law, but also because of the greater economic and industrial advantage of obtaining such lands in an unsettled area at most reasonable "quit rents." So it is that we find men of varied motives joined together as a body of founders and first settlers in establishing "Old Somerset." Tolerant towards each other; these people worked together; submerging their differences in the will to accomplish one end--the developing of a community in which they would have freedom of conscience in matters of religion while gaining substantial economic independence. In the laying of the foundations of Somerset we find Quakers with other non-conformists whose sectarian predilections we cannot discover; and "Churchmen" (certainly of a liberal type) working side by side, all seemingly mindful of but one thing:--the success of the adventure in which they were engaged. Once for all, let it be said that the first settlers and founders of Somerset were, with rare exceptions, recruited from what may be called, by way of distinction, the "middle class." They were not (again with the few exceptions which may be noted) men of the officeholding, governing element, in the population of VA. These men were not possessed of large means, though some of them were in comfortable circumstances. They were small farmers, or planters, traders and tradesmen; some were merchants, some probably had training in professions. They were evidently people of vigorous mentality and progressive spirit. By far a large majority of them appear to have been people of sound stock and character. Though the English backgrounds of but few of them are known, yet in those few instances we find them issuing from good stock:--even the so-called minor gentry and merchant class. We cannot doubt that this would prove true of the majority of the first settlers of Somerset if we could but find their English origins. Whatever may have been their "social status" in "Northampton otherwise called Accomack in VA" (or other parts of VA from which a bare minority among them came), they were people who laid hold on advantages which came to them and proved their ability by advancing. Of course, we find among these first settlers both men and women who belonged to the "indentured servant" class, some of whom were indeed of mere "field-hand" status, while some of them having fallen into this class through the exigencies of life, worked out their freedom, exchanging their status of "the possessed" for that of "possessors." Then, too, we have no reason to doubt that from the first the even meagre population of this new community carried such a population's normal burden of industrial and moral delinquents:-- "neer do wells," who were a tax on the industrial life of the settlement; and men and women whose moral characters were a menace to the life of the community. There were "high ones who were low," as well as "low ones who were high," in character. Whatever the so-called "social status" in the place from which they came, there is one marked feature about these first settlers, these very founders of Somerset:--the character and spirit to "advance." It is not long after their arrival on the Eastern Shore of MD that we find these substantial middle-class people advancing to the gentry class; becoming officials in the settlement and substantially increasing their estates by intelligent use of the new advantages which they possessed. By May, 1662, the settlement on the lower Eastern Shore of MD was apparently well established, at which date an official report states that the two sections thereof--Manokin and Annemessex--numbered fifty tithable persons.2 We have not been able to discover the names of the fifty tithable persons thus referred to, though later records afford evidence as to who some of them were. Certainly Stephen Horsey, Ambrose Dixon, Thomas Price, Henry Boston, Robert Hart, Alexander Draper, with their families, were settled along the south side of Annemessex River by May, 1662, and Randall Revell, John Elzey and William Thorne, with their households, were settled along the Manokin River by the same date. The fifty tithable persons referred to in the report of May, 1662--whoever they may have been--certainly made up the group of the very first settlers in this area which in time was erected into the county of Somerset. Then from this date, May, 1662, on to the erection of Somerset County in August, 1666, we find the population steadily increasing year by year. No records remain of the transactions of the local courts of this area for the period between May, 1662 (when the court was first established) and December, 1665 (the first date in the oldest remaining local record book), but from remaining records of land warrants and patents (which give the names of patentees of land and "headrights") and local court records of a later period, we have gleaned the names of many of the first settlers of "Old Somerset." The following list contains the names--so far discovered--of these "first settlers" (from 1661/2 to the erection of Somerset County, August, 1666), classified according to the sections of the area in which they apparently settled.3 Annemessex: Stephen Horsey and his family......; Daniel Curtis and his family......; Manokin: Randall Revell and his family.... John Cooper;

They Lived In Somerset: 17th Century Marylanders http://www.rootsweb.com/~mdsomers/tlis/tlis1_w.htm COOPER, Elizabeth 1686/03/19 IKL b to Samuell & Jane COOPER, Jane 1692/04/04 IKL m to George Wilson COOPER, John 1665/12/11 JUD1 1666/09/04 LIV registered cattle mark 1667/05/28 JUD1 m Susanna Brayfield COOPER, Margarett 1683/10/22 IKL b to Samuell & Jane COOPER, Mr 1668/09/12 MCW ment/w Thomas Freeman COOPER, Richard 1694/05/28 MCW witn/w William Tompkins COOPER, Samuel 1675/03/11 JUD2 1678/04/01 ESMd immigrated 1678/11/01 VII Tobacco List 1681/10/01 MCW prob 26 Jul 1688; wf Jane COOPER, Susanna 1668/06/30 JUD1 m Thomas Covington

John Cooper was imported by Randall Revell 16 December 1663, and by Arnold and John Elzey 14 Jun 1665. He settled in the Manokin section of Somerset County, Maryland, with his indentured servant Susannah Brayfield, whom he married 28 May 1667. They had one son. John died in 1667 and Susannah married 30 Jun 1668 Thomas Covington (d.1704) and they had ten children, Samuel, Sarah, Rachel, Jacob, Rebecca, Isaac, Amy, Thomas, Abraham, and Susannah. Susannah Brayfield, imported 1 Apr 1665, as a servant indentured to Randall Revell and John Cooper, was called into court several times charged with (and fined and "publickly whipped" for) bearing illegitimate children, of whom the fathers were John Cooper and John Griffith. John Cooper was proven to be the father of Gabriel Brayfield, born in March, 1666. Thomas Covington's will gives to "Gabriel Cooper his Mother's iron pott"

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Sources

1. ↑ First-hand information as remembered by Mark Summers, Monday, November 24, 2014. Replace this citation if there is another source.

Author: Vivian Zollinger - Brøderbund Software, Inc. Title: World Family Tree Vol. 4, Ed. 1 Publication: Name: Release date: August 23, 1996; Note: Customer pedigree.

Page: Tree #2283 Text: Date of Import: Aug 2, 1999 Title: Cynthia Louise Cooper Chace Family Page Repository: Name: http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/c/h/a/Cynthia-L-Chace/index .html

Note: Source Medium: Electronic Author: Clayton Torrence Title: Old Somerset of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. A Study in Foundations and Founders Publication: Name: Copyright 1935, Whittet & Shepperson, Richmond, Virginia; Repository: Name: http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/_glc_/1122/index.html

Note: Source Medium: Electronic

See also:

United Kingdom Project

• Maryland Marriages, 1666-1970," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F4NX-B41 : 12 December 2014), John Cooper and Susanna Brayfeeld, 28 May 1667; citing Somerset, Maryland, reference 68; FHL microfilm 14,359.

• http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/m/c/d/John-Mcdermott-MD/ODT4-0001.html

• Covingtons Remembered: From Gravestones, Wills, Deeds, and Other RecordsDa Costa Euclid Covington

Gateway Press, 1991 page 63

• A Cooper Family of America, 1665-1803, 1794-1977

Author Donald Claire Hart Published 1977