Author: William H. Cook, Jr. // John Blair
John Cooke was born in London England June 28, 1752. When John was approximately 17 years of age he and friend Nellie Pemberton were kidnapped in London. The two were taken to the Port of Norfolk in the Virginia Colony where they were sold to a planter on the James River. There they became indentured servants, which is slavery with a time limit. John served his indenture and then aided Nellie to serve her indenture. They married and there are records of them having five children, named Thomas born in1776, John Jr., born in 1778, William born in 1784, James born in 1786, and a daughter Natalie born in 1780, she married and did not migrate with her parents to Southwestern Virginia. John Cooke’s first military service was in 1773 when he enlisted in Captain Thomas Buford’s Independent Company of Bedford County Riflemen Volunteers. John marched with General Andrew Lewis to Point Pleasant. The regiment engaged Cornstalk, the Shawnee Chieftain of the Northern Confederacy, on October 10, 1774. Some believe the battle, considered a landmark in frontier history, to be first of the American Revolution. As it is believed this battle prevented an alliance between the British and Indians. John Cooke’s name is engraved on the war memorial at Point Pleasant, WV.

In January 1777 John Cooke responded to the Act of the Virginia Assembly providing a second call for Continental Army soldiers. John enlisted from Shenandoah County and served as a Private in the companies of Captains Jonathan Landon; Abraham Hite and George Werie, in Colonel James Wood’s Eighth and Twelfth Virginia Regiments which were referred to as, “Continental Lines”. John participated in the Battle of Monmouth, and was with General “Mad Anthony” Wayne in the storming of Stony Point. He was discharged from the Continental Army December 29,1779. In 1793 John Cooke served in the Later Indian Wars with his son Thomas. They served with Captain Hugh Caperton’s Company of Rangers from Greenbrier, Kanawha, Montgomery and Wythe Counties. While serving he first saw the land in Montgomery County, Virginia he would latter settle. In 1797 John Cooke and family became the first permanent settlers of that land, which is now Wyoming County, WV. In 1798 he served as Constable of what was then Montgomery County, Virginia. A pension and a bounty of land warrant for 160 acres were granted in 1832 for his Revolutionary War services. John died September 17, 1832 and is buried in Delilah Cemetery in Wyoming County, WV. In 1934 the Colonel Andrew Donally Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution dedicated a monument to John Cooke’s memory. The monument is 500 feet Southwest of the house John and sons built in 1797, and 200 feet South of John Cooke’s Grave.

ADDITIONAL BIOGRAPHY by John Blair 191198 WVSSAR Daniel Boone Chapter

John Cooke was born in London, England on June 28, 1752. The Cooke family tradition has never mentioned John Cooke’s parents, but some recent research indicates that he may have been the son of John and Elizabeth Guerney-Cooke. When John was seventeen years of age, he and a young widow friend, Nellie Goodall, who’s maiden name was Pemberton, were invited aboard a vessel in the Thames river in London for dinner with friends who were sailing for the Colony of Virginia. As it turned out, the invitation was a ruse to get the young couple aboard ship and while aboard the Captain hoisted anchor and both Cooke and Nellie, who was thirteen years of age at the time, were kidnapped and brought to America as indentured passengers against their will. “Shanghaiing” was a nefarious tactic many ship captains of the time used to supplement their personal income. As indentured passengers, both were victims of the colonial labor system of “slavery with a time limit” used to provide England’s colonies with much needed white labor.

Upon arrival at the Port of Norfolk in the Virginia Colony, John and young Mrs. Goodall were indentured to a planter in the valley of Virginia located on the James River for payment of their passage. Cooke served out his indenture, probably in the year 1773, and then helped Nellie serve hers, feeling no doubt, guilt and obligation for her misfortune. After Nellie’s indenture was completed, the couple married. With their “gifts” of a barrel of corn, an ox or horse, and fifty acres of land to each, which was the custom upon completion of indenture, they established their home in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Records indicate that John and Nellie’s marriage produced five children, namely: Thomas, born July 27, 1776; John, Jr., born 1778; William, born June 4, 1784; James, born July 31, 1786; and a daughter, whose name and birth date was lost when she married and remained behind in the Valley when her parents migrated to southwestern Virginia.

John Cooke’s first military service was in 1773, in Lord Dunmore’s War, (Dunmore was John Murry, Earl of Dunmore, and Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia), when John enlisted in Captain Thomas Buford’s Independent Company of Bedford County Riflemen Volunteers. With this unit, John marched with General Andrew Lewis to Point Pleasant, now West Virginia, where American Indians from the Shawnee and Mingo tribes, under Shawnee Chief Cornstalk, attacked the Virginia Militia on October 10, 1774, hoping to halt General Lewis’ advance into the Ohio Valley. After an intense battle which resulted in heavy casualties on both sides, Cornstalk retreated. After the battle, the Virginians, along with a second forced led by Lord Dunmore, marched into the Ohio Valley and compelled Chief Cornstalk to agree to a treaty, ending the war. Prior to the actual battle, Cooke and others were dispatched to Fort Clendenin for supplies. It is presumed that Cooke and his party rejoined the Regiment later, as his name is engraved on the War Memorial at Point Pleasant, WV, as a participant of that battle.

In January, 1777, Cooke responded to the Act of the Virginia Assembly providing for a second call for soldiers for the Continental Army, by enlisting from Shenandoah County and served as a Private in the Companies of Captains Jonathan Landon; Abraham Hite and George Werle, in Colonel James Wood’s Eighth and Twelfth Virginia Regiments which were then referred to as “Continental Lines”. He participated in the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey and was with General “Mad Anthony” Wayne in the storming of Stoney Point (West Point), on the Hudson River in New York. John was discharged on December 29, 1779.

John Cooke also served in the later Indian Wars. John and his son Thomas were present on the 27 May 1793 Muster of Captain Hugh Caperton’s Company of Rangers from Greenbrier, Kanawha, Montgomery and Wythe Counties, when they were reviewed by Colonel John Steele at Fort Lee at the mouth of the Elk on the Great Kanawha River (now Charleston, the Capitol of West Virginia). This fort was built to guard the Kanawha Valley settlements.

About 1783, John and Nellie Cooke left the Shenandoah Valley with their three children and moved to the Narrows of New River, in Montgomery County, Virginia. At the Narrows, two more children were born: William Cooke, born in 1784, and James Cooke, born in 1786.

Dated August 14, 1785, and under the signature of James Monroe, Governor of Virginia, John Cooke received a land patent of 92 acres located on Little Laurel Fork, which would be at present-day Jesse, where James Cooke, the youngest son, settled. A second grant, presumably of the same date, included most of the land within present Oceana, WV and included land extending west of Oceana to the edge of the McDonald tract.

In 1798, John Cooke was appointed as a Constable for Montgomery County. In 1799, John and Nellie Cooke and their four sons left the Narrows of New River to re-settle in the far reaches of western Montgomery County – the area that later became Giles County in 1806, then Logan County in 1824, and finally Wyoming County in 1850.

The eldest son, Thomas, had already married Ellen Riggins when the family moved to present Oceana. Thomas and Ellen Cooke established their home about two miles west of his parents’ sturdy pioneer cabin. Within a few years the other three sons, John Jr., William and James, would marry and establish homes in and around present day Oceana, West Virginia.

John Cooke received at least two other grants of land – one in 1810 for 170 acres on Little Laurel of Guyan and another in 1812 for 30 acres on Clearfork. Nellie Pemberton Cooke lived in her new home for about a dozen years. She died in 1812 and was buried near her cabin home (now the churchyard of Delilah Methodist Chapel), thousands of miles from her native Scotland. On June 29, 1813, John Cooke went into Monroe County, (W)Va., and there married Anne Keatley-Hendrix (1775-1853), the widow of Daniel Hendrix. On September 17, 1832, John Cooke filed application and request for a pension for his services in the Revolutionary Army. He died November 21, 1832, at age 80, before the request was granted, though his widow Anne later received pension payments. John Cooke was buried next to Nellie Pemberton Cooke, just a few yards from his cabin home.

Sources: John Cooke, A Biography, by William W. Lyons Wyoming County Report, Oct. 15, 2012, Paul Ray Blankenship
Oceana and the Cook Family, No. 6 – Folk Studies, August, 1940, compiled and written by workers of the Writers Project, Works Projects Administration in West Virginia