• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

THE LIFE AND HISTORY OF PHINEAS WOLCOTT COOK TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. The Diary of Phineas Wolcott Cook Pictures of him and wives and handwriting 2. Preface to 1980 Edition 2 3. Brief History, Birth, Death, Marriages, Etc 3 4. Overview History of Phineas Wolcott Cook 4-10 By Eva Covey Madsen 5. Picture and Preface to First Edition 11 6. Life and History of Phineas W. Cook Written by him 12-89 7. Appendices: 90 1. The Goshen Valley Period 91-95 2. The Bear Lake Period Pages 96-102 3. The Logan Period Pages 103-107 4. The Star Valley Period Pages 108-115 8. Addendum Pages Brief Statement on Later Life of Wives 116-118 9. "In Loving Remembrance" 119 10. Acknowledgements 120 Compiled by: Newel Cook McMillan Published by: Phineas Wolcott Cook Family Organization. December 1980 Printed by: American Publishing Company Preface to 1980 Edition Of His Journal In 1961, Mrs. Maude Cook Kilburn, Mrs. Eva Covey Madsen and Joan Kilburn prepared for publication, the Phineas Wolcott Cook Diary as recorded by him in his own handwriting. This diary had been rescued and preserved by his son, Moses Cook. A limited number of this diary was printed. In 1975, the Cook Family Organization determined that this diary should be printed again for the benefit of many descendents who had not had the opportunity of obtaining the first edition. The Board of Directors determined that a brief history should be included from the last writings of Phineas Wolcott Cook in 1857 until the time of his death on July 24, 1900 at Afton, Wyoming. I asked the board for the privilege of gathering the material for this additional information and preparing the diary for publication. This has been a most gratifying experience. I have come to know and to love this great and wonderful ancestor. May you who read this diary find the same sweet experience in knowing your ancestors better; and may you determine to maintain your personal histories for the benefit of generations yet to come. Our sincere gratitude and appreciation to Eva Covey Madsen, for writing most of the additional history presented. Her brief overview history of Phineas' life is presented as an introduction, to give you the desire to read more of his life. This was prepared by Eva in 1965 and submitted to the Pasadena Camp of the Los Angeles Center Company of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. Our thanks is also expressed to the family of Carl Cook for using excerpts from his diary. Newel Cook McMillan — Compiler 2 HISTORY OF PHINEAS WOLCOTT COOK BORN 28 August 1819 at Goshen, Litchfield County, Connecticut DIED 24 July 1900 at Afton, Lincoln County Wyoming ARRIVED IN UTAH (Late September or early part of October) Fall of 1848 with the second Brigham Young Company MARRIED (1) ANN ELIZA HOWLAND 1 January 1840 in Gull Prarie, Michigan (2) AMANDA SAVAGE 18 December 1853 in Salt Lake City, Utah (3) CATHERINE McCLEAVE 18 December 1853 in Salt Lake City, Utah (4) JOHANNA CHRISTINA POULSON 13 September 1878 in Salt Lake City, Utah HISTORY WRITTEN BY Eva Covey Madsen, a granddaughter Written during the spring of 1965 HISTORY SUBMITTED BY Eva Covey Madsen 21 June 1965 Many of the facts in this history are taken from the original Journal written by PHINEAS WOLCOTT COOK. Other facts are taken from recollections of JOHANNA POULSON COOK in her life-time, repeated to EVA COVEY MADSEN. HISTORY SUBMITTED IN PASADENA CAMP OF THE LOS ANGELES CENTER COMPANY 3 OVERVIEW HISTORY OF PHINEAS WOLCOTT COOK Back to Table of Contents By Eva Covey Madsen Phineas Wolcott Cook, my maternal grandfather, was born August 28, 1819 in Goshen, Litchfield County, Conn., the son of Phineas Cook and Irene Churchill. Be was the sixth of seven children. He was born on the same farm where his father was born on November 12, 1786 and where his parents still made their home. His grandfather, Daniel Cook, had bought this property after the Revolutionary War. Grandfather's mother, Irene Churchill, was born February 14, 1786 at Woodbury, Litchfield County, Conn., the daughter of Jonathan Churchill and Sarah Burgess. The seven children of Phineas Cook and Irene Churchill follow in order of their births: Betsey, Daniel, Eliza, Darius Burgess, Mary Ann, Phineas Wolcott and Harriet Elizabeth. Phineas Wolcott Cook was a Connecticut Yankee in the truest sense. His ancestors for six generations were born in New England. The earliest of whom I have record, was Henry Cook born in the early 1600's in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Phineas Wolcott's grandfather, Daniel Cook, enlisted with the Revolutionary forces at sixteen years of age and fought until the war was over, approximately seven years. After he returned from the war he was never well and he died at the early age of forty-nine years. His widow, Elizabeth Porter Cook later married a man named Peters and moved to Bloomfield, New York where she died in 1834. Grandfather's education was very limited. When he was ten years old he did half a man's work in spring and summer and in fall and winter, when it wasn't too cold and snowy, he went to school. Many times it snowed two to three feet in one night and when this happened, there was no school. The families spent the day digging out. Grandfather continued in school only through the fourth grade. Few children in the area went further. However, he didn't stop learning, he continued to be self-taught. In a practical way, he learned many things from his father for he was taught to work. He learned how to farm the land, how to take care of animals, to get out timber from the woods, to build houses and how to build gristmills, carding mills and sawmills. He also learned a great deal about the machinery used in these mills; how to install it and use it. When he was fifteen, he lived with August Mory for a year where he learned the carpenter's trade. In 1837 his family moved to Gull Prarie, Richland Township, Michigan which was ten miles north of Kalamazoo. Here his family made their new home. Grandfather worked part of the time for his father on the farm and part of the time he hired out to work at Gull Mills making furniture and learning cabinetmaking. He worked at fanning for a man by the name of Henry Howland, for three months; and while he worked there he became engaged to Mr. Howland's daughter, Ann Eliza. After a two year engagement, they were married on January 1, 1840. 4 Phineas Wolcott and Ann Eliza became the parents of a very large family, sixteen children in all, eight of whom died in infancy or while still young children. There were seven boys and nine girls, three of the children were born in Michigan, two were born at Winter Quarters and eleven were born after they came West with the Pioneers in Utah and Idaho. Grandfather was always a student of the Bible and very much interested in religion. He had the reputation, among his friends, that he could argue anyone down when it came to a discussion on the Bible. While he was still a young man he had a very severe case of augue and very nearly died. He had, what he believed to be, a miraculous healing and at that time promised that he would serve God, if he could determine which was the right church. He had attended the Methodist Church hoping it was the right one, but he never felt "converted" even though he occupied the "anxious seat" more than once. Early in 1844 he heard that his older sister, Eliza, had joined the Mormons. His attitude toward the Mormons at this point was surely not favorable because he said she must have gone crazy. In December of 1844 the family was invited to a Mormon meeting at the school house nearby, but grandfather refused to go because he was tired of sectarianism. When his mother and father and Ann Eliza came home from the meeting they were very favorably impressed and. tried so hard to persuade him to go to the meeting set for the next week, that in exasperation, he finally agreed to go for argument's sake. At the meeting he had a writing book, pencil and candle, so he could see to write, sat where he could "see the preacher fair in the face" determined to "put down eror". After speaking two and a half hours, the missionary, David Savage, gave his listeners opportunity to speak and everyone looked to grandfather, but he had nothing to say. He was satisfied for he knew what he said was true. However, he had not yet heard enough to be convinced that Joseph Smith was a prophet. He attended the next meeting, as before, with book, pencil and candle, but about half way through he dropped his pencil and sat in wrapped attention and from that time on never doubted the truth of the Prophet's mission. His sister, Eliza, gratefully heard of his interest in Mormonism and sent him all the books and papers she had, and he began to read so steadily, at every free moment, that his parents became antagonistic and he finally could not read in their presence. After that he would wait for his parents to go to sleep and then he would light the candle in his bedroom and read from midnight to three o'clock in the morning.

Load more

  120

Copy Link