The Cook Family and Thornbrook Hall
by Mary Adaline Cook
Norwich Sun, Norwich, NY, March 10, 1949
Muller Hill Castle near Georgetown [Madison Co. NY] and Thornbrook Hall at South Plymouth [Chenango Co. NY], both rich in historical lore, are names well known to residents of this city [Norwich] and county [Chenango Co. NY]. In a paper prepared by Mary Adaline Cook of Thornbrook Hall and delivered before a meeting of the Chenango County Historical Society in her home, she quotes her brother, the late George Cook, as telling her that the man who called himself Muller often visited at Thornbrook Hall. He quoted their great-grandfather as saying he knew he was Charles the X, King of France.
The paper given by Miss Cook is of wide interest. It is of the history of Thornbrook Hall and of the antecedents and descendants of David and Alice Cook who built and occupied the original house, "parts of which ingrafted into the present residence. The data given here," writes Miss Cook, "I have gotten by word of mouth from members of the Cook family, from the Wells family antiquity, in which was the genealogy of the Cook family in this country down to the marriage of David and Alice Cook; Also, the Bradford genealogy. Both of these books I found in the Boston Public Library, also in Burke's Peerage, the Cook family were noted." Miss Cook writes as follows:
Right after the War of the Revolution, David and Alice Cook, my great-grandfather and great-grandmother, came to this locality from Washington county, where they first intended to locate. They moved to Washington county from Rhode Island, either Tiverton or Newport, or in that locality. My grandfather, Abial Cook, was born in Washington county, I see by his obituary printed in the Chenango Union of May 12, 1869. At one time my Aunt, Maria Cook, my father Walter Cook's oldest sister, gave me the names of all the brothers and sisters of my grandfather, Abial Cook. This record was lost when my large bungalow burned in Southern Pines, N.C., December 1, 1941. All my genealogical papers were destroyed at that time.
First, I will speak of some of the antecedents of David and Alice Cook. The first of the family of which I have any records was Edward Coke (pronounced Cooke) the great lawgiver of England. In the time of his grandson, I think it was, the second "o" was inserted into the name, which was pronounced Cook and spelled C-o-o-k-e. This grandson of Edward Coke, as I remember, was the first of the family to have the title of Earl of Leicester. When the male members of the Cook family left England, and later when they threw in their fortunes with the Revolutionary forces, the title went back to the English crown. Later Queen Victoria conferred it on Thomas William Cooke of Holcomb Hall, who was a descendant of the Cookes through the female line, he being the son of Anne Cook Roberts. A book given my brother, George, by an English lady, when we lived in Palermo, Sicily, entitled "Thomas William Cook of Holcomb Hall", give a most fascinating account of the life of Thomas William Cooke, his magnificent home, Holcomb Hall on the North Sea, and it especially speaks of one granddaughter, the most beautiful of the grandchildren and the most loved by her grandfather. She was brought up in a very simple manner in the country, as the children of the English nobility are, knowing nothing of the world. At the age of fifteen her mother took her to London, introduced her in society, and married her, against the remonstrance of her grandfather, to the Lord Ellenborough, a man twice her age, and of a very dissolute character. She was thrown into the company of a very gay and fast set of people. Among those who frequented her husband's home was a young man, an attaché of one of the continental embassies. He and the Lady Ellenborough fell in love with each other and eloped to the continent. Her lover deserted her. She was left alone, young and beautiful, and evidently with plenty of money. She had many adventures and was much sought after. Louis, the mad king of Bavaria, was deeply enamored of her and had her portrait painted and caused it to be hung in the Munich gallery. At the age of 50, still looking very young and very beautiful, she, with a party of English friends, was crossing the desert. They were overtaken by a band of Arabs whose leader was a young Arab sheik of 25 years. He and the Lady Ellenborough fell desperately in love with each other and were determined to marry. Her English relatives objected so strongly to the marriage that they threatened to incarcerate her if she persisted in her idea of marriage. So, it was finally agreed she and her Arab sheik would wait a year. In that time she learned the Arabic language and at the expiration of the year, the couple were married by the Moslem authorities, with the marriage agreement that they were to live six months in Damascus, she living the life of a cultured English lady with her books, her music and her paintings about her, and six months of the year were to be passed in the desert, she living the life of an Arab woman, washing her husband's feet and performing different menial duties. It was said she lived to the age of 70, still very beautiful and very young looking, adored by her Arab husband, who at her death was inconsolable. On her tomb was written "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone." I think the moving picture "The Sheik" must have been patterned after the true story of the Arab Sheik and the Lady Ellenborough.
Before I leave the story of this branch of the Cooke family in England, the book aforementioned recounts how one time when there was a famine in England, Thomas William Cooke fed all England off his wheat fields. Thomas William Cooke was a distinguished statesman, a particular friend of Pitt and Fox and much in sympathy with the colonies. He told King George he would lose his colonies if he continued in his asinine policy.
Now to come to the genealogical records of the Cook family in this country. The first of the family was Captain Thomas Cooke, who came over some time before the Revolution in the very early days. The Cookes came from Earls Colin in England, according to Wells and Burke's Peerage. David and Alice Cook aforementioned, were distantly related, both descendants of Captain Thomas Cook. Cook's father and mother were Abial Cooke and Mary Bradford, she being a daughter or granddaughter of Governor Bradford of Rhode Island, who was a grandson of Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony. My Aunt Maria said that when David and Alice Cook moved to Washington county, they had much of the Bradford china with them, which was broken in transit. They must have kept some of the furniture, as the bed in my room belonged to Governor William Bradford of Plymouth, Mass. This my aunts gave to my brother George when my aunts wished to dispose of the old furniture and get newer style at that time.
When David Cook came to this locality, he engaged to buy three farms, I have been told, this creek farm, another the Brooks farm up above Clark Doing's, and still another perhaps the Hill farm or the Aster lot as they were called. I am not certain about these farms, I know in my grandfather, Abial Cook's time, the family owned about 500 acres of farmland as well as the Norwich property. This we had until after my father, Walter Cook's death. David Cook, before he came to these parts, had loaned the Revolutionary government, the bulk of his fortune, about $100,000, and took as security Continental paper money which the government later repudiated. This money was kept in the Abial Cook house on East Main Street, Norwich. At one time, when my father was going to Washington, D.C., he looked for the money, thinking he might get the U.S. Government to make some adjustment, and upon inquiry found my Aunt Jane had burned it up. She said she didn't want the old stuff around.
David Cook sent my grandfather, Abial Cook, back to Rhode Island to get the gold to pay for the farms he had bought. Abial went on horseback, by marked trees, and it was found when he returned with the money, an Aldrich had slipped in and gotten one of the farms, so the name of Aldrich was not liked by the family. One time I said to Florence Aldrich, "Did you know we are enemies?' She didn't. Then I told her the story.
There were quite a number of the family who lived on the farm here in my great-grandfather's time. I have heard my Aunt Maria speak of Aunt Polly, whose home was on the flat on the lefthand side of the state road going toward Norwich, after you cross the South Plymouth bridge. Then there was Aunt Alice Benson, and I don't know what others. There was a brother, Calib Cook who I heard my Aunt Maria mention. He might have been the father of John P. Cook, who I think I have been told, was born in this house. This cousin, John P. Cook, and my father always kept up a correspondence. At one time I remember they exchanged photographs of their children. John P. Cook, my father said, went to Michigan when a young man, with a set of carpenter's tools. I have been told he laid out the village of Hillsdale, started the bank and was a founder of Hillsdale college. He also laid out other nearby villages, started banks, etc. A cousin told me he made two fortunes, the second of which the family inherited. William Cook, one of his sons, went to New York city, married a Miss Ida Olmstead, practiced law, became a distinguished corporation lawyer and wrote a book on Corporation law, a textbook for lawyers. His first gift to Michigan University was $250,000 for a girls' dormitory, in memory of his mother, Martha Cook. Afterward, while living, he gave a million dollars to the university and in his will left his fortune of twenty million to the university. Ability for the law was very great in him, as it was in Edward Coke, his ancestor. The profession of the law and the love of the land seem to have come down the generations of the Cooks and the Bradfords. My grandfather, Abial Cook, was a distinguished criminal lawyer. To quote from his obituary, "A desire to secure for himself a proper education, induced him to seek at Clinton the facilities his own neighborhood was not prepared to furnish. I have always understood he was educated at Union College, Schenectady. In the case of Guy C. Clark, who was tried for murder at Ithaca in 1932, I quote, "In this case his eloquent appeal to the jury was said to have excelled anything of its kind ever before heard in this section of the state." His love for the beauties of nature and natural objects was remarkable and, in his speeches, he was able from this source to draw illustrations with telling effect.
My father, Walter Abial Cook, studied law and was admitted to the bar when he was 16. He, like his father, was a great lover of nature and I once heard him say "Who can doubt the existence of a God when they see all nature about them." My brother, George, who afterward became an artist and whose paintings fill this house, had marked oratorical ability. My father was very anxious he should become a lawyer, as he said George could sway any jury with his voice. However, my brother, George said he did not want to settle other people's squabbles. It was all he could do to settle his own. To illustrate his remarkable memory - as a child of two and a half, he recited Marco Boyaris from beginning to end before visitors. Many things my brother George has told me about this place. He said there was a moat around the original house and Indian arrowheads were found in the grounds. He also said our grandfather or great-grandfather knew the man who called himself Mueller, of whom the book "Muller Hill" by Harriet McDougal Daniels was written, and he knew he was Charles X of France, who often came to this house. when the Cook family left this family home, I don't know, but our grandfather, Abial Cook, established himself in Norwich, where he practiced his profession of the law.
My earliest memory, farm tenants were living on this place. I heard my Aunt Maria speak of the Giles who lived here in my grandfather's time - "very nice people." This Mr. Giles' grandson, Rufus Giles, with his wife, were tenants in my time and Mr. Giles now comes and helps me with repairs, etc. on the buildings whenever he can do so.
After my father's death, my brother George proposed the family move "up to the farm" as we called it and restore the place to something of its original idea. As we were going away winters and were through with the public schools, he saw no object in our further living in Norwich. At that time the tenant occupied a part of this house, the east side, the old part. My father always came up frequently to see to the farms and sometimes to run them if we had no tenant. When my brother Walter, was a young man he wanted to buy some land to put up a sawmill just below the Stewart store and mill. The land belonged to Giles Sexton, an uncle of Leon Stewart. Walter and Mr. Sexton had many meetings to talk about the subject. Finally, Mr. Sexton said, "Walter, I think you are a nice young man and I might like to sell you the land, but probably you will marry and have a batch of young ones and they'll be trampling down my grass and your wife's hoop skirts will be trailing all over my meadows." However, Mr. Sexton must have decided to take the chance for he sold Walter the land.
At one time George and our friend Mrs. (Dr.) Mosher came up here to get something out of the house. They stopped to eat midday meal which the tenant's wife served them. As they were seated at the table, the woman said to Mrs. Mosher: "I hear you're a doctor's wife." "Yes," said Mrs. Mosher. The woman said, "Do you know anything about tape worms?" Mrs. Mosher, "I don't know as I do." The woman disappeared from the room and came back bringing a glass jar which she planted on the table, saying "That's mine." Before this she was consulting all the men about what to do for the tape worm. and thereon Holmes, who was quite a sport, suggested she send a ferret after it, which perhaps she did before it was shown in the glass can.
To tell a little more of this house and its development into the place it now is, some of the west portion was built on, then, George said, parts that had been taken off the original house and used for farm purposes he added on into parts he was building. A barn across the road was demolished, the present tenant house and the cow and horse barns were built, with work always going on to the farm and the buildings and many other things to do.
George worked at his painting. He began by painting on velvet, went to New Hampshire where he had classes and in Boston, and earned considerable money. In Norwich he had taken some few lessons of Mrs. Theodore Hill, who he considered had a deep feeling for art. He visited the great artists in Norwich, Mr. and Miss Wagner and was thrilled and inspired by their companionship and work. In Boston. He studied with Morgan Reiss, considered the best flower painter of his time there. Also, with John J., Emmeking, landscape painter. Then George decided he would go to Europe and in order to accomplish his purpose, he persuaded Dr. Mosher to tell father an ocean trip was the only thing that would restore his health. So, father raised some money to help him, which, added to what George had earned, financed his trip. Father said he should not go without introductions, so he procured a letter from President Cleveland to the then American Ambassador. I think it was Bayard Taylor, who presented George at the Court of St. James, and invited him frequently to the Embassy. At that time in London George studied with the English artist Arthur Pope, instructor in South Kensington and the British Museum and considered by the Royal Academicians the most promising young artist of his time. After this, George studied at Julian's Studio in Paris, with Harry Russ in London and other artists on the continent. He exhibited in this country in the Ehrich Galleries, 5th Ave., New York, the New York Academy, Boston Art Club, Saint Botolple Club and other exhibitions. He also exhibited in the Paris Salon and the World Exhibition in Milan, Italy. He sold his pictures not only in this country, but in the European countries. He told me his best markets were England and Germany. After his death in Southern Pines, July 4, 1930, in the summer I was around the back of the house here, near the court and I thought I heard someone on the front tea porch. I went around to the tea porch and there I saw a man and a woman trying to peer in at the windows. They started when they saw me, and the man took out of his pocket quite a lengthy newspaper article of a Syracuse paper describing this place. Giving the locality saying it was going to decay, was haunted and the artist who owned and occupied it had disappeared and no one ever knew what became of him.
In the last few years, I have brought up two colored boys from North Carolina to work for me. The first, 15 or 16 years old, turned out to be a criminal. The second said the "haints" bothered him, they drummed in his head, pulled his toes and pulled the bed clothes off from him, and a big colored woman appeared to him, and she said this was no place for him. He also said he smelled burnt rubber, which was a very bad sign. So, I said, "Willie, if you smell burnt rubber again, call across the court to me and my guest and I will get up and come around to your room and see if we smell burnt rubber." Sure enough, he called about 1 or 2 a.m. My friend and I got up, put on our dressing gowns and went around to where Willie was. I declare if we didn't smell burnt rubber.
I won't take time now to finish all the story about Willie but will recount what I consider a very amusing incident. George was painting the portrait of Mrs. Egmont Brower of Utica. His studio then was over the old library on the west side of the house. It had a fireplace in it in which there was or had been a fire. Mrs. Brower was sitting on the model stand near the fire. She suddenly said: "George, I smell smoke." "Don't move, May, don't move. You are just in the pose I want you," said George. "But George, I smell smoke. Flames are coming up around the hearth," and May called her husband, Egmont and together with George, chopping with an axe and pouring on water, they put out the fire.
One more word. There have been many distinguished and interesting people who from time to time have been house guests here. Among them Mrs. Frank Leslie, Don Giovannie del Drago and wife and Don Francesco del Drago of Rome, Italy; the world-renowned dancer "La Loie" as the French affectionately called Loie Fuller.
We have been frightened by the project of a dam which would destroy all this locality from down below the cemetery up to half way to Plymouth, the residents losing their homes, which are very dear to many of them and for which they have worked hard and sacrificed much; the village of South Plymouth with the two Stewart homes and their mill and store, their living, this historic place with all its association - for what purpose to build a dam which like the Smithville dam would be liable to break and in consequence all the west side of Norwich would be flooded. It seems to me God's method of flood control was as good as man's, and He did it with trees to hold back the snows."
