Youngest Son Cook
The great-grandson of Alexander Cossitt of
Granby, Connecticut, was discovered in the Military Death and Burial
Records at the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia on 25
July, 2011.
Theodore S. Cook enlisted in the Union Army
during the last year of the Civil War in his home town of Niles, Cayuga
County, New York.
Niles was the main recruiting station for
soldiers in this area in 1864. His son, George, had enlisted in nearby
Auburn, Cayuga County, New York in 1862. Both father and son were in Battery K and
participated in General Grant’s Petersburg-Appomattox Campaign in
November of 1864.
According to his Military Record, Private
Theodore S. Cook of the 3rd
Artillery was 41 years old, born in Windsor, Ohio, a carpenter, had
black eyes and hair, a dark complexion and was 5 feet 5 and one-half
inches tall.
Theodore S. Cook never returned home to Niles.
He died of disease, as so many soldiers did, on
May 29, 1865, in Portsmouth, Virginia.
George Cook returned home in June to tell his
mother, Nancy Reynolds Cook, the sad news.
To my knowledge, no one in my family ever knew of the parents of Theodore S. Cook. All we knew was that Theodore, and his daughter, Emeline Cook, were born in Ohio. My mother always referred to Emeline as “Grandma Cook”, even though her married name was Emeline McLaughlin. The 1865 newspaper article of the death of Theodore S. Cook was kept in our family Bible.
The Alderman Library has a full-time
genealogist on staff.
When asked if the library had records of Civil
War burial sites, she took me to a computer and showed me this site:
Ancestry. Com-New York, Town Clerk’s Registers
of Men Who Served in the Civil war, ca 1861-1865-Theodore S Cook.
To my astonishment, it listed Theodore's parents--
Benjamin Cook and Lydia Godard.
In August, I went to the State Library in
Hartford, Connecticut.
In searching the Connecticut Church Records, I
found the Granby First Congregational Church Record listing the marriage
of Lydia Godard to Benjamin Cook Jr. on 7 March 1803, along with the
death of Alexander Cossitt 25 April 1820.
Lydia Godard was the daughter of Lydia Cossitt,
who married John Godard, and the granddaughter of Alexander Cossitt and
Mindwell Wilcox.
The Cook’s, along with the Holcombs and
Alderman’s, removed to Windsor, Ashtabula County, Ohio, shortly after
their marriage.
Connecticut still laid claim to this territory
from pre-Revolutionary War days and the majority of early settlers in
this northeastern county were from Connecticut.
In checking the 1830 Census of Windsor,
Ashtabula, Ohio, I found listed “B Cook” and “B Cook Jr” with 3 children
under 20. One child was the “Youngest Son Cook,” now known to us as
Theodore S. Cook, who was born in 1824 in Windsor, Ohio.
Theodore S. Cook was the great-grandson of
Alexander Cossitt, the son of Rene Cossitt and Ruth Elizabeth Porter.
The mystery of the “Youngest Son Cook” was now
solved.
Thanks to David Wade Morton of Manlius, Onondaga County, New York, 7th
Great-Grandson of Rene Cossitt for submitting this story.
