James Cook Ancestry

DRAFT

James Cook and his brothers
(5th greatgrandfather of GJF)

George J. Farris – February, 2025

This document is a draft that summarizes my current understanding of the life of James Cook who I believe was my 5th great – grandfather, father of John Cook (second husband of Lucy Hill) and grandfather of my known 3rd great grandfather Theophilus Cook. I continue to update this draft as I learn more about James and his brothers. I have attempted to track James and his brothers through a variety of records, principally land grant and deed records in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. There are gaps in the records and assumption regarding relationships based on the existing records that we have found. These relationships are probably correct but have not been formally proven. A recent contact and collaboration with Karen Griffin whose husband is a direct descendant of James Cook, Jr. has been very helpful and has resulted in discovery of addition informative records and has expanded our understanding of the Cook family.

James Cook was one of the three sons of Abraham Cook, Jr. who had land two grants on the north side of the Roanoke River and died in 1748 in Lunenburg County, Virginia. The three sons and three daughters of Abraham and Sarah Cook were born in Hanover County prior to their move in 1741 to a part of Brunswick County that became Lunenburg County in 1746. James was apparently not in good standing with his father at the time of his death and was left only one shilling in his father’s will. He vehemently contested the will when it was exhibited for proof and recording in the Lunenburg County Court in the July session, 1748. The court fined and temporarily placed him in custody of the sheriff for his outburst. Most of the property was left to the widow, Sarah, who was Executrix of the estate and to the other sons Benjamin and Charles.

In the 1749, 1750, and 1751 Lunenburg County tax lists James and Charles were not listed by name but were inluded as tithes under the name of Benjamin Cook. By 1752 they were no longer listed with Benjamin but were not listed by their own names either. By that time both were apparently married. James is listed in 1752 road orders by the County Court as surveyor for a road but apparently did not take that responsibility seriously and was replaced a few months later. Based on the fact that in a Georgia land grant in 1773 the oldest of the children of James (presumably his son Isaac) was 19, James must have been married before 1753. And since his son John Cook was old enough to have a land grant of his own in Georgia by 1778 James must have had at least two children before his marriage in June 1757 to Lucy Davis. The identity of his first wife is unknown and it is probable that she died quite young by 1757 in Lunenburg County, Virginia. In May or June, 1757, James married Lucy Davis a daughter of John and Esther Davis, very early settlers in the part of Brunswick County that became Lunenburg. James was the grandfather of Theophilus and Robert Cook but Lucy Davis was not their grandmother since the mother of Isaac and John Cook was the unidentified first wife of James. The Davises were neighbors of the Cooks . William Davis, oldest son of John and Esther, lived on land situated between the two parts of Abraham’s land that were on Butcher’s Creek and Sandy Creek and much of John Davis’s land adjoined them across the Roanoke River Lucy and James received a part of the John Davis estate on the south side of the Roanoke River in 1757 from the Davis estate and sold that 250 acre tract on December 5, 1760. In the meantime they had moved a few miles south in Granville County, North Carolina.

There are deeds in both Lunenburg County, Virginia and adjacent Granville County, North Carolina for all three of the sons of Abraham as well as for two of the sons-in-law. The deeds for James in Granville County involved his brothers and also his wife Lucy. James and Lucy bought land there in 1758 and lived on 150 acres on Island Creek in Granville County, a part of which they bought from Charles and Susannah Cook. On 5 December 1764 they sold that land and then left the area. Benjamin Cook also left the area after selling all of his land a few months later in April, 1765, but Charles Cook remained in Lunenburg and Charlotte Counties until about 1779 when he moved to Mecklenburg/Anson County, North Carolina.

James and Lucy moved to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina after leaving Granville County and there are several deeds for them from 1766 through 1772 on 12 Mile Creek in Mecklenburg County. For one of the surveys in 1769 Benjamin Cook was a chain bearer and he was also a witness for two deeds by James and Lucy that same year so he and Mary (Crenshaw) apparently also moved to Mecklenburg at about the same time as James and Lucy. There are no further records involving Benjamin in Mecklenburg County until he had land grants of his own entered in 1779. He apparently remained in Mecklenburg when James went to Georgia for about three years. James had a land grant in Wrightsborough Township, St. Paul’s Parish, Georgia in 1773. The details of the grant stated that he was from Mecklenburg County, North Carolina and had a wife, three sons, two daughters and a granddaughter ranging in age from 3 (the granddaughter) to 19 (Isaac). The sons were Isaac and John who married Lucy Hill successively and another son James, Jr. Isaac and John both remained in Georgia but James and Lucy and the rest of the family moved back to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina during the Revolutionary War where they owned 200 acres on Waxhaw Creek from 1776 through 1782.

While they were in Mecklenburg County James and Lucy’s daughter Lucy Cook married Edward Curry who later had a Revolutionary War pension claim documenting that James was his father-in-law. Edward and Lucy lived on Cane Creek adjacent to his father, John Curry, and about five miles from the James Cook residence according to statements in his pension claim. Edward and Lucy Curry later lived near Camden, South Carolina, and he shows up in one record in Winton/Barnwell County, South Carolina in 1788 and ultimately they ended up in Union County, Kentucky where Lucy Cook Curry died in 1831.

Benjamin Cook, oldest son of Abraham Cook and older brother of James and Charles.married Mary Crenshaw in Lunenburg County, VA and initially lived on the Abraham Cook land for a few years. But by 1761 they were living in Granville County, North Carolina as were the Charles Cook and James Cook families. Benjamin sold his land there in 1765 and was in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina before 1769. During the Revolutionary War when James and Lucy had moved back to Mecklenburg County from Georgia their son James Cook, Jr. was a chain bearer for one of the surveys for Benjamin Cook on 12 Mile Creek in 1782. Benjamin also had a survey on Cane Creek in 1783 and on that survey one of the chain bearers was Edward Curry. There was a younger Abraham Cook there also on 12 mile Creek who apparently was a son of Benjamin Cook and Mary. That Abraham Cook and James Cook, Jr. married sisters who were daughters of George Walker who also lived on Waxhaw Creek and later moved to Winton/Barnwell County, South Carolina. Both James, Jr. and Abraham appear in Winton County records in 1787 and 1788 and James, Jr.was listed adjacent to his father-in-law George Walker in the 1790 census when they were living near Blackwell, SC. James, Jr. and Abraham Cook later had land grants in Burke County, Georgia, and were there in the 1798 tax list. Abraham died there in 1802 according to a newspaper notice of his estate sale. Due to record losses for that county those are the only records for them in Burke County. James Cook, Jr. and his family later moved to Washington County, Georgia. By the time of the 1820 census his widow appeared to be listed living with their son, James Cook, III, who was born in SC about 1790. A Y-DNA test by a direct male line descendant of James, III proved that he was a descendant of Abraham Cook.

Benjamin Cook sold his land in Mecklenburg in 1784 at which time he was listed as a resident of “Craven County,” South Carolina. Some people still referred to the area of South Carolina directly south of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina as Craven County even though the county of that name no longer existed. South Carolina had not yet formed counties and the area was officially called Camden District.

James Cook, Sr. and Lucy sold land in Mecklenburg in 1782. Some of their neighbors on Waxhaw Creek, including George Walker, the father-in-law of James Cook, Jr. moved to Winton County, South Carolina (which later became Barnwell County) where there are records beginning with a SC land grant in 1785. Edward Curry, son-in-law of James and Lucy stated that he moved to near Camden, South Carolina in 1785. When James and Lucy sold their land and left Mecklenburg County they, along with Benjamin and Mary Cook, moved south into South Carolina. There were land grants for James Cook and Benjamin Cook on Bluff Head Branch in the Camden District of South Carolina on July 13, 1784. No other records of them seem to exist in South Carolina but the South Carolina county governments weren’t organized until a few years after that and many records were lost from those counties during the Civil War.

Benjamin and Mary Cook moved to Elbert County, Georgia sometime before 1793 when he received a Georgia land grant there. Benjamin died in Elbert County in 1805. Elbert County records are somewhat difficult to sort out because there was another Benjamin Cook there at the same time whose wife was Effie (Jones). The two Benjamin Cooks were cousins.

Sometime around 1800 James and Lucy Cook moved to Washington County, Georgia. There are some records and newspaper items regarding them in Washington County. A newspaper item in 1815 was an announcement by James that Lucy had “left his bed and board” and he would no longer be responsible for any debts that she incurred and she was no longer his wife. This was rather strange since he was about 85, Lucy was about 75, and they had been married for 58 years.

Another newspaper item in 1818 announced the appointment of a James Cook, Jr. and Henry Hurst as administrators of the estate of James Cook. Henry Hurst published a notice of the sale of the estate of James Cook to be held on March 9, 1819. It is not certain which of the James Cooks this referred to since both James Cook, Sr. and James Cook, Jr. died around that same time. Henry Hurst had been a neighbor of the Cooks in Mecklenburg, North Carolina, and of James, Jr. and Abraham Cook in Burke County, Georgia. Since most of the Washington County records for that time period were destroyed during the Civil War, the only pertinent records are the U.S. census for 1820 and the newspaper items. James Cook, III, grandson of James and Lucy, remained in Washington County for several years and the above references to James Cook, Jr. may have been to the grandson. One James Cook, presumably James Cook, III, appears in the 1820 census. There was an older female in his household who may have been Lucy or may have been Parshiana Walker Cook, the widow of James Cook, II.

James Cook, Sr. may have been the father of an illegitimate son born in the mid 1780s allegedly in what later became Chesterfield County, South Carolina, a few miles south of North Carolina, to a women named Sabrey (who later married Ambrose Boatwright). Presumably the actual given name of “Sabrey” was Sabra, a relatively common name in those days.

There are some interesting pieces of information that have been put together by people researching Boatwright families. Ambrose Boatwright was not part of the main Virginia and Carolina Boatwright families and his ancestry is unknown. He was in Lunenburg County, Virginia in 1764 when he was a witness to a will there. He was in Lancaster County, South Carolina in the 1790s and later showed up in Barnwell County, South Carolina with a wife named Sabrey. They had several children in the 1790s but Sabrey had three sons prior to her marriage to Ambrose. Sabrey had a son, John, born in what is now Chesterfield County, SC in 1786 which is just a few miles south of where the Cook families lived, and her son George, was born sometime in the mid 1780s in South Carolina, probably also in the same area. Ambrose may or may not have formally adopted Sabrey’s existing three sons – but they henceforth used Boatwright as their surname. Ambrose died in 1801 in Barnwell County, South Carolina and Sabrey was appointed administrator of his estate in May 1801. Later Sabrey and some of her children moved to Washington County, Georgia, where she was living next to the family of her son, George E. Boatwright in 1820. One of the Boatwright researchers found land records for George Boatwright indicating that he had one or more land transactions involving James Cook in Washington County. George E. Boatwright’s first deed in Washington County was in 1812. And in the 1820 census Sabrey (listed as Savrey) was listed adjacent to her son George but as Savrey Cook. They have concluded that she had married James Cook after he divorced Lucy in 1815. The other information is from Y-DNA tests of a person who was a descendant of George E. Boatwright. He did not match with other Boatwrights but matched with known descendants of Abraham Cook – including two matches with known descendants of Charles Cook, brother of James, at 37 markers and one at 67 markers plus two matches at 67 markers with known descendants of Benjamin Cook and an exact 67 marker match with a known descendant of James Cook. For his descendants to have a Y-DNA match with descendants of James, Charles and Benjamin Cook his biological father was most likely to have been James Cook considering the later interactions between James Cook and both George “Boatwright” and his mother “Sabrey.”

Charles Cook also moved to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina during part of the time that his brothers James and Benjamin were there, first entering land in Mecklenburg in 1779 on Little Richardson Creek about 10-12 miles east of the other Cook families. The wife of Charles Cook, son of Abraham, was Susannah Blackston, daughter of John and Sarah Blackston who had lived on Reedy Creek in Lunenburg County, Virginia for many years. John Blackston was listed as the Sexton of the Reedy Creek church over a long period in minutes of the Cumberland Vestry. In a February, 1764 deed in Lunenburg County, Virginia John Blackston gave 150 acres of his land to his daughter Susannah Cook, son-in-law Charles Cook and grandson John Cook, son of Charles and Susannah. John Cook was apparently a minor at that time so the deed was to Charles and Susannah with the condition that it would revert to John after their deaths. They lived on that property until September 1775 when the property was traded for 400 acres in adjacent Charlotte County. John Cook died quite young there in 1777. Charles sold 100 acres in two transactions in 1779. In 1782 he sold the other 300 acres and they had moved to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina by that time. The initial North Carolina land grant for Charles was on Little Richardson Creek in what was then Mecklenburg County, entered in 1779. Subsequent grants and land purchases by Charles Cook were on the east side of Richardson Creek in Anson County. Much later that area became Union County, North Carolina. Charles lived there the rest of his life and died in 1818.

The three Cook brothers, sons of Abraham, had all lived in Lunenburg Virginia for many years and had been together in Granville County, North Carolina for several years before going their separate ways in 1764/1765. But they were all three together again for a few years around 1780 in Mecklenburg, North Carolina during the last part of the Revolutionary War.