Thankful Cooke, Pioneer Resident

Thankful Parker Cooke (sometimes listed as Cook) was born in 1792 to Asaph Cook and his wife Thankful Parker, who were residents of Wallingford, New Haven County, in Connecticut. Asaph Cook served in the Revolutionary War. (The first name “Thankful” is an example of the early American practice of naming daughters with reference to terms of comfort and consolation, while males were often named after men from the Bible.) In 1818, the Asaph Cook family moved to an area known as “Four Corners” in Huron County, Ohio, close to what is now the intersection of Route 99 and Route 113, in North Monroeville. Today, this area is at the boundary between Erie and Huron Counties.

Thankful P. Cooke died in 1858 at the age of 66, and she was buried in the family lot in North Monroeville Cemetery. Her sister Sarah was the first wife of Moors Farwell, the first Mayor of Sandusky. Her brother, Eleutheros Cooke, was Sandusky’s first lawyer. Her nephew Jay Cooke was a major financier of the Civil War.

You can read genealogical details about the Cook/Cooke family in the book The History of Wallingford, Connecticut, written by Charles Stanley Henry Davis in 1870. A portion of page 684 can be viewed below.

To learn more about the early residents of Erie and Huron Counties, visit the Sandusky Library, where several local history books are housed.

New England Influence on the Firelands

The area of land in Ohio known as the Firelands is the far western portion of the Connecticut Western Reserve. The Western Reserve was over three million acres of land in northeastern Ohio which was given to Connecticut residents whose lands were burned by the British during the American Revolution. Because so many of the early settlers to the Firelands were originally from New England, the architecture and mindset of those early residents reflected the architecture and attitudes of New England. The Ohio educator and historian B.A. Hinsdale said about the Western Reserve, “No other five thousand square miles of territory in the United States, lying in a body outside of New England, ever had, to begin with, so pure a New England population.”  Several Huron County townships and towns have names that were duplicates of places in Connecticut, including Norwalk, Fairfield, New London, and Litchfield. When Oran Follett had his lovely home built in the 1830s, it was constructed in the Greek Revival style which was popular in New England.

The layout of the town of Milan reflects the style of the typical New England town square.

Many of the early settlers to the Firelands brought with them the antislavery sentiment that was common in New England. Dozens of fugitive slaves were aided in their journey to freedom by citizens of Huron and Erie County. This monument in downtown Sandusky honors those who assisted fleeing slaves on their way to Canada.

Yankee ingenuity and thriftiness is shown by the fact that so many early homes in Sandusky were built from native limestone, such as the former home of William Townsend.

Ellie Damm wrote in Treasure by the Bay that the stone for many of the early homes had been quarried near the building site.  

Visit the Sandusky Library to read more about the history of the Firelands. The Firelands Pioneer is a multi-volume set of periodicals featuring articles about the earliest settlers to Huron and Erie Counties.

1818 Letter from Dr. Christopher C. Yates to Jabez Wright

On April 30, 1818, Dr. Christopher C. Yates, an Albany physician, sent a letter to Jabez Wright in Huron Township, which was part of Huron County at that time. (Erie County was formed in 1838.)
In his letter, Dr. Yates discussed Jabez Wright’s health issues, which involved nervous irritability. Jabez Wright seemed to think his medical problems stemmed from a lingering virus, but Dr. Yates did not agree. He urged Jabez not to use patent medicine, stating that once patent medicine is begun “you will never abandon again, it will be as necessary to you as rum to the toper, or tobacco to the sailor.” The letter concludes with Dr. Yates advising Jabez Wright to take his old advice, presumably from a previous visit to the doctor, and not to seek further treatment.

Dr. Christopher C. Yates was a prominent doctor in Albany, New York, the son of Christopher J. Yates and Catharina Lansing. In 1818, he co-authored an essay on bilious epidemic fever. He was married to Emma Willard in 1838, but they divorced in 1843. Dr. Yates eventually moved to Canada, and he died in Nova Scotia in 1848.

Jabez Wright was an early surveyor of the Firelands. He was a justice of the peace in Huron Township, and was also an associate judge, holding court in Huron County as early as 1815. In an address to the Firelands Historical Society on February 22, 1888, Rush Sloane stated that Jabez Wright was one of the first men in the State of Ohio to aid fugitive slaves. The Ohio Historical Society placed a historical marker noting Judge Wright’s home as a station on the Underground Railroad.

You can see several items which once belonged to the Wright family at the Follett House Museum, including an 1825 tea canister and a side saddle used by Mrs. Jabez Wright.