John Cooke

Birth Date: Monday, January 1, 1618

Birth Place: Surrey, England, United Kingdom

Bio: John Cooke was born in 1618 in England to Francis Cooke and Hester Mahieu. In 1620 John and his father Francis came over on the Mayflower to Plymouth. His father was a signer of the Mayflower Compact, which was the first governing document of the Plymouth Colony. Hester and their other children stayed behind in England and would later arrive on the Anne in 1623. John grew up in Plymouth and married Sarah Warren, a daughter of another Mayflower passenger, Richard Warren, from whom Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Alan B. Shepard, Jr. the first American in space and the fifth person to walk on the moon, all descend. Richard Warren also signed the Mayflower Compact. John became the deacon of the Plymouth Church but was soon kicked out of the church. The Plymouth Church records state, "This John Cooke although a shallow man became a cause of trouble and dissention in our Church and gave just occasion of their casting him out; so that Solomon's words proved true in him that one sinner destroyeth much good." John and Sarah went on to have children of their own. Record shows they had four children, one of which being Mary Cooke, who married Richard Stillwell who had a daughter, Mary Stillwell who married Thomas Walton, John Walton's father. John Cooke died in 1680 in New York.

Death Date: Monday, December 25, 1679

Death Place: Gravesend Long Island, Kings, New York

Parents: Unknown