John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 346

[There was no note yesterday due to the severe windstorms in the area.  Sunday night, many trees were blown down, taking out the electrical service including our well water.  It was an approximate hint of what life in the eighteenth century was like.]

The immigrant, Michael Cook, had two sons, Adam and George.  The children of George are fairly well known, though there is an element of uncertainty about a probable son who married Jemina Garr.  The remaining third generation Cooks in the Hebron Church Register are assigned to Adam though the process is not fool proof, as a woman with a Cook surname could have the name as a birth name or as a married name.  The other problem is sorting out the third generation, especially from the fourth generation.

Adam, of the second generation, did marry Barbara, daughter of Peter Fleshman, and granddaughter of the 1717 immigrant Cyriacus Fleshman, for on 13 Dec 1773, Adam Cook, Christopher Barler (Barlow), Christopher Ryner (Reiner), and John and Peter Fleshman signed an agreement regarding the valuation of the estate of Peter Fleshman, dec'd. (Culpeper D.B. D, p. 222).  In the baptisms of the Cook children, the names of Barlow, Reiner, and Fleshman occur very frequently, and they are probably cousins.  A tentative list of the children of Adam Cook and his wife, Barbara Fleshman, is:

  1. Frederick, married, ca 1778-1780, Eva.  Eva's maiden name is uncertain but two families stand out as candidates, Boehm and Smith.
  2. Peter, married Mary Carpenter, his first cousin, the daughter of Dorothy Cook and John Carpenter, Jr.
  3. John, married Mary Fleshman.
  4. Michael, married Catherine Wilhoit.
  5. Adam, Jr., married Elisabeth. Elisabeth's maiden name is uncertain.

(B.C. Holtzclaw confused Adam, Sr., with Adam, Jr., and derived a false conclusion.)

  1. Daniel, married Rosanna or Rosina Wilhoit.

All of the remaining children are less certain.

  1. Mary.
  2. Barbara.
  3. Margaret.

  1. Susan.
  2. Ephraim, married Jemina Fleshman.
  3. Ann, married Absalom Utz.
  4. Elizabeth, married Samuel Snyder, her first cousin, the son of Margaret Cook and Philip Snyder.

Whereas most of the children of George Cook, #2, appear as births in the Hebron Church Register, none of the children of Adam Cook, #3, appear in the birth register.  Many of the children of Adam are to be found in the Hebron Register as adults though.  The probable reason that the children of Adam do not appear in the birth register is that the register, as it was rewritten in 1776, has no families whose first child was born before 1750.  This is a slight bit of evidence that Adam may have been older than George, whose first child was born in 1751.

We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.