Butte County
Biographies
ISIAH H. COOK
I. H. COOK.--A man of enterprise and public spirit, who has done much to make his home town well and favorably known, is I. H. Cook, who was born in Oregon, Ogie County, Ill., June 21, 1865. His father, Horace Cook, was born in Porter, Oxford County, Maine. His ancestors were among the founders of Porter village, the first inland city in Maine. Grandfather Cook was named Jonathan, and in the four generations preceding him a lineal representative was named Nathaniel, the fourth back being the original settler of Porter village, who with others obtained a grant of land from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and established the first inland settlement in Maine. It is a quaint village with its antiquated church furnishings, made by hand, and its other historical objects of interest. Members of the Cook family served in the Revolutionary War. Jonathan Cook was a New England farmer in Porter village.
Horace Cook, the father of I. H., was a shoemaker by trade; he came to Ogle County, Ill., where he engaged in farming at Oregon. In 1876 he removed to Avoca, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, and bought raw prairie land at five dollars an acre, which he broke and improved. However, in 1882, he sold and purchased six hundred forty acres of land at seven dollars fifty cents an acre, in Cherokee County, Iowa, which he also improved and brought to a high state of cultivation. Here he spent his last days, his demise occurring in 1910, at the age of seventy-eight years.
The mother of I. H. Cook was Phoebe Van Lone, born in Delaware County, Ohio, who came to Ogle County, Ill., with her parents. She died in 1909, seventy-six years of age. To this worthy couple were born seven children, five of whom are living, I. H. being the second oldest and the only one in California.
Until eleven years of age, the childhood of I. H. Cook was spent in Illinois, when his parents moved to Iowa. Completing the public schools when seventeen years of age, he entered Simpson Centenary College, at Indianola, Iowa, continuing his studies until his senior year, when on account of trouble with his eyes he was obliged to quit school. During these years he had taught school in the summer and fall of each year, and in that way worked his way in college. After leaving college he began commercial life, representing the Western Publishing House of Chicago. He traveled with their school supplies in Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and South Dakota. After three years he resigned to accept the position of manager of the jewelry store of A. R. Knight and Company, in Dubuque, continuing in that capacity for a period of four years. He then engaged in the mercantile business at Washta, Iowa, selling out in 1896 to locate in Salt Lake City, where he entered upon his career with the New York Life Insurance Company. Meeting with success, he was placed in charge of their Ogden office as general agent. For years he had the biggest record west of the Missouri.
In 1904 Mr. Cook made his first trip to California, and liking it, he located his family in Berkeley. He, however, continued in life insurance, doing business during these years in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. In 1908 he located his family in Goldfield, Nev., where he did a big business. He is still representing the company, but not giving it much of his time. Few men succeeded in making the record he did.
In 1911, Mr. Cook became interested in Paradise, Butte County, and came to see the country, and liked it so much that he immediately purchased land and began improving it and setting out trees. He also began dealing in lands and has bought and sold about four thousand acres in the district, and he has been the means of bringing over fifty families as permanent settlers into the district, thus improving thousands of acres. He owns about four hundred acres of land in different ranches; eighty acres of this is in orchard of cherries, pears, apples and walnuts.
Mr. Cook was the prime mover in securing the present adequate water supply and system for the district, having interested people to locate here who voted the necessary bonds to install the system. It is also to his credit to have interested I. E. Goodner to become a resident here, he being the engineer who installed the system and who is now engineer of the Miami conservation project at Dayton, Ohio. Mr. Cook is also engaged in the manufacture of lumber, and is operating a saw-mill, planing-mill and box factory, supplying lumber for the needs of the local trade.
Mr. and Mrs. Cook have built a large and comfortable residence on the townsite of Paradise, on the Neal road, where they make their home. Associated with his son, Jay H., they are interested in breeding large type Poland-China hogs, the finest stock in the county, and there are no finer blooded lines of hogs in the state.
The marriage of Mr. Cook occurred in Dubuque, Iowa, September 24, 1890, when he was united with Miss Sarah E. Bell, who was born in Carbondale, Pa., the daughter of M. Bell, a native of England, who came with his parents to Pennsylvania when he was seven years of age, being an only child. He was educated in private and public schools and entered the employ of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad, and became master mechanic, with his headquarters at Carbondale; he held this position for forty years. His wife, Julia A. Shelley, was a native of Wayne County, Pa., and both died in that state. Sarah E. Bell was educated in Carbondale, and as a young lady came to Iowa, where she met and married Mr. Cook. They have one child, Jay Horace Cook, a horticulturist and stockman of Paradise.
Mr. Cook is a member of Salt Lake City Lodge, No. 85, B. P. O. Elks. He was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity of Simpson College, and is also a member of the Two Hundred Thousand Dollar Club of the New York Life Insurance Company, and an ex-vice-president of same.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1080-1082, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Joyce Rugeroni.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County
Biographies