San Francisco County

Biographies

EDWARD PICKETT VANDERCOOK

EDWARD PICKETT VANDERCOO, a real-estate agent of Oakland, was born in San Francisco, January 31, 1864, a son of Frederick Augustus and Emily M. (Oatman) Vandercook. The paternal ancestry dates back to the settlement of Netherland by the Dutch, though the record of the first two generations is not accessible. This branch of the family has descended from Michael, born in New Jersey, November 10, 1715. He was married in 1842, to Cornelia Van Ness, born in 1721, a descendant of Aneke Jans, whose estate included the site of Trinity Church, New York. In May, 1763, Michael Vandercook settled with his family on what became known, from the abbreviated form of his name, as Cook’s Patent, in Rensselaer county, New York, where he afterward laid out the village of Cooksborough, and where he died in 1786. Of his five sons and three daughters, Simon, born August 17, 1748, and married about 1773, to Livinia Van der Hoff, born May 5, 1754, was a soldier of the Revolution. There was a tendency in his day to drop the initial syllables of his family name, and he is on record as Simon V. D. Cook. Michael S., born April 8, 1774, the oldest of his six sons and three daughters, was three times married: August 27, 1792, to Mehitabel Haskins, who died after having borne him two sons and two daughters; December 14, 1806, to Sally Eddy, who died in 1823, the mother of five sons and one daughter; and in 1825 to Mrs. Betsey (Roberts) Pickett, born September 4, 1784, who bore him two sons,—Roberts and Frederick Augustus. Michael S., a Major in the war of 1812, died at Raymertown, Rensselaer county, New York, February 17, 1852; his widow died in Bennington, Vermont, October 28, 1865. Sally, his youngest child by his first wife, born July 24, 1803, by marriage Mrs. Twogood of Rockford, Illinois, is still living. Charles R., her half-brother, born in 1819, is living in Austin, near Chicago; Prudence, his full sister, born April 20, 1821, is living in Wisconsin. One of her brothers died a few years ago, in Troy, New York, at the age of ninety-six years. Robert Vandercook, born in Rensselaer county, New York, September 5, 1825, arrived in San Francisco January 11, 1850, whither he returned two or three times during eleven years of varied experience on this coast,—mining, prospecting, keeping miners’ store at Long Bar, Yuba county, and at times working at his trade at carpentering. Since 1861 he has been a prominent resident of that city, engaged chiefly at his trade during his more active years.

Frederick Augustus, the father of our subject, and the brother Roberts was born at or near Cooksborough, Rensselaer county, New York, September 28, 1829, moved to Wisconsin in young manhood, and came to California about 1852. Here he joined his brother Roberts, at Long Bar, Yuba county, in mining, and conducted a general store, continuing in that line until January, 1861. He had meanwhile made a trip to the East, and was married to Emily M. Oatman, of a Rochester (N. Y.) family of that name. Her mother, by birth Lucy A. Williams, and a descendant of Roger Williams, living to the age of seventy years. Mr. Vandercook moved in 1861 to San Francisco, where he engaged in real estate until his death, March 29, 1871. Mrs. Vandercook moved to Illinois in 1875, settling in Evanston, near Chicago, mainly for the better education of her children,—Robert Oatman and Edward Pickett Vandercook. The former is now publishing the Evanston Press, an influential and successful local journal of that city.

E P Vandercook, the subject of this sketch, entered the Northwestern University at Evanston, and afterward spent some time in Amherst (Massachusetts) College. In 1883 he returned to California, the land of his birth, and after a few years spent in various subordinate positions he engaged in the real-estate business, in 1886, under the style of Jackson & Vandercook, and since the withdrawal of Mr. Jackson in 1889, as E. P. Vandercook & Co., but without a partner to date of writing.

He is a member of the college fraternity of Beta Theta Pi; of the Athenian Club; of Oakland Parlor, No. 50, N. S. G. W., and of Brooklyn Lodge, No. 225, F. & A. M.

Transcribed by Donna L. Becker

Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, pages 179-180 Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.

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