Alfred Charles Cook
ID # 1922, (1844-)
| Father | Charles Cook (1808-1853) |
| Mother | Elizabeth Ann Russell (1826-1920) |
| Birth | Alfred Charles Cook was born on 14 June 1844 at Lower Canada. |
| Baptism | He was baptized on 23 June 1844 at St. Luke's Anglican Church, Laprairie, Quebec. |
| Marriage | He married Elizabeth Emily Sheppard on 1 July 1865 at The Parish of Nayland, Suffolk. The following civil record of the marriage of Alfred Charles Cook and Elizabeth Emily Sheppard is provided by the General Register Office, England. It should be noted that the index provides the name of the district town as Sudbury. nbr. 202 1865 Marriage solemnized at the Parish Church in the Parish of Nayland in the County of Suffolk. Date of marriage July 1st. Alfred Charles Cook, 20, bachelor, Corporal, residence Colchester. Father Charles Cook, a Soldier. Elizabeth Emily Sheppard, 20, spinster, residence Nayland, father Richard Sheppard, a pensioner. Married in the Parish Church according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Established Church after Banns be me, J. T. Brown. Signed by A. C. Cook and Elizabeth Emily Sheppard in the presence of Richard Sheppard and Sarah Nevard (last name partly illegible.) |
| Death | He died at Ontario, Canada. |
| Burial | He was buried on 17 September 1867 at Drummond Hill Cemetery, Niagara Falls, Ontario. |
| Note | The 1949 Vrooman family book states that Elizabeth Ann had a son and a daughter. Elizabeth Cook appears in the 1851 census in England at Chesterton in Cambridgeshire. With her is son Alfred, age 7. Elizabeth's place of birth is given as Canada West and Alfred's as Canada East. Alfred's stated age agrees closely enough with the time that the 43rd Monmouthshire Regiment of Foot was stationed in Quebec, and his birth and baptism may be confirmed with the following information that is presented as indexed by Ancestry as it appears in the Drouin Collection: St. Luke's Anglican Church, Laprairie, Quebec Cook Baptized June 23, 1844 Alfred Charles Cook son of Charles Cook private 43rd Regt. and of Elizabeth Anne his wife was born on the fourteenth of June and baptized on the twenty third of June in the year eighteen hundred and forty four by me, J. Broome. Sponsors ...have something to do with 43rd Regt., but otherwise illegibile. Familysearch has done a rather better job of extracting information from the microfilm. The names of the sponsors are not completely legible, but one is J. Hanna, Sergt of the 43rd, another name illegible, and a Mary Briggs. Baptism information for this time frame includes children of other soldiers that are in 43rd Regiment. The book includes marriages and burials, for 1843 as well as 1844, and this has been indexed by the church officials of the day. A marriage does not appear here for Charles and Elizabeth Ann, and it may be that they were married in the Niagara District. We may also note here that during the time frame for Alfred's birth, 1844, there were baptisms for children of soldiers of the 43rd Regiment at the Garrison Church at Montreal. This appears in the Quebec non-Catholic Parish Registers. This is added evidence of the presence of the 43rd Regiment in the Montreal area during this time period. Again, this is in the Drouin Collection. La Prairie is across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal. At the time of the 1861 census for England, Alfred Cook, born Canada, is shown as a private at Colchester. His age as shown, 19, is some two years older than his real age. His regiment is not stated, but at the time of the birth of his son Alfred Richard in 1866, at Colchester, he is shown as a Corporal in the 54th Regiment. This appears to be the 54th West Norfolk Regiment. Alfred's marriage registration dated 1st July 1865 (see marriage notes) gives his age as 20, and will be close to accurate. Some aspects of what follows may be documented easily enough, though on one point, the trajectory of events is difficult to understand. To grasp the problem, we'll begin with Alfred's military record as provided by Findmypast, UK. This is a meager four page file, but does contain some interesting material. It relates to a proceeding of the 54th Regiment of Foot at Manchester to record the discharge of No. 571, Sergeant Alfred Chas. Cook. It's dated 8th March, 1867. After required deductions, Alfred's service amounts to four years and 226 days. During this time, he did not serve abroad. The reason for his discharge is that he was found unfit for further service. His conduct is stated to have been very good. He had one good conduct badge at the time he was promoted to sergeant and his name had never been entered in the defaulter's book, nor had he been tried by court martial. His service is shown as being entirely with the 54th. Unclear is why he is with the regiment from 26 July, 1858, to 31 Dec., 1861, where he is shown as an under age 'boy'. In 1858, he would have been 14. He was appointed drummer 1 Jany., 1862, and served as such until 29 March, 1864. He seems never to have been a private, for he is promoted to corporal 30 March, 1864, and retained that rank until 25 Sept., 1866, when he was promoted to sergeant. This ended with his service 8 March, 1867. (The 1861 census presents him as a 'private'. Actually, according to his army record, he was still an underage 'boy'. Drummers do appear in the 1861 record, but Alfred was not yet, at least officially, a drummer. We'll take the army's record as being correct.) It is in the medical report on the next page where the bad news is given. Alfred has 'phthisis'. This is a now little used word for tuberculosis and said to be in an advanced state. It is said not to have existed prior to his enlistment in the service. What follows is largely illegible, but the phrase 'invalid is incapable of contributing towards a livelihood' may be deciphered. The 4th and last page identifies Alfred as being born in Canada. It says that he attested (signed up) with the 54th Regiment at Chelsea in Middlesex County at the age of 14 on 26 July, 1858. It gives his present age as 22 and 7 months, height 5 ft, 8-1/2 inches, eyes hazel, hair brown, and trade none. His intended place of residence is Colchester in Essex. At this point, we may recall that he married Elizabeth Emily Sheppard on 1 July, 1865, at Nayland, Suffolk and that his son Alfred Richard Cook was born on 8 February, 1866, at The Camp, Colchester, Essex. Which brings us to his demise in Canada. The Niagara Peninsula Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society provides a transcription of Parish Register A, Burials, 1848-1873. This appears in their publication 'Burial Register, Extractions from Registers A and B, 1848 - 1902, All Saints Church, Niagara Falls, Ontario.' A few burials are listed that were seemingly done at a distance from Niagara Falls. Three burials are to be seen that were apparently done in England. The pertinent one follows: Alfred Cook, age 23, discharged Sergt. of 54 Regt. Place: Cambridge, G.B. Date of burial: September 17, 1867. At first glance, and, at the time, without knowledge of other Canadian records, it was difficult to interpret this as being other than representing a record of the burial of Alfred Cook in Cambridge, England. Since Alfred's aunt, Margaret Russell Henley, was living in Stamford Township and was herself buried through All Saints Church, we could be forgiven for believing that Elizabeth Ann Russell Cook wrote to her sister in Ontario advising of her son's death and that Margaret provided the information for Charles' burial in Cambridge, England, to her church and the church recorded the death and burial in their ledger as a courtesy to the family. Of course, this notion is wrong. The Niagara Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society provides an index for the records of the Morse and Sons Funeral Home at Niagara Falls, Ontario. In volume 2 of the Morse records, on page 276, appears an order dated 17 September 1867 (the same date as Alfred's supposed burial in England) for a coffin and case for the late 'Alford' C. Cook. This was ordered by Edwin Cole. Edwin Cole was the son-in-law of Margaret Russell Henley. Edwin was married to Margaret Tucker, Margaret's daughter by her first marriage to John Tucker. In other words, Margaret Tucker Cole was a first cousin of Alfred C. Cook. Once this was found, it became necessary to consider the fact that Alfred Charles Cook was buried in Stamford Township, Ontario. Otherwise, what was Edwin Cole doing having a coffin and case made for the late 'Alford' C. Cook? The evidence improves. The Morse record does not state a place of burial, but an index suggested that he was in Drummond Hill Cemetery. Niagara Falls' cemetery office was contacted and a search made for a burial for Alfred Cook. This was unsuccessful, because, it was said, their older records for Drummond Hill were in bad shape. An undated index on Niagara Falls cemetery's web site showed an Alfred Cook in Section 01, plot 0081, grave 2S, but this was believed to be a burial from the 1930s. It now appears that this was a mistranscription of the year of death as it appears on Alfred's stone. The source for the mistranscription in question was Historic Drummond Hill Cemetery Transcriptions, 1985. Unquestionably, the stone is not of a quality to be found from the 1930s. Find-a-Grave has a photo of an old and worn stone for Alfred C. Cook. The stone has some lichen on it. The name is clear; the year of birth is unreadable, but the year of death is shown clearly and the inscription of it reads 1868. Correspondence was entered into with the photographer and he advised that he took three photos that are said to be approximately adjacent. One was a largely unreadable stone for a George C. Hubbert. It turns out that four Hubbert family members are recorded by Drummond Hill as being in Section 01, plot 0081, in different numbered graves, as well as Alfred C. Cook. George Hubbert died and was buried in 1872. (No relationship has been found between Alfred's Niagara Falls family and the Hubberts, though there probably was one. The Hubberts came from Lincolnshire in England.) I visited Drummond Hill Cemetery in August of 2015. The stone was found and no lichen was present. The last digit of the year of Alfred's birth was not clearly readable (184?), but the year of death is clearly shown as 1868. This stone is only a little east of the Laura Secord monument. The only reasonable conclusion is that the stone is indeed that of Alfred who died in 1867. Edwin Cole will have arranged Alfred's burial, but not for the gravestone. This will not have been installed until after the return to Canada of Alfred's mother, perhaps not until after her marriage to John Butler Jones. At a guess, it was erected rather later - perhaps mid 1870s - and at that time an error was made in recording the year of death. If this seems a stretch, it should be remembered that the death year for Alfred's mother, Elizabeth Ann, is off by a year on her stone in Fairview Cemetery. Ancestry's Canadian passenger lists have been examined and no Alfred Cook found sailing from England to Canada during this time frame. Still, for Edwin Cole to have arranged the burial, it is reasonable to believe that, despite ill health, Alfred journied to Canada. Without question, he died among his mother's people. Plot 0081 was originally purchased by Jesse Cole, Edwin Cole's brother. It appears that burials for other family members, probably including the Hubbert family, were begun there. In the event, Jesse Cole was buried in plot 0082 (which, for whatever reason, is certainly not adjacent to plot 0081). Jesse's wife Ann died in 1866. Edwin Cole, with his brother Tom, were Jesse's executors and Edwin must have arranged Alfred's burial in plot 0081. We may note that Alfred C. Cook's aunt, Margaret Russell Henley and his Cole cousins are buried in Drummond Hill. The Drummond Hill Cemetery sexton of the day, Emmanuel Pigeon, evidently kept some records, but when he died they were in the possession of his wife. The next sexton, William Dalton, kept burial ledgers and was remarkably assiduous in writing them up, betimes inserting obituaries from local papers. He borrowed the old burial records from Mrs. Pigeon and copied them, but it appears that there were numbers of records missing, including records for three years for the period of time that covered Alfred's burial. (See Douglas Robbins' transcription of the Burial Records and Notations of William Dalton, 1991.) All of which brings us to the question: Why would someone with an almost certainly fatal disease such as Alfred suffered, submit himself to an arduous sea journey to come to Canada, half a world away from his family? Was there hope that the cooler air of Canada might be beneficial? Did he, in a spirit of optimism, hope that he might survive and find work with which he might then be able to bring out his wife and child and even his mother and sister? Barring the find of a family repository or a newspaper account, this question is beyond answer. What we may say, documentably, is that Alfred only lived another six months after his discharge from the army and that he died among his mother's family in Canada to whom he surely came from England with whatever aim he had in mind. Many years later, Alfred's widow, Elizabeth Emily Sheppard, after two later marriages, came to Niagara Falls, New York, to live with her son, Alfred Richard Cook. She is buried in Fairview Cemetery in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Elizabeth Emily Sheppard's last name from her third marriage was Williams and she is buried under this name with her son and daughter-in-law. Elizabeth Emily Sheppard's story is told under her name. |
Child of Alfred Charles Cook and Elizabeth Emily Sheppard |
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| Last Edited | 24 Sep 2020 |