Before the year 2000 we knew almost nothing about the Phineas and Irene Cook family. As a result of the Volunteer Research Project we now know considerably more about the family.
Their children were born in Goshen, Connecticut where in 1810 the oldest child Betsy died at age two and one-half. The family lost their farm and home and moved to Richland, Michigan when Phineas was about eighteen. In Richland, Phineas married, joined the L.D.S. Church, and emigrated. His parents are buried there in the Prairie Home Cemetery.
The oldest son was Daniel, born 20 Nov. 1808. He married Helen King in 1830 in Goshen where two children were born. In the 1850 census their names were listed as Mary and Maria, 18 and 16 years old. Maria didn't live out the year because on July 28 she was buried. At that time the family lived in Hastings, Barry County, Michigan. Helen was listed as "Elin;" and both she and Daniel were 41 years old.
Subsequent census records show the family made their permanent home in Hastings, a few miles north of Richland, MI. In 1860 Daniel was a Justice of the Peace and in 1870 operated his own saw mill. By then his real estate was valued at $7,000 and personal estate at $1,000. On Nov. 20, 1867 when he was 59 years old, Daniel signed his last will and testament. He lived another eleven years because on March 26, 1877 his probate hearing was held.
Apparently Helen died before Daniel. Death records are hard to find in Pioneer times, but Louisa Jane Burrows was listed in the 1870 census as his adopted daughter, 20 years old, and the only other person in the household. Louisa was also named executrix. She was to receive all his goods if she cared for Daniel to the end of his life.
Eliza was born 7 Jul 1811. She and her husband Salmon Hall joined the church before Phineas and Ann Eliza. She emigrated without Salmon and died 19 Dec. 1889 in Garden City, Rich, Utah. Their interesting story will be the subject of an article another time.
Darius Burgess, b. about 1814, was the forth child of Phineas and Irene. As a teen he worked for the Litchfield Inquirer, cultivating a lifetime interest in the printing and newspaper business. In 1837 he spent a year in Washington D.C. working for the National Intelligencer, sharpening his skills by writing and spending time in the Senate gallery listening to the great statesmen of his day. After making two trips to Michigan, he brought home a wife and took a job in Kalamazoo at a printing office. In 1842 he bought the Niles Republican Newspaper and hauled a hand-press from Kalamazoo to Niles on an ox cart. There he made his home where he and his wife Jane Wadhams had three and possibly four children, three sons and a daughter. Three of the children are named in the census; a fourth was named in his obituary.
Jane died at age 71 in 1889 in Niles. Darius lived another twelve years and died May 24, 1901. He was one of the most respected citizens of the town.
Mary Ann, born 15 July 1816, was 22 years old when she moved with the family to Michigan. For three years she wondered if there might be a single man in frontier Michigan who would notice her. Then her brother Phineas Wolcott went to work for Phillip Leonard in Yankee Springs, just north of Richland in Barry County. Phineas put a roof on Phillip's house and told him about his sister Mary Ann back in Richland.
Promising to introduce Phillip to his sister, Phineas went home to find Phillip had introduced himself. In three weeks, on August 25, 1841, Mary Ann was married.
In the 1850 census Phillip and Mary Ann had three children: Melina age 5, George age 3 and Harriet age 1. They still lived in Yankee Springs and Phillip was a prosperous inn keeper. Mary Ann's comfortable future seemed assured. However, she apparently became ill shortly afterward and had to go home to be cared for by her mother. She died in Richland and was buried there beside her father in the Prairie Home Cemetery on May 3, 1854, leaving three small children.
Phineas Wolcott, born 28 Aug. 1819, was the sixth child and youngest son in the family.
Harriet, born 11 May 1823, was the youngest child. We know only that she married Gaius Fuller and died in 1906. Further research needs to be done on this family.