Fred (resides with his parents, has a fair common-school education, and has chosen farming and stock-raising as his occupation), Jasper (resides at home and is also a farmer) and George (who died of scarlet fever when about eight years of age). Mr. Cook has identified himself with the Republican party, but is not a strict partisan, favoring the man rather than the party. He cast his first presidential vote for the lamented Abraham Lincoln, at his first election, and at a time when the war cloud hung o'er sea and land. At different times Mr. Cook has been tendered positions in his township, but has modestly declined, being aware that a practical farmer's time is of more value and consequence to him than any official position. He has served, however, all of five years as school director, and is a great supporter of all good educational principles which tend to develop the rising generation. He and Mrs. Cook are ready to aid all enterprises calculated to benefit Story County, and they allow no worthy movement to fail for want of support so far as they are concerned. Mr. Cook emigrated direct to this county in 1855, as above stated, and was one of the first pioneers of Union Township. Many are the changes which have occurred since this worthy citizen located here, and he has witnessed the growth of what was once a vast marshy tract of land to one of the most prosperous and influential counties in the State. Nevada contained only two stores and three or four houses, and Cambridge contained a little shanty and an old water saw-mill. Mr. Cook got out the timbers of the Cambridge City Steam Mills, and he also dug the pit at the mill. He being one of the first settlers can relate many interesting incidents relative to pioneer times. He tells about the first celebration held in Cambridge, and how he was one of the number who raised the first liberty pole. Mr. Cook is a living example of what can be accomplished by honesty, toil, frugality and economy. He is the owner of 500 acres of improved land, a comfortable and commodious house and excellent out-buildings. His first neighbors were Amos Ball, Josiah Chandler and S. Chandler. He has 500 rods of tiling on his farm, and intends to tile more. He and Mrs. Cook expect to make Story County their home for the future, and, surrounded by an abundance of this world's goods, are content to pass the balance of their days here.
Charles Cook is an old resident of the town of Cambridge, and, although he was formerly engaged in harness and saddle-making, he is now giving his attention to the livery business. He is a native of New York, his birth occurring in Lewis County in 1839, and he was the seventh of eight children born to Robert and Catharine Cook, who were natives of Europe, and of Scotch-Irish descent. The father was a farmer by calling, and died in Story County, Iowa, at the age of seventy-nine years, his wife also dying there, aged about seventy years. The names of their children are as follows: Sarah ( who died in New York, aged about sixty years), William (who married Miss Rosetta Steele, and was engaged in harness and saddle making in New York for many years), Marie (who is the wife of John De Lawyer, a farmer of Polk County, Iowa), John (who is married to Miss Lucy Sayers, and is following the occupation of a farmer in Story County, Iowa), James (who was a miner in California, and died at about the age of forty-five years), Robert E. (who is married to Miss Nancy Marie Ferris, and is engaged in farming and carpentering in Benton County, Iowa), Charles (the subject of this sketch) and Mary (the wife of A. C. White, a farmer of Kansas). Charles Cook obtained his early training in the common schools, and also took a short course in a select school in New York; and from the time