Dr. Richard Field Cook, MD

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ChartsDescendants of Ellis Cook-6 Generations
Dr. Richard Field Cook, MD, son of Dr. Ambrose Ellis Cook, MD and Sarah Piersall Wheeler, was born at Bound Brook, Somerset Co., New Jersey, 12 July 18061,2,3 and baptized there, 4 October 1806.4 He died 7 November 18455, and was buried at the Old Presbyterian Graveyard, Bound Brook, Somerset Co., New Jersey.5

Dr. Richard Field Cook, MD was a physician, having earned his Batchelor of Arts at Princeton in 1828, and his M.D. at the College of Physicans Surgeons. He was of Hoboken when he died by drowning.

He apparently is the same Dr. Richard Cook, coroner of Hoboken, who examined the body of Mary Cecilia Rogers in 1841. Her murder was later the basis of a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, The Mystery of Marie Roget. According to one account, Dr Richard Cook, the Hoboken coroner, took possession of the body and performed an cursory exam at the scene. He initially concluded that Mary had been raped and brutally beaten sufficiently enough to cause her death. In a more detailed report he stated: "her face was bruised and swollen, the veins were highly distended. About the neck there were bruises that appeared to be from a man's thumb and fingers. It appeared as if the wrists had been bound and a piece of lace trimming was tied tightly around her neck indicating she had died from strangulation. She had been horribly violated by more than two or three persons. Since there was not the slightest trace of pregnancy, she had evidently been a person of chastity and correct habits."6,7,8
This person was last edited on22 Aug 2016

Citations

  1. [S1305] Ambrose Cook's Family Register, Gregory Cooke, Clarkdale, Arizona.
  2. [S214] Somerset Co., New Jersey, Probate records, 1794-1945; indexes, 1804-1972, Orphan's court minutes, D:177, FHL microfilm 906632, further cited as Somerset Co. Probate.
  3. [S1321] New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University, Bound Brook Presbyterian Church Records, 1805-1903, 86, FHL microfilm 888714, further cited as Bound Brook Presbyterian Church Records.
  4. [S1321] Bound Brook Presbyterian Church Records, 68; FHL #888714.
  5. [S1563] Richard F. Cook Grave Stone, Presbyterian Graveyard, Bound Brook, Somerset Co., New Jersey; Photographed by Bruce Mitchell, Sep 2009.
  6. [S1881] Rev. John Howard Raven, Catalogue of the Officers and Alumni of Rutgers College (Originally Queens College) in New Brunswick, N. J.: 1766-1916 (Trenton, N. J.: State Gazette Publishing, 1916), 76, further cited as Raven, Catalogue of Rutgers College.
  7. [S1882] Mary Cecilia Rogers: The Beautiful "Seegar" Girl, online http://murderrevisited.blogspot.com/2009/08/mary-cecilia-rogers-beautiful-seegar.html, accessed 21 May 2012, further cited as Mary Cecilia Rogers.
  8. [S1883] Amy Gilman Srebnick, The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers: Sex and Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 77-78, further cited as Srebnick, The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers.