2026 (2) -Gregory Cook - Where the Cook Line Starts in New England

Gregory Cook - Earliest NE Cook - GEN 1 

From FamilySearch. org: 

Gregory Cooke was born in 1621, in Rattlesden, Suffolk, England. He married Mary White on 25 September 1645, in Suffolk, England. They immigrated and he died on 1 January 1691, in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, at the age of 70. (Summary edited)

Gregory Cook, born in England about 1625. He worked as a cordwainer or shoemaker. He came to Massachusetts about 1660 and settled in Cambridge MA.

Gregory married 1st Mary __      

She died 17 Aug 1681. 

He married 2nd Widow Susan Goodwin on 1 November 1681. (After his death she married Henry Spring).

 
The only known names of his children were Susanna Cook of Newton who died 13 Nov 1674, and Stephen Cook.

 

 In 1672 he bought the nearby Dummer farm, or 112 acres of it, adjoining his farm. 

In 1663 he bought land from Abraham Williams including a house on the highway from Watertown to Roxbury, near Edward Jackson Sr and near what is now Newton Centre near the Watertown line. While Cook's house was torn down in 1823, but it was handed down to his son Stephen who likely lived in it.

Gregory was a prominent man in public life. He was a constable in Cambridge Village in 1667, selectman of Mendon 1669 to 1670, and proprietor of 40 acres of land there. 

 

But he did not remain there long. He was a selectman of Watertown in 1673-1678-1679-1681-1684. He was on a coroner's jury in Watertown June 15, 1674. He died January 1, 1691.
 

His son Stephen administered the estate, the inventory gave the value of the estate as one hundred and ninety-one pounds.

Source 
Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts : With A History of Worcester Society of Antiquity 4; Author: Crane, Ellery Bicknell, 1836-1925,Worcester Historical Museum