Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

the town records. He joined the Bolton
Congregational Church in 1759. He
married, April 11, 1727, Elizabeth Clark,
who died at Bolton, February 12, 1772.
She joined the Bolton church in 1749.
Their children, born at Bolton, were:
William, mentioned below ; and Eliza-
beth, born March 23, 1734; probably
others not recorded.
(IV) William (2) Cooley, son of Wil-
liam (1) and Elizabeth (Clark) Cooley,
was born in Bolton, February 28, 1730.
He married Elizabeth , and they
were the parents of Samuel.
(V) Dr. Samuel Cooley, son of Wil-
liam (2) and Elizabeth Cooley, was born
at Bolton, January 21, 1755. He studied
medicine under Dr. Ichabod Warner, of
Bolton, and practiced there for twenty
years. In the war of 1812, he was a surgeon
in the United States Army. Late in
life he removed to Portage county, Ohio,
and practiced in the town of Northamp-
ton, where he died November 12, 1812,
aged fifty-seven. He was a skillful phy-
sician and attorney. In referring to the
success of his teacher, he used to say that
Dr. Warner had a better "How-do-youdo"
than he. In the census of 1790 Sam-
uel Cooley was reported as of Coventry,
Connecticut, with his family, consisting
of two males over sixteen and two under
that age, and three females. It is possible
that he was the Samuel Cooley, of Con-
necticut, who was a member of Captain
Farr's company in the Revolution, which
was located at Salem, New York, in 1780.
He married, in Bolton, September 7, 1780,
Aurelia Abbott, of Easton, Connecticut.
The Tolland County History gives his
children as five sons and one daughter.
Among them were Dr. William, men-
tioned below ; Simeon ; and Dr. A. A.,
who was for years a druggist in Hart-
ford.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
72
(VI) Dr. William (3) Cooley, son of
Dr. Samuel and Aurelia (Abbott) Cooley,
was born at Bolton, May 10, 1781, and
died at East Hartford, January 10, 1839.
He learned the profession of medicine
from his father and settled in what is now
Manchester, Connecticut. For many
years he was a prominent and successful
physician, and highly respected as a citi-
zen. He married (first) Mary, daughter
of Aaron Buckland, of Manchester; (sec-
ond) Diantha Spencer, also a native of
Manchester; (third) a Miss Roberts;
(fourth) Jerusha Pitkin, born at East
Hartford, a direct descendant of Gov-
ernor Pitkin, of Connecticut. The children
of the first wife were :
Mary ;
William and
child of second wife, General Hor-
ace S. Cooley, who settled in the State of
Illinois, was editor of the Quincy "Her-
ald," a leading paper of the times, superintendent
of the schools of the State, and
was Secretary of State for six years ; his
address on the "History, Spirit and Tendency
of Free Masonry," delivered before
the Grand Lodge of Illinois, October,
1844, on which occasion he was Grand
Orator, at a time when the anti-Masonic
feeling was still violent, is one of the
most eloquent and forceful expositions of
the virtues of the order ever published
he died '
in 1850. The children of the
fourth wife were :
Jerusha
Pitkin, born
1823, died 1829; Elizabeth Lord, born
November 28, 1824, died September, 1840;
Charles Samuel, born June 10, 1826, married
Elizabeth Meacham ; George Pitkin,
mentioned below ; and Jerusha, born
1830, died 1833. Of Dr. Cooley a friend
wrote, after his death :
In the death of Dr. William Cooley the com-
munity in which he lived sustained a loss that is
and will long be extensively felt. As a physi-
cian he had extensive practice, was eminently
successful and universally beloved by those to
;