Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Tombstone Tuesday - John Cooke (1607?-1695) - Mayflower Passenger

One of my Mayflower 1620 ancestors is John Cooke (1607-1695), the son of Francis and Hester (Mahieu) Cooke. John may have been the last of the male Mayflower passengers to die, and his death is commemorated with a stone and plaque in what is now Fairhaven, Massachusetts.

I don't have a picture of the gravestone - but Susanne "Sam" Behling does on her web page with a biography of John Cooke - see http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~sam/cooke/john.html.

Isn't that an interesting stone and plaque? It's not original, of course, but it apparently marks the place where John Cooke is buried, and honors his place in history.

Sam has done a fine job of documenting the lives and stories of her ancestors, with photographs when available. We have, as common immigrant ancestors, the following: John Cooke, Francis Cooke, Richard Warren, William Eddy, Obadiah Holmes, John Warren, John Tripp, Henry Brooks, Joseph Holway, Thomas Flagg, Thomas Waite, and probably several others.

UPDATED 1:30 p.m.: Thanks to Heather Rojo and Martin Hollick to point out that he was not the last passenger to die, but was perhaps the last male passenger to die. Martin pointed out that Richard More's death date is before 20 April 1696, so he may have been the last one. Can't slip anything past my readers!

3 comments:

Heather Wilkinson Rojo said...

John Cooke was the last MALE passenger to die, the very last passenger was Mary Allerton. She was about four years old during her passage, and she died in November 1699 at age 83. She married Thomas Cushman and is buried in Plymouth.

Sanjay Maharaj said...

The stone and plague is indeed very interesting

Anonymous said...

Fascinating . I wonder when the last surviving child born to the first pilgrims died