[ Back ] [ Next ]

Testimony of William Thompson age 60. Lived in Ark. 51 years. I lived in Davidson Co., Tenn. until one years before my father left for Ark. and that year I lived in Williamson Co., Tenn. just across Harpeth River. I knew a man named William Cooper and Berry Cooper said to be his brother. They said their father was named John Cooper. I knew a man named Houston Cooper, who looked like he was sixty-five or seventy years old, when I was about nine years old; he was said by my father and William Cooper to be John Cooper's brother. I did not know any of these parties in Tenn. except Houston Cooper. I knew the others of whom I have spoken in this, Pope Co., Arkansas... I know Billy and his family and Mrs. Taylor and her family well as close neighbors. Well, now they were different in general appearance as between Billy Cooper's and the Taylor family and Mrs. Nichols and her family... Narcissa Taylor was dark-skinned and jet black eyes and hair; and Mrs. Nichols was even darker in skin that the others, and she was very dark indeed. She looked like if she had been in the Choctaw and Cherokee and Chickasaw Nations, that she might have been taken as one of those tribes."  --Nancy J. Cooper v. The Choctaw Nation, 1895.

Cooper, John (1847-1905). John Cooper bought 80 acres of land in Jackson County, 2 October 1885, E1/2 of NE1/4 of Section 29 T4S R9E, 7 acres residue part of SE1/4 of SE1/4 and 37 acras part of NE1/2 of SE1/4 of the same section, altogether 124 acres, plus on the same date a residue in S30 of DeKalb Co. On March 20, 1886 he bought more acreage in Sec. 30 Tsp. 4S Range 9E. All this lay between Rosalie in Jackson Co. and Pea Ridge in DeKalb. Some of the land was apparently purchased under the Homestead Act; Cooper's certificate was #3967.  He deeded 40 acres to his son James J. Cooper on November 4, 1901.  His neighbor was Daniel Shrader. Other land owners were Zilmon Williams (his son's brother-in-law), William B. Kerby (his step-son) and Henry Blevins (cousin). This area was called Fractional Township and straddled the county line. Shrader's mill was located there, near the source of Bryants Creek, which flowed into Johnson Creek in nearby Pisgah, and the Wills Valley Railroad came through after the Civil War. Rosalie was the closest "place." It was a combination of meadow land and sandy loam, perfect for farming. On August 20, 1894, John Cooper deeded 80 acres in DeKalb County for $100 to his wife, Nancy E. Cooper (E 1/2 NE 1/4 S30 T4S R9E --Reverse Deed Book 3, page 69). Nancy Cooper had bought 40 acres in the same Section on June 2, 1884, and other land there under the Homestead Act on Nov. 20, 1884. John Cooper had entered into ownership October 2, 1885 (certificate 3967). She died shortly after the reverse deed. In 1891, some, if not, all the Cooper land was repossessed by the government (Suspended Land Entries vol. II, page 2284--78 acres Sec. 20 Tsp. 4N Range 9E).

Cooper, Jackson (1824-about 1879). According to Lily Wigley, nee Cooper, in 1907, "Grandfather Jack Cooper was enrolled, so I am informed. He, it is said, was of Cherokee blood." John Floyd Sizemore, Mary Ann Cooper's brother, mentions Jackson Cooper in a letter written to William C. Sizemore from Camp Springs, Tennessee, May 7, 1863:  "Tell Stoner and Jackson Cooper to write to me and not be so dull no more." Jackson Cooper cannot be found in the 1860 census, though his large family does appear in the Alabama 1866 census, living in Fractional Township 4, Range 9 E in Jackson County (Sand Mountain). They were also counted in the same township in DeKalb County as J. Cooper. Their neighbors were Henegars, Thompson, Sizemores and Schraders. Their land straddled the county line. Lily Wigley’s ECA 42035, along with those of her siblings and cousins, was denied. Jackson Cooper lived with his wife Mary Ann Sizemore and others, including Blevinses and Holloways in Shellmound, Tenn. He is listed as blind on the 1870 census.

Cooper, James (b. England, d. 1735 Southwark Parish, Surry Co., Va.), a plantation owner on the south side of the James River who raised and sold tobacco for Benjamin Harrison and other factors. He made his will Feb. 28, 1729/30 when he fell ill and died around October 1734, and it was probated by the court November 20, 1734. At that time Surry Co. stretched 100 miles southwestwardly and formed the western frontier of the James River colony. The Occaneechi trading path began here and eventually wound its way to the Yadkin and New Rivers in North Carolina, from there to Cherokee country. His widow, Elizabeth, was probably Native American or “mulatto.”

Cooper, James (b. about 1750). Another son of William Cooper mentioned in Spanish census of 1790, 1792 on Second and Sandy Creeks. Previously in Davidson Co. outside Nashville (Tax List, 1787).

Cooper, James (father:  Robert Cooper from Pennsylvania), lived in Hawkins Co., Tenn. and started the first store in Watauga, later known as Carters Store, outside Rogersville. 1794 Washington County List of Taxables, A list of the Taxable Property of Capt. Carriger's Company for the year 1794.

Cooper, James (about 1795-1848) Isaac and Nancy Cooper’s first-born, considered to be Cherokee-Choctaw of the Paint Clan, but moving primarily in the white world, deposed his brother Isaac Cooper on October 8, 1821 at his home in Jackson Co., Alabama. At that time, the Tennessee River formed the boundary with Cherokee Lands, which included Sand Mountain.  His home and improvements "on Wills Creek across the ridge from Copelands Mill" adjoining Eli Cooper was assessed in the fall of 1833 or spring of 1834 in accordance with the 1828 treaty with the Cherokee Nation. It consisted of 1 house (18 x 16) made of hewn logs with a board roof and plank floor "neated sealed with boards nailed on inside...1 door well cased and faced with plank, small window faced, joists and board loft...chimney well walled with Stone and Stone hearth." Outbuildings included a log kitchen, smokehouse, corn crib, two other cribs, hog lot, yard lot and garden lot "well fenced" (Valuations under the Treaty of 1828, Special Collections, Library, University of Tennessee Knoxville, No. 44, pp. 355-56).  In the meantime, James Cooper received 50 acres on the Little South Fork of the Cumberland River, Wayne Co., Ky., March 12, 1823, augmented by 50 more acres, Feb. 2, 1825. His daughter Jenny was born in Kentucky in 1824; she later married John Andrew Craze of a family that lived near the Keyses on Craze Bend in  the Fabius area of Sand Mountain. In 1832, he was in Marion Co., Tenn. and by 1833, Rutherford Co., where Edith, his daughter, was born, after a brief stay in Meigs Co. Previously, he had been authorized "to hawk and peddle" in Campbell Co. in 1823 (--Acts of Tennessee).  Also, he had been appointed in Campbell Co. to the Powells Valley, Jacksborough and Knoxville Turnpike Co. (174.16). His daughter Martha G. Cooper, who married Granville C. Carter, son of Charles Wesley Carter and Hannah Berry, was apparently born in Virginia, in 1836. In the early 1840s, James Cooper was deeded land by Gaines Blevins, his brother-in-law, on Sand Mountain, where he and Creecy’s youngest child, Julia Cooper, was born about 1842, but this was later sold or forfeited. James Cooper moved to the Limestone area of Marion Co., Arkansas with the Adair family about 1843, their route westward taking them through Kentucky, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, and died there about 1848, leaving a widow and six children.

Cooper, James (born 1822, Wayne Co., Ky.) married his brother William's wife after William died.  The Burkes were related through Nancy Cooper, daughter of Isaac Cooper, Sr. James Cooper was a member of Company C in Dekalb Co., Alabama, called the Sulphur Springs Company. He appears to have died in the Civil War, for his children are found living with his mother Jane Cooper in Shellmound during the 1870 census (Gaines, Polly A., and Minnie).

Cooper, Jasper Newton (1822-1863), miller in Duck Springs, from North Carolina, buried in Boaz, Ala.

Cooper, Jemima (Mima) H. (1830-1875), married John H. Holloway (Alloway), June 28, 1854, DeKalb Co., Ala. and in 1870 was living near her mother Jane Cooper in Shellmound.

Cowper, John, of St. Michael’s Court Cornhill (died March 6, 1609), Sheriff of London.

Cooper, John (about 1723-1768), older brother of William Cooper the scout, land developer, married Lucretia Andrews (Andrus). Will Abstract in Lunenberg Co., Va.:  113. Cooper, John 2-7-1767; 4-14-1768; W.B. 2/322. Witnesses: John Williams, Peter (his X mark) Andras, Abraham (his X mark) Andrews.

Cooper, John, Capt. (about 1824 – after 1886), 3rd Arkansas Union Cavalry, married Susannah (Dockery) Sizemore in DeKalb Co., Ala., September 6, 1869. This was in keeping with Jewish Levirate law as she was his widowed sister-in-law. They then moved to Arkansas. They may have kept their marriage secret in order not to complicate Susannah's widow's pension on behalf of her deceased husband William Sizemore. Probably the John Cooper of John Cooper Associates who had previously bought land in S 10 T5s R4E (Sand Mountain) in Oct. 9, 1852. John Cooper was known in later life as a Baptist minister who, according to Steve Adkins, performed marriages for many of Ezekiel Adkins' children. He was still alive in April 30, 1886 when the Yellville (Ark.) Mountain Echo reported from the Hampton Creek community:   "J. C. Cooper, by an accident, had most of his fence destroyed by fire the other day." Suffered from deafness.

Cooper, John Wesley Monroe Dolphus (1881-1960). J.W. or Dolphy was a farm worker in early life for Dee Vault in cotton and corn in the Ft. Payne/Valley Head area of Alabama.  In later years he worked for the railroad and did sharecropping. Unlike the other Coopers, he never managed to own land. He did woodworking and carving on the side and made fiddles, banjos, and cedar chests, among other things.  He had blue eyes and jet-black hair.  On June 22, 1907, he filed an application that was docketed with the Sizemore family to become enrolled as a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (Guion-Miller Roll No. 42018). He gave his age as 26 and usual place of residence as Henegar, Alabama, at present, Long Island, Alabama. All the Sizemore applications were rejected.

Cooper, Joseph and William, Indian traders and merchants in Charlestown and Keowee (fl. 1730). In 1698, William and Joseph Cooper, a guide and linguister, respectively, from the Carolinas, began the first regular trade with the Cherokees. James Adair, History of the American Indians (1775), names Joseph Cooper as one of the first traders among the Cherokee in 1730-35 (p. 238n.). Joseph is commended by the trade commission in Charleston as a linguister (Letter to Capt. William Hatton at Keowee, June 17, 1717). Joseph was William's older brother. They had a trade house in Charleston about 1710, as the Board of Commissioners of the Indian Trade met at "Mr. Cooper's." They helped Sir Alexander Cumming win "The Crown of Tanasi" and bring the Cherokee delegation to England in 1730; see William O. Steele, The Cherokee Crown of Tannassy, John F. Blair, Winston-Salem, N.C., 1977. Joseph had a trading house at the Lower Town of Keeowee, near where their mother also lived. After the failure of the Cherokee mission to London under Cumming, the Cherokee revolted and burned and looted the Coopers’ trading post. Joseph died and was buried in Savannah, March 29, 1735. That same year, a Mrs. Mary Cooper is recorded as a landholder who rented out the first housing in Savannah (Colonial Records of Georgia 2:185).

Cooper, Nancy Frances (born about 1840), married Josiah Francis, her cousin, and in 1870 was living in Marion Co., Tenn., Shellmound, in the household of Jane Cooper, her mother.

Cooper, Malachi (1762-1843), son of David and Elizabeth (Wilder) Cooper of South Carolina. He is buried in Pleasant Run Cemetery, Rushville Twp. Rush Co., Indiana. Enlisted in the Army under General Nathaniel Green in North Carolina at the the age of 13 in 1775, serving until the close of the war.  He was at the Battle of Guildford County Courthouse (Revolutionary Army Accounts Volume IX, page 113, folio 4 in North Carolina Dept. of Archives and History). Lived for a time on Fishing Creek in Wayne Co., Ky. Brother Edward Cooper also lived in what became Pulaski Co., Ky. In 1830, he migrated west. Son James Cooper, born 1785, was one of the first pastors of the Oil Center or Fishing Creek Church and Hopeful Church in Pulaski Co., Ky.

Cooper, Mary (Polly) (1797-1862), eldest daughter of Isaac and Nancy Cooper of Wayne Co., Ky. Married 1) Benjamin Bookout, a Quaker from Parmleysville who abandoned her in 1820 and moved to Mississippi (evidently for reasons of miscegenation or fear of Indian removal), and 2) John Lovelace (Wallace), with whom she had six children. They married Youngs, Burnetts and Scotts.

Cooper, Mary (about 1809-1834), married Thompson Sinard, great-grandson of fullblood Cherokee woman known as Leek and James Sinard of North Carolina, a descendant of the Huguenot religious dissenter Chevalier de Sinard, who came to America via Ireland. The Sinards were lapsed Quakers and among the first settlers of Buncombe Co., N.C. James Thomas Sinard died in Collinsville, DeKalb Co., Ala., about 1850. Harriet L. Sinard married William Henry Atkins. There was a connection with the namesake for Big Wills Valley outside Valley Head, and Little Wills and Little Wills Creek, both the north branch and the south branch, which meander across Little Wills Valley and through the town of Collinsville. William Webber, also called Redheaded Will, was the son of a Cherokee woman, the mother also, by Kittegunsta, of Ostenaco, and a British officer named Webber. He came from Nequassee in North Carolina. His half-sister was Margaret Siniard, who married a Lamb. Some researchers have Margaret as the daughter of Anawaika (Deerhead). His brother may have been Archibald Webber, and he was somehow related to Blackheaded Cooper, Mary Cooper’s father, also recorded as a Chickamauga chief. The Webbers intermarried with the Vanns, too. Sarah Webber married John Brown. Chief Will’s daughter Betsy Webber married Chief John Looney. Their daughter Eliza Abigail Looney married Daniel Rattling Gourd. Another daughter, Eleanor, married Gen. Elias (Stand) Watie. Yet another daughter, Rachel, married John Nave, the grandson of Daniel Ross and Mary McDonald.

 [ Back ] [ Next ]