Name: John Cooley
   Born: by 1740
  Place: prob England
   Died: possibly 1811
  Place: prob Casey County, KY
 Buried: 
Married: 
  Place: poss Caroline County, VA

My genealogical research--and search for my Cooley roots--began in the late 1970s. This webpage went live in 1994 or 1995 but remained essentially blank until I began corresponding with Sandra Stanton and her cousin, who has requested anonymity (descendants of James Cooley, 1772-1821), in the spring of 2006. During this time, some longstanding myths have been dispelled, and perhaps a few others created, but we're confident we've made a breakthrough in identifying John Cooley of Stokes County, North Carolina. Any help with finding additional documentation, including data that disputes any of the following, will be welcomed.

From Pay Roll of Capt. Robert Spotswood's Company, 16 Oct 1755:

Richard Goode		11 Sep 1755		20 days
John Cooley		11 Sep 1755		20 days

Although John isn't listed, the July 13, 1756 roll for Spotswood's company makes it clear that the September 11 enlistment occurred at Caroline county, Virginia. The Goodes were long-time plantation owners in that area. This is significant because both Richard Goode and John Cooley eventually moved to Town Fork Settlement, Surry (later Stokes) county, North Carolina. They often show up on the same land records and may have had family connections.

John was born by 1740, very possibly in England. He might have been the John Cooley who was transported as a prisoner during July 1753 from London to Virginia on the sometimes slave ship the Tryal but there is no certainty in that. For now, it simply fits and is nothing more than a working theory. John's wife's name is not known but she was not the commonly cited Elizabeth Fermin. John may have relocated in the late 1750s or the early to mid 1760s (I believe about 1768) to Town Fork Settlement, then in Rowan county, North Carolina.²

Family

No known authentic record exists for John's family. The following closely conforms to a family group sheet that may have originated with Dale Walker and his research in the 1970s and '80s. I've made changes in the birth order based on the evidence at hand and I've eliminated the name Benjamin as a possible alternate name for Cornelius as I've seen no evidence for it. In fact, some names are here simply because Dale had placed them in his chart. Although Cornelius and Elizabeth were born late enough to have been John's grandchildren, I think Dale was probably correct. However, recently uncovered records suggest that John may have had another son, William Matthews Cooley (of whom I refer to later) but nothing even closely referring to William's birth year has come to light. It's possible he was born early enough to have been John's brother.

John Cooley was not Dutch

The real scoop here is not in who John was but who he was not.

Thanks to Dale Walker's decades-old family group sheet, it is commonly believed that John Cooley was a son of Lambert (sometimes seen as William) Cornelius Cooley. That man may well have had a son named John but all evidence for our John's origins points elsewhere. And in more than 30 years of searching, I have never come across even a crumb of true data suggesting a Dutch ancestry. It is my belief that zero evidence should be sufficient cause to stop propagating something that can only be regarded as having a spurious origin. Furthermore, in addition to the citations recently found, there is very significant genetic evidence of a Scottish and Norse ancestry.

The results of research on mitochondrial DNA have been used for matrilineal genealogy since the early 1990s. Using the Y chromosome to help determine descent through the male line is a little newer. The trick is that the Y chromosome is passed down directly from father to son virtually without change. The significance of that is simple. All other chromosomes are combined from those of both parents. Of course, that makes sense: we inherit half of our genetic make up from each parent (who else?). It's that recombination that makes each of us unique. Without it, we'd be clones of one another--all identical twins, so to speak. But since the presence of the Y is what makes males (females, it stands to reason, do not have a Y chromosome) it has nothing with which to recombine and is passed down as a clone. Simply put, my Y chromosome is a twin of my dad's Y.

Although other Cooleys and I share a common ancestor in John, a man who was born more than 260 years ago, nearly all markers on our Y chromosomes match. (Compare our markers with the Y chromosome of a descendant of Daniell Cooley of Maryland). That fact combined with the paper trail makes it certain that we are descended from brothers. It also tells us that our Y's belong to what geneticists call haplogroup R1a1 and demonstrates that our Cooleys went to present day Great Britain from Norway perhaps as long ago as 5000 years.

I'm not certain how the erroneous Dutch connection was started but Lura Coolley Hamil certainly had something to do with it. See her 1932 letter to Mildred Tallant and my comments. Also, the July 31, 1977 letter from Elizabeth Cooley, genealogist for the Cooley Family Association of America, does much to dispel Hamil's work as do some of Eleanor Rue's papers. And I've made additional comment about Hamil's errors in The Vanishing Man.

The case for being English

Although geneticists can do their thing with science, genealogists need the literature that records events in the lives of people that place them in specific locations on specific dates. Find persons named in such a record and you know something about their origins. But helpful records are more often than not very difficult to find. Genealogists must rely on clues buried in the sparse data that is available--and sometimes in the tall-tales told in families--and make associations that may or may not be true. Without these inferences the researcher has literally no clue and no real direction in which to proceed. Speculation is essential and, as any scientist will tell you, good speculation can lead to evidence that may eventually elevate it to a hypothesis. Once you've got something strong, you're on solid theoretical ground. A scientific proof (the next and final stage in the game), however, not only presents excellent evidence, it is universally-recognized as simply having no reasonable evidence that points to another conclusion.

Scientific proofs are not found in the realm of genealogy but genetics has shown us that John's origins are probably in the British Isles. Let's see if we can put some Tide-bits together and approach a hypothesis--one, of course, that is readily open, or perhaps even very vulnerable, to a serious challenge--that he was from England.

However, it seems that none of the above statements are strictly true. We know from the 1850 census, for instance, that Reuben Cooley was born in North Carolina, not in England. Likewise, the 1880 census entry for Edmond, a son of John (2), states that his father was born in Virginia, and a letter written by John Pearce Cooley, Joseph's grandson, says that he, too, was born in Virginia. And, not noted above, is a note written to my father by his aunt Vernal Shelton, who says that "[he] came from England in early part of 18 century." But she said that about John's son Edward, which was decidedly not the case as he was not yet born.

How could the English tradition be documented down four distinct lineages and yet the specifics be wrong? I know it can happen. I used to think my paternal grandmother was born in France. I now know that she was born in Connecticut and that her father was born in France. If it hadn't been for my interest in genealogy, I might still be propagating misinformation--more than 100 years after her birth. With that notion in mind, we can triangulate all of these traditions back to the senior John. And that makes sense as many, if not most (if not all), Cooley immigrants to the American colonies in the 17th and 18th century were from England:

I have already mentioned the John Cooley who was transported to Virginia in 1753. And we know that our John Cooley was in Caroline county Virginia two years later. We also know that Port Royal in Caroline county was a busy port during this time and we know that the Tryal arrived in Virginia on many occasions, stopping in several ports to drop off slaves. Could it have stopped in Port Royal with it's cargo of servants in 1753, thereby explaining our John's presence in the county two years later? Certainly, it's possible but I've yet to find the proof.

In the meantime, other possibilities for John's origins need to be explored:

Was John Cooley Scottish?

DNA tells us that our Cooley forebears were not only of Scottish heritage but that they may have been distantly related to (not descended from) the great 12th century Scottish chieftain Somerled, as well as to the clan MacDonald.⁷

The claim of Scottish descent becomes a bit more interesting after hearing the story of Charles Cooley, a cousin through Edward and Martha (Raper) Cooley's grandson, James Armstrong Cooley. Charles's father is buried with a small of piece of tartan that had been passed down from one generation to the next. He told his family stories about kirkings that had taken place in Putnam County, MO and that the ancient Cooleys were Jacobites: the older brothers having been executed and the younger ones transported to America. Although Charles is unable to provide a time frame for this immigration, the shipping to America of 936 Jacobites following the 1746 Battle of Culloden Moor⁵ would have been contemporaneous to John Cooley.

To date, these claims have not been substantiated. But it is worth noting that John Cooley served in Captain Spotswood's company with John MacDonald, whose father Alexander is said to have been at Culloden Moor. I find it interesting that an Alexander MacDonald and a John Cooley were transported together in 1753 on The Tryal. However, John MacDonald's father, who was associated with the Spotswood family, was transported in 1747 on the Gildart.

The name Cooley itself does not appear to be Scottish. But research by others suggest that the largest concentration of Cooleys is to be found in the North of England, just below the Scottish border.

Are we reading too much history into what may be no more than coincidence and even fantasy? Possibly. Whatever the truth turns out to be, this is a valid line of inquiry.

Culloden Moor

The case for being a servant

So far, the only record we have that places John in Virginia is the militia payroll. There's not much there but we can turn to later records for Spotswood's company to get an idea as to who he served with. One of the first things that struck me about the July 1756 roll is the number of foreign born recruits: 45%. Just that one statistic increases the likelihood that John was also foreign born. (He had to come from somewhere.) Furthermore, at least four other men of the company, particularly the 46 year-old John Pedder, may have been convicts. (The others being Thomas Douglas, John Donally and William Thomas.)

According to historian Richard Hofstadter, more than half of the immigrants to America at the time were convicts, indentured servants or redemptioners (contracted to pay off their passage with work).¹ It might seem odd that convicts would be in His Majesty's service but in the colonies, at least, they often were. And, unlike the north where indentured servitude was scarce, southern men of some wealth and standing could send off their servants in place of themselves--and could additionally be reimbursed by the crown. If John was a servant, who might have hired him out? Can clues be found in the rolls?

Captain Robert Spotswood was the son of one-time Virginia governor, Alexander Spotswood. Not surprisingly, the governor ran a large plantation populated in part with indentured servants. In fact, there are published newspaper accounts of servants running away from his estate. It was only on September 6, 1755 that Colonel George Washington, as commander of the Virginia Regiment, ordered Spotswood to recruit a company of soldiers.⁶ Two had enlisted a few days earlier and the others between the 9th and the 25th. Spotswood had only a few weeks to assemble his men and to march them to Fort Cumberland. It seems possible to me that he might have recruited from within his own domestic "staff".

We also know that Richard Goode came from a planter clan (and he later owned slaves in Stokes county, NC). Might he had brought John along, either as a friend or perhaps as someone having the double benefit to him as servant and as additional revenue?

John Sale, William Blakey and William Thorpe, all of Caroline county, may have also been of the same class.

Although these several men, along with John Cooley and Richard Goode, enlisted at Caroline county, it doesn't necessarily follow that John and Richard were themselves from Caroline. The Goodes could also be found in nearby Orange, Essex and Spotsylvania counties. Nevertheless, for now, it is all that we have to go on.

After moving to Town Fork Settlement, Richard Goode went on to hold several positions in the local government, including the office of Sheriff. He was eventually elevated to Major during the Revolution and seemed to have garnered a good deal of respect in Stokes county. He was doubtlessly well-educated, literate and was a large property owner. John Cooley, on the other hand, was known to sign with his mark, a 'C', indicating that he was likely illiterate. He was given "poor money" in 1761 and is described in a 1772 document as being a laborer.

The John Cooley convicted in London during July 1753 was given 7 years indentured servitude. That sentence would have been up in 1760. John's first child was born in Virginia³ in 1761. As it was common practice not to allow servants to marry, it can well be inferred that he married in 1760 following his release. And with that scenario, and having emigrated to a new colony with a young family, the community could well have found that John should receive benefit of the poor tax.

So how could it be that an illiterate ex-convict banished from his homeland, released seven years later, who was soon to have a family, and a man considered to be indigent end up being a constable owning hundreds of acres of land?

To answer that question, we need to look at Britain. The government sought to solve two important problems by exporting its criminals. The treasury needed relief from the burden of paying out of the poor tax to a very substantial number of its population. Exiling them to colonies, even for such minor offenses as petty theft, seemed as though it would curtail some of that expense. And the practice helped populate the colonies with the cheap labor needed to grow the economy--the idea being that the general British population would not go voluntarily (although, of course, many did). They simply were not willing to endure the dangerous passage over the Atlantic at a time when up to half the passengers and crew could die. Even the most desperate in the country, those who might well have benefited from a new life elsewhere, were dissuaded by the horror stories and undoubtedly preferred the certainty of their present condition, regardless of its bleakness. Deportation was the simple answer.

But even a nation and country that enslaved Africans for life believed that a person convicted for a crime was redeemable. Certainly, seven years of selfless service to another, albeit forced, was adequate demonstration of his or her ability to become a productive member of society. To that end, these now free British subjects were routinely given 50 acres of land, some cash and some clothing. An enterprising young man, as John doubtlessly was, could have turned that into a reasonably comfortable life. Indeed, he successfully raised a large family, all of whom lived into adulthood.

Does a hairy coo live in a hairy coo ley?

A Scottish Hairy Coo

The name Cooley has potentially several origins. In his blog, Bill Cooley does a pretty good job of dispelling the notion that it's essentially an Irish name, showing that Cooley is found in Ireland almost exclusively as a place name rather than a surname. I had long favored the MacAuleys as possible ancestors, (from MacOlaf, the son of Olaf), which I found particularly appealing after learning that my yDNA has Norse/Scottish markers. Historically, however, Cooley has been found most often in the North of England. And there's a case to be made for the idea that names ending in ley come from the Old English word lea, meaning field. The word coo is simply the Scottish pronunciation of cow.

Frankly, since we have no idea what John Cooley's father's last name was, let alone his first name, there's no way of knowing the surname's origin among his own ancestors. But the following meaning of cooley, found at the online edition of the Oxford English dictionary, is probably not relevant as its first published usage did not occur until 1796, when John was already well-advanced in years.

cooley

rare.

Phonetic spelling of F. coulis, cullis

Broth of boiled meat.

1796 H. GLASSE Cookery v. 41 Make a rich cooley.

The alternate etymological origin of cooley (cullis) appears to have dated back to at least 1420. The OED cites this quotation:

1543 TRAHERON Vigo's Chirurg. IX. 228 If the pacient be weake..ye shall gyve hym the coleys of a yonge capon.

The point here, really, is that we're not only unlikely to find the origin of our name as first used among John's antecedents but that it's a subject that should probably not be taken too seriously.

Who was John's wife?

At this point we can only speculate. Elizabeth Firmin is out, (See various articles.) Today, the name Perrin would not commonly be given to a child as a first name (neither would Rice) but it was common practice to give one of the children their mother's maiden name. Certainly, when genealogists see a surname assigned as a given name, they've got something to think about. So, with that as a possibility, as well as the notion that John may have lived in Caroline county and that he was possibly a indentured servant, this is worth noting:

Sandra Stanton found the following in Colonial Caroline, A History of Caroline County, Virginia by TE Campbell:

• Year: 1756
• Servant: Thomas Perrin
• Master: Timothy Smith
• Why in Court: Escaped for 5 days - serve according to law and 200 lbs. of tobacco fine.

Frankly, I would think that with all the sons that John Cooley had, one of them would have been named after his father-in-law. None, of course, were named Thomas. But it would also not have been uncommon to name the second son after the mother's father. That would have been Edward. And let's say that their first daughter was named after her maternal grandmother. It's wild and reckless speculation but it's all we have. Shall we look for an Edward and Hannah Perrin? How about an Edward and Hannah Rice?⁴ There were several similar naming conventions used in 17th and 18th century colonial America. There might well be clues to be found in the names of their children.

I keep finding the Goode family mentioned in many of the same records I find the name Cooley. Considering that the Cooleys and Goodes were together in Caroline county VA, Town Fork Settlement NC and Casey county KY, I can't help but wonder if there was an in-law relationship, possibly among Major Richard Goode's generation. But Richard's father died early and there seems to be very little record of his children. The senior Richard Goode's family has never been fully sorted out.

And there is considerable evidence that William Matthews Cooley might have been John Cooley's eldest son, making Matthews a contender as being John's wife's maiden name, along with Goode, Perrin and Rice.

Whoever John Cooley's wife was, the family she was born into may have simply not been adequately recorded. Likewise, John Cooley's descendants may be resigned always to talk of this ancestress in the most general terms. Even so, genetics and historic research have shown us that there is much yet to learn.

Other Cooleys

There were other Cooley individuals and/or families living in the vicinity near John. Abraham Cooley, born in England, is noted in the section on immigrants. I have seen no evidence to suggest that John and Abraham were related.

There was the "famous" William Cooley⁸ who set out with Daniel Boone from Salisbury (considerably south of present-day Stokes county NC) to Kentucky in 1769. Although there seems to be little known about William, his origins may have been in Pennsylvania, not Virginia. All that connects the two Cooleys to one another is that they lived in Rowan county, possibly in locations rather remote from one another. (The Boone property was located in what is now Davidson county. The John Cooley property was in present-day Stokes county, North Carolina.)

A James Cooley enlisted in the revolutionary army for a second time in Surry county and was made prisoner there by the British. Lura Coolley Hamil stated in her book that he served in Virginia with William Cooley (above). However, it's more likely that she was mistaken.

Of greater interest, though, is William Matthews Cooley who shows up at least four times in the record, as follows:

From my 1991 notes:

Book C p257: John Cooley Sr, William Matthews Cooley & John Cooley Jr app Constable of Willis Dist. 1784, 85, 86.

From page 126 of Jo White Linn's Surry County, North Carolina Will Abstracts, 1992:

SCDB C:258, 8 Feb 1785, John Douglas to John Bryson for £5, 2½ A on E side Loving Creek, middle fork of Arrarat River in sd Bryson's line, wit: Wm Matthews Cooley, John Cooley, Junr.

From Sandra Stanton's notes:

17 Apr 1785 Joseph Goode to Morgan Davis 30 pds 100 ac S side Dan River below mouth Flat Shoal Creek. John Cooley, Senr.) William Matthews Cooley) John Cooley, Junr.) C: 264

14 Jan 1786 Mark Hardin, Senr. Guilford County to Robert Dearing, Orange County, VA 150 pds 400 ac both sides Evans Creek adj Isaac Vernon & Thompson. William M. Cooley) Joseph Vaughn) George Ray) Surry County, North Carolina County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, 1790-1795 Vol. 1. Compiled by Agnes M. Wells. John Cooly Constable for serving at Nov. court 1789

Were John Cooley and William Matthews Cooley related? I have no idea. Undoubtedly, they were associated in some way, if not familially. Whatever the connection may have been, it's worth pursuing. And in that pursuit I found a William M Cooley in not-so distant Stewart county, Tennessee. I have found nothing that makes it certain that the two Williams were one and the same but neither is there any kind of contradiction. So far, the dates work out. See my article for more information: Cooleys of Stewart County, Tennessee.

Although Reuben Ransom Cooley is believed to have never resided in Stokes County, North Carolina, he does show up near Edward Cooley's family in Indiana. It's claimed that he was the Reuben R Cooley who married in Bartholomew County but he certainly is not the Reuben living there in 1840 as, it seems, he was the R R Cooley appearing the same year in Decatur County, Indiana.

And there were other North Carolina Cooleys residing several counties east of Stokes county. To date, there has been nothing to suggest that they were related to our John Cooley. But it should be noted that they came from counties very near Caroline county VA, where I believe our John enlisted into the Virginia Regiment in 1755.

Lee Cooley, a descendant of James Cooley (born c1809 in PA) is nearly an exact yDNA match. The fact that he shares the name makes it a near certainty that James was related to John Cooley in some way. The age difference is large enough that James could have been a great grandson of John's. Although the trail for James's origins have grown cold, his DNA suggests that John Cooley may not have been alone, as I have often speculated for the simple reason that I have not been able to connect him to anyone. Lee's DNA potentially changes everything.

There is no evidence that John Cooley came from Pennsylvania but there are several reasons to investigate some of those families. To that end, I've started a page for Pennsylvania Cooleys and a related project for the Cooleys on the 1860 census.

Finally, I'm "mapping out" the Cooley lineages I'm working on, all in an attempt to find any family that may have been collateral to John's ancestral line.

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