Henry D. Cooke

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For other people named Henry Cooke, see Henry Cooke (disambiguation).
Henry David Cooke
Henry D. Cooke
1st Governor of the District of Columbia
In office
February 28, 1871 – September 13, 1873
Preceded byNone (office created)
Succeeded byAlexander Robey Shepherd
Personal details
Born(1825-11-23)November 23, 1825
Sandusky, Ohio, U.S.
DiedFebruary 24, 1881(1881-02-24) (aged 55)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Resting placeOak Hill Cemetery
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Professionfinancier

Henry David Cooke (November 23, 1825 – February 24, 1881) was an American financier, journalist, railroad executive, and politician. He was the younger brother of Philadelphia financier Jay Cooke. A member of the Republican political machine in post-Civil War Washington, D.C., Cooke was appointed first territorial governor of the District of Columbia by Ulysses S. Grant.

Biography

Born in

Courier and Enquirer. Consul W. G. Moorhead told other State Department officials about the idea, and in about two years the Pacific Mail Steamship Company was organized. Cooke afterward lived in San Francisco, where he was connected with shipping interests. He was the first to announce to the authorities at Washington, through a despatch from the military governor of California, the discovery of gold in the Sacramento valley. Becoming involved by suretyship for a reckless speculator, he lost his fortune. (Another source says a fire in San Francisco left him burdened with debts.)[1]

He returned to Ohio, joined the

John C. Fremont, the first Republican candidate for President of the United States.[2]

By 1860, Cooke was the proprietor of the

Jay Cooke & Co.
financing firm, making Henry the partner in charge of that office.

Sherman's position on the

Mayor of Washington, D.C.

In 1870, the national capital was in dire financial straits, with both Congress and local government more involved with

Georgetown, and Washington County under a single territorial government for the District of Columbia, with the governor of the District to be appointed.[4]
Congress passed the bill in January 1871, and in the following month, President Ulysses S. Grant made Cooke, his friend (and an ally of Shepherd), governor of the District.

As governor, Cooke was uninterested in the day-to-day running of the city, preferring his business interests and lobbying for his brother. Although he was chief executive officer of the city's Board of Public Works, he did not bother to attend the meetings, allowing the board's vice president—Shepherd—to take over. In truth, even in his other duties, Cooke was largely an agent for Shepherd's agenda.[citation needed]

Cooke was widely predicted to stay in power only until the formerly independent District sections of Washington,

Georgetown, and Washington County had eased their factional tensions and accepted unified rule over the District, upon which the universally beloved Shepherd would become governor.[5] Cooke suffered a serious setback when Jay Cooke & Co. failed on September 18, 1873, in the Panic of 1873.[6] The impending failure of the bank had already forced his resignation on September 10 as territorial governor.[6][7]

Cooke was also involved in one of the scandals that plagued the Grant administration known as the Seneca Stone Ring Scandal. The owners of the Seneca Quarry, the Seneca Sandstone Company, had sold shares to senior Republican leaders in 1867 at half price, including Ulysses Grant a year before his election to the presidency, in the hopes of buying influence in the post-war building boom in Washington, D.C. This move undercapitalized the company, such that it took out several unsecured loans to fund its operations, notably from the Freedman's Savings Bank, which served freed African-American slaves and their descendants. Henry Cooke sat on the boards of both the Seneca Sandstone Company and the Freedman's Bank and facilitated the loans, though this was a clear conflict of interest. With the Panic of 1873, the indebted Seneca quarry could not pay its debts back, which in turn helped undermine the Freedman's Bank. Both institutions went bankrupt in 1876. Congress investigated and recommended that Henry Cooke and others be indicted, but no one ever was.[8]

The failure of Jay Cooke & Co. forced Henry Cooke, his wife, and their three young children to move in with Cooke's eldest daughter and her husband. In 1875, Cooke earned a substantial sum as the executor of the estate of Salmon P. Chase, the former Chief Justice of the United States. The Cookes journeyed to Europe in the summer and fall of 1875.[9]

Cooke had long suffered from Bright's disease. In early 1881, he fell seriously ill. He died of kidney failure on February 24, 1881, and was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C.[10][11]

References

  1. ^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Cooke, Eleutheros" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
  2. ^ Civil War and Reconstruction, Series One: Parts 1 to 5 Archived 2007-10-06 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ University of Delaware: FINDING AID TITLE
  4. ^ DC ALMANAC: Little known or suppressed facts about Washington, D.C.
  5. ^ Ames 1873, p. 78.
  6. ^ a b Mitchell 1986, p. 27.
  7. ^ Simon 2000, p. 27.
  8. ISBN 978-1609499297
    .
  9. ^ Mitchell 1986, p. 27-28.
  10. ^ Mitchell 1986, p. 28.
  11. Newspapers.com.Open access icon

Bibliography
Political offices
Preceded by
none
 Governor of the District of Columbia
1871–1873 		Succeeded by
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