Benjamin Cook

Submitted by Elizabeth Burns, Aug 2002

Arizona, The Youngest State, 1913, pg 354

Among those enterprising and progressive citizens who attained such success in business affairs that they were able to spend their last days in retirement was Benjamin Cook, who dated his residence in Tombstone from 1878. Throughout the intervening years until his death, October 30, 1915, he gained recognition as a public-spirited and loyal citizen, an acute and farsighted business man and a force in the mining development of Arizona.

He was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, November 7, 1831 and was a son of Gideon Cook, who was of English ancestry. Both parents have passed away, their deaths having occurred in Massachusetts. Four of the children born to them grew to maturity but all are now deceased.

Benjamin Cook acquired his education in Beverly, but his advantages along this line were limited for at the age of twelve he went to sea and in the course of three years visited France, England, China and Africa. He landed at Vera Cruz, Mexico on his first trip. In 1851 he abandoned seafaring and went to California where he became connected with mining, working in Placer and adjoining counties until 1875 in which year he took up his residence in Arizona. He settled in Prescott and there spent two years working in a mill, removing to Tombstone in 1878. He continued mining there, operating the Vizner mine for two years after which he sold it and bought the Herchel property. This he developed into a profitable mine running it for five years and then selling to Douglas Gray, the present owner. In 1910 Mr. Cook retired from active life.

Mr. Cook was married in 1862 in Massachusetts to Miss Willette Lorraine Collins, a native of that state and they had two daughters: Willette Lorraine, now the wife of Paul Murphy (son of ex-governor Murphy of California); and Frances R. who married Charles Bowman, an attorney in Los Angeles.

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