Three brothers, Samuel, Francis, and Lyman, with their two sisters, (children of Jonathan and Lydia [Aldrich] Cook), ran away from the Shaker settlement at Lancaster, Mass., where they had been placed by their parents before 1800, and came to this vicinity at an early day. Samuel settled in Norwich, and married Anna Pratt, by whom he had nine children. From Samuel the later generations of Cooks in town were descended.
Francis also located in Norwich, on the farm now occupied by David Sargent, and there he lived and died. He was never married.
Lyman Cook settled in Thetford.
Another brother, Washington Cook, settled in New York State, and himself and his son were made prisoners by the Indians, and taken to Canada, but were subsequently released from captivity.
Seventeen acres of the farm where Samuel Cook located were bought by him at auction when they were sold for taxes, and fifty acres were purchased at private sale from Stephen Percival.
Leonard Cook, son of Samuel, died at Norwich, on the paternal acres, May 13, 1886, aged seventy-seven years. He was the last surviving child of his parents’ nine children, all of whom lived to have children of their own, sixty, all told.
Mr. Cook‘s son, Royal E., now resides in Norwich Village, having removed from the ancestral home several years since, leaving it in the possession of his son, George, whose children are the fifth generation of the family to live on the place.