2. My Life with Beckwith Cook
Voice of Sybil Olds Cook
As told during the winter 1839
My name is Sybil Olds Cook. I was born August 15, 1790 in Dalton, Massachusetts. The big war was over and Massachusetts had become the sixth state on February 6, 1788. So I was born in United States of America.
When I was eighteen years old I married Beckwith Cook in Manlius, New York. We are farmers. We have been married for thirty-one years and we have six children. Now we live in Burr Oak Ridge, Iowa. We have only been here for a few months. I am quite ill and I am afraid I will die soon. I want my children and any grandchildren I might have in the future to know a little about me and about our family so I have decided to write some things down.
I don’t know when my ancestors came to America, but I know they have been here since at least 1694 when my great-grandfather Kingsley was born. That was about eighty years before we became the United States of America. My Grandmother Sarah’s parents, John Kingsley and Elizabeth Bass, were both born in Rehoboth, Massachusetts Colony. John and Elizabeth Kingsley were married in Braintree, Massachusetts on December 25, 1717. Grandmother Sarah Kingsley was born in Windemar, Connecticut Colony. She and Grandfather James Olds were married in Ashford Township, Commonwealth of Connecticut on March 20, 1754.
My father and mother were both born in Windham County, Connecticut. Grandfather James’ father could not decide how to spell our family name when he came to America. He spelled it ‘Ould’ or ‘Oles’ or ‘Olds’. He finally settled on ‘Olds’ so my father’s name is Timothy Olds. Father was born in North Ashford. My mother was Mary Russ, they called her Polly, and she was born in Canterbury. The family had lived in Connecticut for two generations but my parents moved west. Mother and Father both died in Huron County, Ohio. So in the one hundred twenty-four years between 1694 and 1817, when Mother died, my family moved from Massachusetts to Connecticut to Ohio.
In my life I have seen so many changes in the United States. The purchase of the Louisiana Territory when I was thirteen years old opened up the whole area west of the States; Illinois, Indiana the Mississippi Territory and Missouri Territory. Beckwith and I have come to Iowa in the Missouri Territory to take advantage of the inexpensive land. President Jefferson wanted the land filled with American farmers. I was a teenager when the Lewis and Clark Expedition explored Louisiana Territory and discovered a route to the Pacific Ocean. Each year our government opens up more new land and new incentives have been given to encourage us to move west and settle new land. The offer of inexpensive land in the new territories is always put out there to draw our men west. Many of the men in my family over the years have been service men in one of the wars: American Revolution, War of 1812, French and Indian Wars and the Mexican War. They were given land for their service. Land is always a nice gift. Free or very inexpensive land in the wilderness areas is the big reason my family has continued to move west.
Beckwith’s family has been in America even longer than my family. I understand some of his ancestors arrived in Massachusetts about 1630. The Cook family is one of the oldest families in America. The men in Beckwith’s family have always been looking toward new land too. It seems that every time the government offers FREE land they looked to the west and moved. I guess they like to clear new land and build new houses. I am not really crazy about the idea of leaving my friends and starting new in a new area, but it seems that each time we moved some of our friends followed us or they moved and we followed them. In these thirty-one years Beckwith and I have lived in several places.
(To be continued)
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