Selah and Lucy Cook

Manlius, Onondaga County, New York

Voice of Lucy Beckwith Cook

As told in 1813

           Let me introduce myself. I was born Lucy Beckwith on March 28, 1758, in 

Southington, Hartford, Connecticut. My parents were James and Lydia Hitchcock 

Beckwith. I married Selah Cook, on Tuesday July 30, 1782 in Southington, Hartford,

Connecticut. We were married for thirty years. Selah was the son of Henry Cook IV and Hannah Benham Cook and was born December 19, 1756 in Waterburg, New Haven, Connecticut. We have three sons - Reuben, Beckwith, and Almon. Selah died last year when we lived in Pompey, New York. Since Selah’s death I have been living with our son Beckwith and his wife, Sybil, in Manlius. I have always been lucky to have my sons’ farms be close to ours. Pompey and Manlius are both small towns but are only a few miles apart.  My family has always been farmers so we don’t really live in town.

        During the Revolutionary War, Selah and his brothers were in the 2nd Connecticut Regiment. It was the same regiment that his father had served in years before. Selah enlisted in the army early and served for six months in 1776. He and his brothers True and Lemuel took turns staying home on the farm to help his mother. So after six monthson duty Selah returned to the farm and True enlisted. His brother Lemuel served for the whole war. During the time Selah was home from the war he and I were married. Soon after we were married it was his turn to return to war and he reenlisted and served for 

another three years. Selah was able tocome home for short visits while he served in the army and Reuben and Beckwith were both born in Connecticut during the Revolutionary War.

       When the war was over, Selah received fifty acres of land in the public domain for his service in the army. Land was not the only thing he received for serving three and one  half years in the Revolutionary War. Each private and noncommissioned officer was given $50.00 and a new suit as well as the fifty acres of land. We moved from our home in Connecticut west to a new area in upstate New York where Selah claimed his land. When we moved to New York Selah’s mother Hannah moved with us. Or son Almon was born in 1788 in Clinton, New York.

        We actually moved to Clinton with the Plymouth Congregational Society. Most of our congregation moved west together. We started a new church in Clinton. The Cooks have 

long been active in church life. My family member’s names are all on the charter of the 

Clinton church during that first year. I guess this was not the first time Selah’s family 

had moved west with a whole congregation. In 1632, over two hundred years ago, Selah’s 3rd

great-grandfather Henry Birdsdall, a Puritan, moved his family from Yorkshire England 

to Salem, Massachusetts Colony with their pastor and the whole church.

       George Washington had been the President of the United States of America for only a few months when the new government took the first official count of people living in the new

states. By 1790 we had moved again. It was very exciting to be  counted in the first census 

ever taken in the United States of America on August 2, 1790 when we were in Pittsfield,

Massachusetts.

        The Cook men, like many Americans, always seem to be on the move. It seems that as soon as we get settled, build a home, birth some children, and raise our crops and animals, the

grass seems to be greener a little further west. By 1795 we all moved again. Selah and I 

with our three boys, Trueworthy, his wife Freelove and their family, as well as his mother Hannah, moved to Pompey, New York where we were first settlers there too. True

and Selah were both able to buy large tracks of land in the area.

        Now there is talk of building a canal that will connect the Hudson River with the 

waters of Lake Erie. Our family has already moved west many times and there is talk of 

moving even further west when the land is available. I suppose when the Erie Canal is

open our men will want to move to Ohio, or Illinois or somewhere and settle more new 

land. I have seen pictures of the proposed canal and it looks like quite a feat if they can 

really build it. There is such a rise in elevation between the Hudson River and Lake

Erie. They are going to put in a series of locks and will be possible to float really heavy 

boats carrying freight and also people. The Erie Canal will have a ten foot wide tow path 

along the bank for horses, mules, and oxen lead by a boy boat driver to pull the boats

on the canal. It all seems so unreal to me. They say it should be open by 1825. I won’t live 

that long but I sure would like to see it. The Erie Canal will make it a lot easier for families to move. I suppose within a few years my boys will move their families even further west. 

That seems to be what President Jefferson wants; Americans from the Atlantic Ocean to 

the Pacific Ocean.

NOTE:

Selah died in 1812 in Pompey, Onondaga County, New

York. Lucy Beckwith Cook died in 1814 in Manlius, Onondaga

County, New York. These two small towns were about 8 miles

from each other.

Bibliography for Our Colonial Ancestors

Frank W. Cook; Cook Times, a family newsletter published in the 1970s, multiple issues

Multiple websites: Researching Henry Cook, Erie Canal,

         Revolutionary War, land grants

         www.afamilytree.net/Cook/henrycook.htm

         www.burrcook.com/history/cook.htm

         www.ancestry.com

         http://geology.com/statemaps

         www.lakelandschools.org

United States Censes Bureau: Census from 1790, 1800, 1810, 1820

The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy, 3^rd Edition, by          Val D. Greenwood, Genealogical Publishing Col, Inc,          Baltimore, Maryland, 2000