Edmund Cook Biography


	This biography appears on pages  1238-1239in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	EDMUND COOK was born in the province of Saxony, Germany, on the 
20th of March, 1847. After receiving a thorough academic training he 
entered a commercial establishment and later became a bookkeeper until 
entering the Prussian army in 1865. In common with all able-bodied young 
men of Germany, he was obliged to devote a certain number of years to 
military service, and it so happened that shortly after entering the 
army the war between Prussia and Austria broke out and it fell to him to 
take an active and by no means unimportant part in that celebrated 
struggle. He went through the one campaign of the war, that of 1866, 
during the greater part of which he was on the staff of General Von 
Barneco, commanding the Twelfth Regiment of Hussars, and saw much active 
service. When hostilities ceased Mr. Cook was honorably discharged, 
after which he re-entered mercantile life and continued to give it his 
attention as long as he remained in the fatherland. According to the 
custom; which requires every soldier to report for duty at certain 
times, young Cook, at the age of twenty, was thus called upon and in due 
time presented himself at the proper place. To the great surprise and 
astonishment of the officers, however, the young man came into their 
presence decorated with the cross of honor, won for brave and 
meritorious conduct, and with a discharge in his pocket, which fact 
exempted him from further military duty. Shortly after this he came to 
the United States, intending to be absent but one year, but after 
spending some months in this country he became so attached to it and so 
pleased with the advantages it held out to young men with ambition to 
rise in the world, that he concluded not to return to Germany. Mr. Cook 
reached America in 1868 and some time afterwards located at Milwaukee, 
Wisconsin, where he accepted the position of traveling salesman for a 
wholesale house. He later represented a St. Paul firm on the road for 
several years. In 1882 he came to Wilmot, South Dakota, and established 
the general store which he has conducted with success and financial 
profit to the present time. Recently he began closing out this 
establishment, the better to devote his attention to his other business 
enterprises, being vice-president of the First State Bank of Wilmot and 
a director of the Wilmot Land and Loan Company, besides having large 
landed interests in various parts of Roberts county. 
For several years Mr. Cook devoted considerable attention to live stock 
and farming and achieved quite a reputation as an importer and breeder 
of Oxford-down sheep and other high-grade domestic animals. While not so 
much interested in stock raising as formerly, he now farms quite 
extensively and to this vocation he proposes to devote the greater part 
of his time hereafter, finding it not only greatly to his taste, but 
quite profitable as a source of income. Among his lands is a fine farm 
of three hundred and thirty acres, contiguous to Wilmot, ten acres 
within the city limits, and on this place he has made many valuable 
improvements, including one of the handsomest modern residences in the 
county, which, surrounded by beautiful grounds, tastefully laid out in 
gardens, shade trees, walks, smooth lawns, interspersed with flowers, 
etc., bespeaks the home of a man of wealth, elegant leisure, refined 
taste and decidedly progressive ideas. 

	Mr. Cook was married in Plainview, Minnesota, June 1, 1875, to 
Miss Martha Brooks, daughter of Reuben Brooks, a pioneer of that state 
and for many years a leading citizen of his community. Mr. and Mrs. Cook 
have one child, a son by the name of Arthur W. They are among the most 
highly esteemed people of Wilmot, take an active interest in everything 
pertaining to the growth and development of the city, are alive to all 
charitable and benevolent enterprises, and the hospitality of their 
beautiful home is unbounded. 

	In his political affiliations Mr. Cook is a prominent Democrat and 
has perhaps as much influence in his party as any man in northeastern 
Dakota. He has been a delegate to nearly every county, district and 
state convention in the last twenty years, and in 1896 was a delegate to 
the Chicago national convention, in addition to which he has also been 
nominated for a number of important offices, his election being made 
impossible by reason of normally overwhelming Republican majorities. Mr. 
Cook is a thirty-second-degree Scottish-rite Mason, also a Knight 
Templar, besides belonging to various other branches of the order and he 
has long been a familiar figure at all the meetings of the grand lodge.