Holbrook line: Nicholas Cook 1659-1730 Baptist

Nicholas Cook is interesting to me because he was an early Baptist, yet was permitted to live in his hometowns without apparent harm or discrimination.  He may or may not have known our ancestor Roger Williams, but he would surely have known of him, because Bellingham, Massachusetts, his final earthly home, was not far from Rhode Island.  But I'm getting ahead of his story.

Nicholas was born February 9, 1659/60 to Walter Cook.  His mother may have been Catherine Brenton.  I look at all the reasons why Catherine is Nicholas's mother, and then I look at the arguments against it, and I just scratch my head.  Walter was definitely married when Nicholas was born, and Nicholas is his son.  He was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, where his father had settled before moving on to Mendon.  Mendon was a large territory but not a higly populated town.  In fact, Mendon had to be abandoned during King Philip's War.  The settlers had already fled but the native Americans burned the small settlement anyway. Based on the reported birth locations of Walter's children, it appears that the family moved to Mendon sometime between 1664 and 666, so they were there perhaps 10 years before the war broke out.

Nicholas would have been about 16 years old as the war began, so he may or may not have been involved.  I didn't find his name in the books "Soldiers in King Philip's War", so perhaps he was detailed to help care for the women and children, wherever they had gone.  It would have been perhaps 40 miles for the family to travel back to Weymouth, but perhaps they did travel that far.  We just don't know.  and

Nicholas married Joanna Rockwood or Rocket, daughter of John and Joanna Ford Rockwood on November 11, 1684 in Mendon. Nicholas was about 25 and Joanna was just seventeen years old at the time.   The couple set up housekeeping and had eeven children together, so Nicholas had much to do to keep these mouths fed, and Joanna was constantly busy, too.  Nicholas is listed as a husbandman, so he owned land.

Mendon was founded in 1660, and it was much larger than its present boundaries at the time.  One of the towns that it "birthed" was Bellingham, and that is where Nicholas and Joanna lived.  Nicholas is considered one of the first two founders of the town,  Both men (the other was Jacob Bartlett) were Baptists, but we don't know for sure whether they became Baptists after the town was formed, or whether they had formed their decisions earlier.  Bellingham has been described as a town of Quakers and Baptists during its early years, so it must have attracted dissenters and protected them, too, as necessary. 

Nicholas was chosen constable for his section of town in 1708, indicating he had a certain standing in the town.  Joanna died two years later, and Nicholas had children to care for.  The youngest was just three years old and the oldest about 20.  Two years after Joanna's death, he married Mehitable Hayward Staples, widow of Abraham Staples.  She had four children when she married, and the new couple had a son, so a large family became, in my way of thinking, enormous.

Nicholas died at Bellingham on December 1, 1730.  For a husbandman, he had a sizable estate valued at 1200 pounds.  I found his inventory, and there is discussion in the estate pages (found in Suffolk County) about how the estate should be divided.  Nicholas didn't leave a will, so the court did the best they could with the division of land and property.  Somehow the 1200 pounds worked out to about 79 pounds for each of the children, which may mean that Mehitable was still alive and got her widow's third.  

Nicholas's inventory included 4 pieces of property, with the most highly valued being one that had his homestead on it.  He had books valued at one pound, and militia arms, so he perhaps had not yet been excused from training duty.  Most of his other inventory was either household goods or typical farming equipment, including several cattle of various types, swine, and sheep, as well as what were probably cash crops of grains. 

I've been glad to make the very brief acquaintance of Nicholas.  These men (and women) who stood up for their religious convictions fascinate me.  What gave them the strength to resist government and peer pressure, to follow their own understanding of God's Word?  Did they suffer for their stand? 

The line of descent is:

Nicholas Cook-Joanna Rockwood
Mary Cook-Joseph Holbrook
Jesse Holbrook-Abigail Thayer
Amariah Holbrook-Molly Wright
Nahum Holbrook-Susanna Rockwood
Joseph Holbrook-Mary Elizabeth Whittemore
Fremont Holbrook-Phoebe Brown
Loren Holbrook-Etta Stanard
Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen
Their descendants