The Lewis Jernigan Cooper Family
of Baldwin County
Lewis Jernigan Cooper was born 18 May 1838 in Thomas County, Georgia, to Lewis Jordan and Jane Cumbaa Cooper. Before reaching his teens, his family settled in Dale County, where they remained until Lewis was grown. On 29 November 1860 in Butler County, Lewis married Elizabeth E.A. Walker, born about 1825 in Tennessee and eldest daughter of James and Elizabeth Walker.
Lewis and Elizabeth moved with his family to Baldwin County, but enjoyed only a brief marriage. On 7 October 1861 John Bell Cooper was born. On April 18 of the following year Lewis enlisted in Mobile as a Private in Company C of the 32nd Regiment Alabama Infantry. In the late summer of 1864 Union forces removed him from Baldwin County to the military prison in Louisville, Kentucky. Upon pledging to remain north of the Ohio River for the war's duration, he gained release.
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Lewis Jernigan Cooper
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At war's end, he returned home, where Elizabeth gave birth to their daughter, Mary Eliza Cooper 2 March 1866. Her mother died one month later, on 27 April 1866. Elizabeth's death left Lewis a widower with two young children.
Lewis remarried 17 December 1866, to Elizabeth "Jane" Wynn, the daughter of John H. and Louisiana M. Wynn. She was born in Florida about 1844, but her family had settled in the Summerdale area of Baldwin County, south of the Cooper homeplace in Rosinton. Thus, Lewis Jordan Cooper and his son, Lewis Jernigan, both had wives named Jane. In 1870 the younger brother of Lewis Jernigan. Cooper married the younger sister of Jane Wynn Cooper.
Family history holds that John H. Wynn owned land in South Baldwin, where Lewis and Jane moved in the early 1870s. For his second family, he built the white house now known as Cooper's Landing on Bon Secour River. Lewis and Jane's marriage was a strong bond of opposites. Together, they had six daughters and one son, their youngest.
Lewis became a local legend for his exploits, strength, and fearlessness, acquiring the nickname "Old Man Lou". His Confederate records indicate he had sandy hair, blue eyes, and stood six feet tall. Witnesses claim he once threw a horse over a fence. This reputation was probably an asset considering he distilled his own whiskey to supply the bar in his home.
This same bar was the site of Sunday services conducted by his wife, Jane. Those bar patrons who didn't make it home on Saturday night might find themselves awakening on an island in the Bon Secour River, where Old Man Lou arrived just in time to return them for services held by his wife.
On 27 November 1884, John Bell Cooper married Elizabeth Weekley. They moved north of Bay Minette and had eight children: Della, Ida, John "Louis", Litha Jane, William, Lorena, Armand, and Eliza. John's Bell's full sister, Mary Eliza, married Cyrus W. White and they, too, moved to the central party of the county. Both are buried in the McGill-Bryars Cemetery in Raybun.
Lewis and Jane's eldest was Ardell C. Cooper, born 17 March 1868. She married Henry H. Helton on 30 May 1883. They remained in Baldwin County and among their children were Henry L., Clara, Till, and Ella. Henry H. Helton died of sarcoma in April 1897. Upon Ardell's death 7 October 1934, she was buried next to her husband in Liberty Cemetery in Stapleton.
Jessie Cooper was born 23 May 1870 in Robertsdale and married at Cooper's Landing 13 June 1886 Joseph W. Wenzel. They remained in Bon Secour, as did their children, six sons and a daughter. Joseph Wenzel died after a long illness 19 March 1919. His Woodmen of the World tombstone is in Wynn Cemetery, east of Summerdale. Jessie died of heart disease 12 April 1946, but was buried at Pine Rest, west of Foley.
Delia Anna Cooper was born 30 December 1871. She married John Marion English on 1 July 1886. They remained in Baldwin County, having eight children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. The children married into the families of Anderson, McKinley, Ard, Ware, Rigdon, and Hutchison.
Alice Cooper was born in Bon Secour 11 March 1874. She married on 3 October 1894 at Cooper's Landing to Charles Augustus Clarke. This family settled in Mobile County. Apparently, Alice's parents made frequent visits by steamboat.
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Lewis Jernigan Cooper
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Old Man Lou died of a heart attack near Battles Wharf on a return trip 29 January 1902, a month before his son, John Bell Cooper died in Perdido. Old Man Lou was buried in Wynn Cemetery.
In August 1906, Alice named newborn son Lewis. Jane arrived at their home in Coden to help with the infant when, without warning, a massive hurricane struck on September 26, 1906. The infant died in Jane's arms when the storm surge carried debris into the home. The storm also claimed Jane and Alice's three-year-old, Madge. The dead were buried in St. Michael's Cemetery in Coden, where Alice was also buried after she died in 1938, on the hurricane's anniversary.
Elizabeth Jane Cooper was born 27 October 1877. In another case of sisters marrying brothers, she married Charles English 27 May 1896. Their six daughters were Elisa, Edna, Vester, Alice, Marie, and Rosie. Husband and wife died in 1966 and are buried in Wynn Cemetery,
On 13 March 1881 Eliza Mina Cooper was born. She married Edward W. Fell 26 July 1903. Their children include Walter, Odeal, Frank, Irma, and Ella. Edward died in 1948 and Eliza died in 1977. Both are buried in Wynn Cemetery.
Old Man Lou and Jane's youngest child was Dixon H. Louis Cooper. He was born 17 March 1883, and went by the name "Mose". His wife, Annie, was from Illinois, and three of their �hjldren lived to adulthood, Thelma, Quitman, and Van. Mose inherited Cooper's Landing, and his three children raised their families on the river. After his death on 8 January 1954, the bridge near the landing was named Mose Cooper Bridge.
Written 2001 for The Baldwin County Heritage Book.
Submitted by: Lance B. Young, Two Fountain Abbey, Pensacola, FL
