Lawyers and Lawmakers of Kentucky, by H. Levin, editor, 1897. Published
by Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago.  Reprinted by Southern Historical
Press.  p. 204.  Jefferson County.

LYTTLETON COOKE, of Louisville, Kentucky, was born in King and Queen
county, Virginia, on the 28th day of October, 1831, and is a descendant
of one of the old and prominent families of the Old Dominion.  The
founders of the Cooke family in Virginia came from England, and were
among the earliest immigrants to that colony, their names appearing as
officials and land owners among the records of the several counties on
the peninsula between the York and James rivers, and in the counties of
Gloucester and King and Queen, early in the seventeenth century.  They
and their descendants have always occupied highly respectable positions
in both business and social circles, and many of them, both male and
female, have intermarried with some of the most prominent and influential
families in Virginia and in other states to which some of them emigrated.
Captain Dawson Cooke, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was
a commissioned officer in the Continental or Virginia navy during the
Revolutionary war, and was serving as such on the ship Gloucester at the
close of that war, being present at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at
Yorktown.  After the close of the war, Captain Cooke retired from the
navy, and in 1787, as it appears from the county records, was serving
as sheriff of King and Queen county.
     Henry Cooke, father of Lyttleton Cooke, was born in King and Queen
county, Virginia, about the year 1801.  After receiving a fairly good
education, he commenced life as a country merchant, and thus continued
until after his marriage in 1830 to Louisa Johnston, of Gloucester county.
Soon after his marriage, as he and his wife had each inherited a
considerable number of negro slaves, he purchased a farm or plantation
in King and Queen county, and lived the quiet life of a country gentleman
during his few remaining years.  He died at the age of thirty-five or
thirty-six years.  Louisa Johnston was the only child of her parents who
survived infancy.  She was born in Gloucester or Matthews county, Virginia
(the latter county having been formerly a part of Gloucester county), in
1811, and died in 1858.  Her father was Thomas Johnston, and her mother
was a Miss Kemp.  They owned an estate on the Piankantank river, where
they both died, the mother when their daughter Louisa was less than two,
and the father when she was about five years old.  The Johnstons were of
Scotch descent.
     Lyttleton Cooke, the only son of Henry Cooke, was only five or six
years of age at the time of his father's death, and, his mother having
contracted a second marriage, he was while still a child sent from
home to school, and passed nearly all of his childhood and youth in
boarding schools and academies until he commenced the study of law,
which he did at the early age of seventeen, having determined to leave
Virginia and seek a home in the west as soon as he could possibly do so.
He was thus separated to a great extent from his relatives and family
connections, and has had but little communication with them since,
having, as will be seen from the above, very few who were or are closely
related to him.  At the age of eighteen he entered the law school of the
University of Virginia, but did not graduate, having a few days before
the examination commenced, consented to act as "second" for a friend who
had been challenged by another student to fight a duel, and in
consequence thereof the parties involved in the affair were quietly
informed not to present themselves for examination in any of their
classes.  After leaving the University of Virginia, Mr. Cooke. although
not having attained his majority, in the early part of the year 1851
removed to St. Louis, Missouri, having been previously examined and
declared competent to be admitted to the bar by Judge John B. Clopton
of the Williamsburg (Virginia) circuit court, and by Judges Cabell and
Brooke of the court of appeals of that state.  After familiarizing
himself with the Code of Practice and the statute law of Missouri, he
was admitted to the bar in St. Louis without being required to stand any
further examination.  At this time the conflict between the Benton and
the anti-Benton wings of the Democratic part in Missouri was at its
height.  Mr. Cooke, who was always a Democrat, warmly espoused the cause
of the anti-Benton wing of the party in that contest, and in 1854,
although not eligible because of his youth, he was nominated as one of the
anti-Benton Democratic candidates to represent the city and county of St.
Louis in the legislature of Missouri; but, those with whom he acted being
in a hopeless minority in that city and county, he was, as he expected to
be, defeated with the other candidates of his party.  However, in 1856,
because of the ability he had shown as a political debater in his canvass
for the legislature, he was nominated by the Democratic state convention of
Missouri as a candidate for presidential elector, and was elected, and cast
his vote in the electoral college for James Buchanan for president and for
John C. Breckinridge for vice president.
     The following year Mr. Cooke, having in the meantime met and become
engaged to be married to the lady who subsequently became his wife, in
order to eschew politics, in which he felt that he had become too deeply
involved to conveniently withdraw therefrom in Missouri, and feeling
that he was not financially able to pursue a political career, removed
to Paducah, Kentucky, for the purpose of devoting his entire time to
his profession as a lawyer.  He soon acquired a fair practice in that
growing little city and the surrounding counties.
     But in 1861, the war between the states having broken out, and there
being at that time little or no law to practice in Kentucky, and Mr.
Cooke's home in Paducah having been broken up and destroyed by federal
soldiers, because of his strong and pronounced sympathy with the cause
of the south, he removed to Louisville.  However, he was able to do but
little in his profession during the continuance of the war, as he did not
hesitate to avow his sympathies with the south during that period;
although, as Kentucky did not secede from the Union, his extreme
states-rights views compelled him to recognize his allegiance to that
state and the Union to which it belonged.
     In 1867 Mr. Cooke was elected, as a Democrat, to the Kentucky senate
from the thirty-seventh district, composed of the central wards of the
city of Louisville, in which the great preponderance of its intelligence
and wealth is located, and served in that body for four years, and was a
member of the judiciary committee, and chairman of the committee on
railroads and also that on banks and insurance.  He was a close personal
friend of Hon. John W. Stevenson, who was governor of the state during
that time, and was one of his most intimate and trusted friends and
advisers in respect to public matters.  Mr. Cooke's service as a senator,
commencing soon after the close of the war, covered a period of unusual
excitement and feeling in state politics, and many questions of great
interest and importance came up before the legislature during that time,
in all of which he took a prominent and leading part, being the author
of the statute which first admitted negroes to testify on an equality
with whites in the courts of Kentucky.
     In 1868, pending his services in the senate, he was chosen a
delegate from Kentucky to the national Democratic convention in New
York, which nominated Seymour and Blair for president and vice president,
respectively, of the United States.  At that convention he was one of the
close personal friends and trusted advisers of the Hon. George H.
Pendleton, of Ohio, who at that time was a prominent candidate for the
nomination for president of the United States, and was uncompromising in
his opposition to the nomination of Salmon P. Chase, or any other
Republican, as the Democratic candidate, as was proposed and advocated
by many members of that convention.
     In 1877, unsolicited on his part, Mr. Cooke was elected a member of
the house of representatives in the general assembly of Kentucky, and
served one term.  But this interfered to such an extent with his practice
as a lawyer that he declined further public service or office.  In 1873
Mr. Cooke was appointed district attorney for Kentucky of the Louisville
& Nashville Railroad Company, which position he has held continuously
since, and which engrosses all his time.
     During the late presidential canvass Mr. Cooke, like many other
Democrats who for some years had not been actively participating in
political movements, became deeply interested and aroused at the action
of the so-called Democratic convention which met at Chicago in July,
1896, and was among the first to unite in movement which resulted in
the protest of the true Democrats against what he considered the insane,
revolutionary and anarchic sentiments promulgated by that body, and
took an active part in forwarding the movement which resulted in the
assembling of the Indianapolis convention, and the nomination of Palmer
and Buckner, and cast his vote for electors pledged to vote for them;
and he is an uncompromising believer in gold as the only measure or
standard of values, and that it must ever be the basis for a sound and
stable currency, and has always been such a consistent and uncompromising
Democrat that he refused to vote for electors pledged to vote for Horace
Greenley, when he was nominated by a so-called Democratic convention for
president, and in that campaign cast his vote for electors pledged to
vote for Charles O'Conor.
     In Louisville, June 12, 1860, Mr. Cooke married Miss Alice Wilson,
third daughter of Dr. Thomas E. and Caroline (Bullitt) Wilson, both of
whom were descendants of leading and honored pioneer people of
Louisville, who in the development and progress of the city left the
impress of their individuality on its public advancement and culture,
and on its business and social life.  Mrs. Cooke died in 1890, leaving
two daughters, Alice and Caroline Wilson, the former now the wife of
David A. Keller.
     At the bar Mr. Cooke occupies an eminent place, accorded him on
account of his superior legal attainments and high personal character
which commands the greatest respect.  With methodical business habits and
untiring industry, his fine analytical mind enables him to successfully
cope with his adversaries in all departments of law, and his comprehensive
knowledge of the science of jurisprudence supplies him with almost
unlimited authority and precedent.  "Time tests the merits of all things,"
and for thirty years it has set the stamp of approval upon the work and
character of Lyttleton Cooke, who today is one of the foremost among the
citizens of Louisville, and one of the leading members of the Kentucky bar.

Cooke Johnston Kemp Bullitt Wilson Pendleton Keller
=
McCracken-KY Gloucester-VA Matthews-VA King_and_Queen-VA OH MO England

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/jefferson/cooke.l.txt