6 May 1879 -
SALEM IN MOURNING.
Just before noon on the 6th of May, 1879, after an illness of but a few days at his home in Salem, Hon. Edwin N. Cooke, passed away. The tolling of the church bell was the first announcement made to the community that another one of the men who helped to found this society, and who had borne a prominent part in the political councils of this State, had been summoned from our midst. Mr. Cooke was born at Adams, Jefferson county, New York, of the 27th of February, 1810, and moved with his parents to Ohio in 1817, settling with many relatives of the family name in what is yet known as "Cooke's Corners" in Huron county, of that State. Here the family endured many of the trials incident to the pioneer life of those days. Mr. Cooke first engaged in business of merchandising in Sandusky City. His business house being burned out he afterwards removed to Clyde and thence to Fremont. He was married on Sept. 5, 1835 at Oxford, Ohio to Miss Eliza Vendercook. In 1851 he removed with his family to Oregon, settling in Salem where he has ever since resided. Here he built the old "Headquarter's Building," and began the business of merchandising with our townsman, Geo. H. Jones, Esq., under the firm name of Jones, Cooke & Co. He was one of the founders of the P. T. Co., and was one of its directors from its foundation until its line of steamboats was sold to Mr. Holliday. In 1862 he was nominated by the Republican State Convention for State Treasurer, an office to which he was elected and which he held for the ensuing eight years, being reelected in 1866. In 1868, in company with his wife and Hon. J. S. Smith and family, he visited Europe where he remained several months. Ever since his arrival in Salem he has been active in encouraging everything that pertained to the public good. For many years he had been an active and efficient member of the Board of Trustees of Willamette University. On Dec. 6, 1852 in company with Hon. E. M. Barnum, Judge B. F. Harding, Gen. Joel Palmer and C. S. Woodworth, Esq., he organized Chemeketa Lodge No. 1, the first Odd Fellows Lodge organized on the Northwest Pacific Coast. He retained his membership in this lodge to the day of his death, a period of over 26 years, and is the only one of the charter members not living. For many years he had been a consistent member of the M. E. Church, and assisted in various ways by his counsels, and by the most liberal contributions from his purse, to aid in the work of this church. There is scarcely a branch of our society that will not keenly feel his loss. We sum up the sentiment of all who knew him when we say that a truly good man has fallen; one who helped to lay the foundations of our social and political fabric; one whose lot has been cast with our for more than a quarter of a century; one who has gone up and down our streets for a whole generation; one who in all these years has been foremost in every good work; one who in storm, or in sunshine was always the same kind, cheerful, firm, upright and unflinching soul, swerving neither to the right nor to the left, and obeying only the behests of duty. One whose every act, whose whole life was such as to "give the world assurance of a man." His career will stand as an enduring lesson -- a lasting commentary upon the exceeding beauty of a well ordered life; and the memory of his face will endear the associations of all the past with which it was connected. His form will moulder, his name will perish, his memory will die away and be forgotten, but the example he has left will exert an influence upon generations, to whom that face and that name and that memory were otherwise as nothing. For him death had no terrors. It was but an easy transition to something better, though unseen, beyond. The future was clear and unclouded. Surrounded by alll the comforts and luxuries which wealth could afford; he was willing, even anxious, to surrender all and accept death. Worn in body, but cheerful in spirit, broken with the labor and the toil of years, willing to stay, but at all times ready to go, he laid him down and calmly awaited the approach of the messenger of death. He felt that the pathway which all of earth's innumerable millions who had preceded him on the grand march had trodden, and down which all of earth's living must follow, had no terrors to be dreaded. Calmly and cheerfully and heroically he met his death like a soldier, not on the field of battle, where the blare of trumpets and the hope of earthly fame invites to danger and to death, but surrounded by all the sacred influences of home and of home loves which make life to attractive. Such was the life and such was the death of Edwin N. Cooke. There is a grandeur in such a life. There is something more than sublime in the calmness of such a death. Wherever his spirit moves in the realms of space, he can look down and back upon us with the calm assurance that he well and nobly did his duty and that the example he left behind was one which maketh not ashamed. May our last end be like his, and may we when the dread summons come, meet it with the same cheerfulness, and as calmly lay down, as if to pleasant dreams, with the full assurance that all is well beyond the gathering clouds and shadows of death. Cox
9 May 1879 -
HONORS TO THE DEAD -- The State House Closed, Business Suspended --
State Officials, Members of the Supreme Court, and Citizens Generally in Attendance --
Yesterday afternoon all that was mortal of E. N. Cooke was laid away in the family vault in the Odd Fellows' Cemetery to await the summons of Him who said, "I am the resurrection and the life". At 2 P.M. the Odd Fellows of Salem and a number from adjoining lodges in full regalia marched in solemn procession from their hall to the residence of their deceased brother. J. M. Patterson Esq., acting marshall. The remains accompanied with the family and friends were escorted to the M. E. Church in the usual form of the order. Messrs J. N. Dolph, J. H. Moores, J. M. Scott, R. P. Earhart, W. J. Herren, and J. J. Murphy were pallbearers. The family pew in the large auditorium was draped with crepe and flowers, floral offerings decked the altar. The organ pealed its solemn notes as the procession entered the church. Rev. Mr. Tower reading the burial service. The services at the church were beautiful and impressive. Revs. P. S. Knight and O. Dickenson participating with the pastor, Rev. Mr. Tower. A large concourse of friends paid their last tribute of respect to the worth and honored man, whom we shall see no more among us. The elegant casket containing his mortal remains was tastefully decorated with a profusion of exquisite flowers; among them wreaths and crosses, sent by friends from abroad. After the reading of select passages of scripture and prayer by Rev. P. S. Knight, Mr. Tower followed in an eloquent funeral discourse briefly recounting the incidents of Mr. Cook's life, a life so pure and beneficent that no word of reproach ever assailed it. Mr. Dickenson followed in a few fitting remarks of personal intercourse with deceased, and a tribute to the integrity and true nobility of his character. After the services in the church, the members of the order marched out in the reverse order of entrance, and escorted the funeral train down State Street to Commercial, thence to the cemetery. As the funeral procession slowly marched through the streets of the city the business houses were closed and the flags floated at half mast. Mourning for the dead was everywhere visible. Notwithstanding the cold rain the large procession attended the remains to the family vault, where the last sad, but impressive, burial ceremony of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows was performed. After which the casket was laid away in the family vault. The bereaved family of the deceased has the sympathy of a large circle of friends.
