Cook, Benjamin W.

The agent of the Anchorage plantation, in West Baton Rouge parish, is Benjamin W. Cook, who was born in New Orleans in 1849, and is a son of Paul Cook, a native of Massachusetts, who came South in 1848, and engaged in the produce business in New Orleans. He was a very successful business man, and resided in New Orleans until 1872, when he retired to an orange plantation which he had purchased near Summerfield, Marion county, Fla., where he still resides, at the age of eighty-two years, a strong democrat.

He married Elizabeth (Turner) Simmonds, an English lady, who died in 1887, a conscientious member of the Presbyterian church. Our subject was the fifth child born to the above parents, and was educated at a private school in New Orleans, taught by Rev. Mr. Jessop, an instructor of some note, and finished his studies in 1867. He then thoroughly learned the sugar refining business under his father, and followed that vocation for years. In 1878 he came to this parish, and engaged in planting as agent, besides the plantation of 700 acres named above, the Kelson plantation, cultivating about 840 acres on the two. He made 1,525,000 pounds of sugar last season, but lost severely by the heavy flood of that year; but the crop of this season will be equally extensive. He owns refineries on both plantations and turns out first-class produce only. Since his residence in this parish he has been a member of the police jury, and in politics is an active democrat. He is also an honored member of the Knights of Pythias. Mr. Cook married Miss Maud, daughter of Capt. John J. Brown, of whom further mention is made below.

Source: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Louisiana; Chicago; The Goodspeed Publishing Company, 1892