John Parsons Cook

John Parsons Cook (born August 31, 1817 in Whitestown , New York , † April 17, 1872 in Davenport , Iowa ) was an American politician . Between 1853 and 1855 he represented the state of Iowa in the US House of Representatives .

Career

In 1836, John Cook and his father moved to Davenport, what later became the state of Iowa. After studying law and being admitted to the bar in 1842, he began practicing his new profession in Tipton , Iowa . Politically, Cook became a member of the Whig Party . Between 1842 and 1845 he sat on the territorial government council. After Iowa's accession to the Union, he was a member of the State Senate between 1848 and 1851 . In 1851 he returned to Davenport where he worked as a lawyer. In 1850 he ran unsuccessfully against the Democrat Lincoln Clark for Congress .

In 1852 Cook was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the second constituency of Iowa . There he took over from Clark on March 4, 1853, whom he had defeated in the election. Since he was no longer nominated by his party in the following elections in 1854, he was only able to complete one legislative period in Congress until March 3, 1855, which was overshadowed by the discussions about the question of slavery . Unlike most of his party friends, Cook was a supporter of slavery. This attitude contributed to his non-nomination in 1854.

After his tenure in the House of Representatives, John Cook returned to work as a lawyer. He also got into banking in Davenport. After the Whig's dissolution in the late 1850s, he became a member of the Democratic Party. However, until his death in 1872 he no longer held any higher political office.

Web links

• John Parsons Cook in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• John Parsons Cook in the database of Find a Grave (English)