Joseph Cookson was one of Hamilton County's earliest residents, and he had both a white and an Indian wife. His sons chose opposite armies during the Civil War.
Joseph Cookson lived near the Roarks, Haneys and other pioneers at the Old Salem community on the bank of Grasshopper Creek just south of Blythe's Ferry near the junction of the Tennessee and Hiwassee rivers. The name is variously spelled Cookson and Cookston. Joseph Cookson was enumerated on the 1835 special Cherokee Indian census in preparation for the deportation to the West. He was then living on a 55-acre farm near the later town of Ocoee at Cookson Creek.
Cookson, who was born about 1798, had first married Christina Vandergriff. Their children included Joseph A. Jr., Leonard, Isaac, Aaron, James and Sarah. But he was married on Jan. 25, 1820, at Rhea County to Jane “Jennie” Hildebrand, daughter of Michael and Nannie Martin Hildebrand. Michael Hildebrand was the oldest son of John Hildebrand, who had been born in North Carolina in 1781. John Hildebrand had come to the Indian country as a widower with five children, and he took a Cherokee, Susannah Woman Catcher, as his second wife. John Hildebrand, due to his Indian marriage, obtained a 640-acre reservation under the treaties of 1817 and 1819. It was on the north bank of the Hiwassee River at Conasauga Creek. Later, he moved south of the Hiwassee. Nannie, first wife of Michael Hildebrand, was a daughter of Col. Joseph Martin and Elizabeth Ward, daughter of the famous Cherokee “Beloved Woman” Nancy Ward. Michael Hildebrand also lived at Ocoee, where he had a ferry, two mills and a large farm. It was said his house took seven years to build, and it was situated where the Federal Road crossed the Ocoee. Many travelers stopped to spend the night at Michael Hildebrand's “public stand.”
By his Indian wife, Joseph Cookson had several children, including John Hildebrand “Jack” Cookson, Nancy Emily Cookson who married William Zion Pettit, and Elizabeth Cookson who married George Weigand. A.M. “Pete” Cookston of Aurora, Colo., who wrote a book on the family, concluded that Joseph Cookson “obviously was siring both
families at the same time.”
Under terms of the removal, Joseph Cookson and his Indian family had to go across the Mississippi along with many of the Hildebrands. They went out on the “Trail of Tears” in a contingent headed by Peter Hildebrand, younger brother of Michael Hildebrand. They departed Oct. 23, 1838, and arrived in Indian Territory on March 25, 1839. Joseph Cookson died in Oklahoma in 1865. Jane Hildebrand Cookson died in 1856. The town of Cookson, Okla., is named for their son Jack.
The white children of Joseph Cookson remained here, and some of the younger children resided with the George Campbells. Leonard married Martha E. Killian. They lived in
Meigs, then Bledsoe and finally in Marion County. Leonard joined Co. C of the 5th Tennessee Cavalry at Decatur, Tenn., but soon left the battle lines.
Aaron married Mary Elizabeth Taylor, then Martha J. Wilkerson. He moved to Missouri, then Texas. James married Isabelle Price, then Miriam Neal. He was in Texas when he joined a Confederate regiment.
Joseph A. Cookson Jr., who was born in 1822, married his Old Salem neighbor, Sarah A. Haney, about 1845 and they lived near Birchwood. Their children were Francis Marion
who married Elizabeth Talley and then Sarah A. Capp, Marianne Louisa who married Samuel A. Smith, Hiram who died in the 1860s, Mary E. who married William G. Curton, Elizabeth J. who married William F. Malone, Nancy A. who married James Cross, William who also died in the 1860s, and Martha Jeanette who married William J. Stulce.
Joseph A. Cookson Jr. enlisted in the Union Army at Decatur, Tenn., on March 2, 1862, and he fought at Stone's River, then arrived in Chattanooga just after the fighting at
Chickamauga. He was wounded on May 14, 1864, at Resaca, Ga., at a time when his unit suffered heavy losses while trying to capture Confederate rifle pits. He was sent to
Chattanooga, and then to Nashville, to recuperate. He had been “shocked and knocked down by the bursting of a shell near his head, which so injured his mind that he has ever
since been incompetent to a great extent. It damaged him very much physically. His head ever since the shock has been in constant pain.” John B. Roark, who was color guard
during the fighting at Resaca, said he “came up upon Cookson, wandering about alone in all directions. He was wholly deranged. I don't think he was conscious of anything - danger or anything around him.”
Joseph's younger brother, Isaac, meanwhile, had cast his lot with the Confederacy, enlisting with Co. I of the Fifth Tennessee Cavalry on Feb. 10, 1863. He was on scouting duty between Boston and Williamsburg, Ky., and was crossing the Cumberland River when his horse stumbled on a rock. It threw him on the horn of the saddle and ruptured his stomach. He complained to his captain at Big Creek Gap, Ky., and was finally told to “go home or to a hospital or somewhere out of the way of the command until he was able to do duty, that he was no account as he was.”
Isaac Cookson returned to his home in Meigs County, and he moved to East Chattanooga in the early 1900s. He peddled a medicine whose formula was given as: “1 quart alcohol and one-fourth ounce each of oil of hemlock, oil of sassafras, oil of wintergreen, oil of cinnamon, tincture myre, tincture organism, spirits of turpentine, sweet spirits niter, spirit lodum, spirit of chloroform, and spirit of camphor.” It was said a dose of the medicine would “surely kill or cure you.”
Isaac Cookson had 16 children by six wives. The last of his offspring was born when Isaac was 64. His wives were Martha Moreland, Sarah Brown, two marriages to Mary Ann Miller, Mrs. Belle Rose and Mrs. Mary Burk Dunlap. The Isaac Cookson children were Sarah Jane who married Milton Gee, Luke C. who married Isabell W. Hackett, James Henry, Cage Jefferson who married Kate Jordan of Michigan, L.S., Robert Edward who married Jane Riggs and then Sarah Whisenhunt, Mary Elizabeth who married C.W. Richardson, Laura Ann who married Robert E. Stephenson, J.M., Gaellin, Wintie, Hoyle Benson who married Mattie Lou Davis, Charles A., Starling, Lula E. and Clyde. Isaac Cookson was living in East Chattanooga when he died June 22, 1912.