Augustus and Mary Ann Cooke

Augustus Cooke was a native of Connecticut. A teacher by profession, he came to what is now Erie County in the late 1820s. He died about 1840.  His second wife was Mary Ann Eddy, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Roswell Eddy, pioneer settlers of what is now Erie County, Ohio. Mary Ann had come to this area with her parents from Connecticut in 1817. By 1860, Mary Ann Cooke was a widow, and she was residing with her son Charles E. Cooke in Sandusky. In the 1860s, Charles Eddy Cooke and George A. Cooke were operating a dry goods store at the northwest corner of Water Street and Columbus Avenue. Later the brothers purchase the large building at the northeast corner of Columbus Avenue and Market. This building became known as the Cooke Block, and it has been an important piece of commercial property in downtown Sandusky for decades. Mary Ann (Eddy) Cooke died in May of 1888.