Sears Cook
Sears Cook
| Born | 1807-05-01 Billerica, MA |
| Died | 1836-12-01 Billerica, MA |
| Father | Francis Cook |
| Mother | Elizabeth Ruggles |
| Spouses |
Fanny Butters |
| Children | Sears (b. 1834-09-29) |
Sears Cook (1807-1836) was a young Billerica farmer who died at twenty-nine, leaving a widow and two small children. He was born on May 1, 1807, the son of selectman Francis Cook and Elizabeth Ruggles, a granddaughter of the Rev. Samuel Ruggles, and was named for his grandfather, Lt. Sears Cook. The family's homestead lay on the Shawsheen in the east part of the town, at the Wilmington line. His father died in 1831 and his mother in 1834.
On August 26, 1832 he married Fanny T. Butters of Wilmington. Their twins, Fanny Jane and Sears James, were born on November 3, 1832; the boy died a year later, and a second son, Sears James Cook, was born on September 29, 1834. His brother Francis died in October 1836, and Sears himself died on December 1, 1836, without a will.
His widow declined the administration, and on January 10, 1837 the Probate Court at Cambridge appointed Sewall Buck of Wilmington, yeoman, administrator, with Ezra Kendall of Billerica and James Jaques of Wilmington as sureties. The inventory, taken the day before by Joseph Gleason, Jesse Hopkins and Timothy Carter, shows a small working farm: about fifty acres of land in Billerica with one half of a house and barn on it, valued at $1,000, and personal estate of $275.65, including a pair of oxen and a bull, English and meadow hay, four beds, a bureau, chairs, crockery and pewter, a spinning wheel, a shoemaker's bench, potatoes, pork, apples and four barrels of cider. The court allowed Fanny $240 of the personal estate and made her guardian of the two children. In April 1837 she married his brother John Cook, who died that November.