Thomas Boyd Cook Biography
By Barton “Barty” Wyatt
Son-in-Law

Thomas Boyd Cook was born May 8, 1859, at Rockview, Wyoming County, Virginia (now West Virginia).  He was the son of Thomas Munsey Cook and Rebecca Sizemore and died in March 1914.

His father and mother were God-fearing people and his mother spent much time in prayer.  When she began to worry about the perplexing problems that faced her in the domestic life, she would grab up her little boy (little Boyd then about twelve months old) and hasten down to her favorite prayer place behind a large rock at lower edge of the lawn.  There with her baby in her arms, she would kneel and pour her whole heart out to God, dedicating her child to God to be used in His service.

The Reverent T. B. Cook had a limited education which he received mostly in the Wyoming County schools around 1871.  His father moved to Mercer County when he was a teenage boy and settled on Widemouth Creek, where he met and married his second wife Nance McComas.  This marriage gave young Boyd a permanent home until he was twenty-one, when he met and married Louisa Estus Thompson, a daughter of Gordon Thompson, a Civil War Confederate soldier.  She was born April 19, 1861.

At the age of twenty-five he felt keenly the call to the ministry.  Before he was twenty-five there was an epidemic of smallpox in Mercer and the edge of Wyoming Counties which took its toll of human lives before it ended.  There were so many deaths that it was hard to get people buried and it was impossible to get anyone to wait on the sick.  The entire Cook family, the father, mother and three children were down at the same time.  No one would come into the home to help the sick on account of the fear of taking the disease.  The neighbors would prepare the food and place it where the family could get it.  They also prepared wood for the fire.  Old Dr. Carr, the grandfather of Daniel Carr, was the only available doctor for this epidemic, who would venture into the homes and treat the sick.

After the epidemic, Thomas Boyd Cook obeyed his call to the ministry.  The mantle of some departed soul-minister had fallen on his shoulders and he began preaching like a whirlwind.  In early ministry he let his beard grow long as was the custom in those days, but in later years he was smooth shaven with a mustache.  During his lifetime he baptized, married and preached the funerals of hundreds of people.

In 1898 – 1902, he served as Sheriff and Deputy Sheriff under the late James “Jim” White who died about the middle of his term of office, at which time the Rev. Cook was appointed to fill the unexpired term by the Mercer County.  At that time there was only one Deputy Sheriff in the County and he did the collection of taxes and served as a Peace officer.

After his term of Sheriff was over, he settled down to farming and preaching.  He owned a farm at Pinoak near Matoaka where he lived all of his life.  He also owned quite a boundry of surface land over the Springston mines where he did most of his farming.  The Springton Coal Company in mining out the coal sand the water and broke the surface in many places; consequently he was instituting suit against them for damages and at which time the Pocahontas Land Company came to their rescue and paid Reverend Cook $10,000. for his farm.

In 1907, he moved to the town of Athens for the purpose of educating his children.  He bought a home in Athens at the North end of State Street and a farm of 103 acres where the Brunks now live.  Here he settled down again to farming and preaching.  The great burden of his life was the saving of his children.  Out of his large family he only saw three of them baptized.  Thomas Boyd Cook is buried in the Athens Cemetery with his wife and five of his children near him.

Thomas Boyd Cook and Louisa Thompson were married on October 27, 1877.  They were the parents of Forest P., Wayne M. Jay, Ted B., Dale, Gester, Mrs. Effie Oakes, Mrs. Robert Campbell, Mrs. Emerson Walker, Mrs. John Lyons, and Lake W.