Diary of Captain John Cooke, 1794 Prepared by the Staff of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County 1953 One of a historical series, this pamphlet is published under the direction of the governing Boards of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE SCHOOL CITY OF FORT WAYNE B. F. Geyer, President Joseph E. Kramer, Secretary W. Page Yarnelle, Treasurer Willard Shambaugh Mrs. Sadie Fulk Roehrs PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD FOR ALLEN COUNTY The members of this Board include the members of the Board of Trustees of the School City of Fort Wayne (with the same officers), together with the following citizens chosen from Allen County outside the corporate city of Fort Wayne: James E. Graham Arthur Niemeier Mrs. Glenn Henderson Mrs. Charles Reynolds FOREWORD Primary source materials relating to General Wayne’s sojourn at Fort Wayne are scarce. Extracts from the diary of one of his captains were published in the FORT WAYNE GAZETTE eighty years ago. The Boards and the Staff of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County reprint these extracts in the hope that they will be interesting and informative to students of local history. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation have been changed to conform to current usage. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania June, 1873 To the Editors of the GAZETTE: The following extracts from the journal of Captain John Cooke of the Fourth Sublegion of General Wayne’s army will be of interest to your antiquary (if Fort Wayne is old enough to boast of antiquities), since it contains the earliest market quotations of your city, notices of the first sermons preached there, etc. Captain Cooke was a son of Colonel William Cooke, Twelfth Pennsylvania Regiment of the Continental Establishment; he entered the legal profession, which he later abandoned for that of arms. He afterward lived and died at Northumberland Town, Pennsylvania. His son, Jacob Cooke, Esq., is the possessor of this journal, which is written in a very scholarly hand and with great observance of details, most of which I have omitted as of no interest to the general reader. In the summer of 1792, Captain Cooke returned with General Wayne; with a party of officers on furlough to Philadelphia, he was personally introduced by General Wayne to General Washington. His fellow-officers accompanied him to a fashionable boarding school in Philadelphia. There, in his battle-stained clothes, he married his cousin, Jennie Cooke of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. John B. Linn September 17, 1794