[6]
1638
A road was laid out from Watertown line to Cooke's Mills at Menotomy.—Proprietors' Records of Cambridge.
This mill, probably erected in 1637, or the year previous, was the first erected in Menotomy, since Arlington, and the earliest, with the exception of a windmill—see Paige, 20—in Cambridge. Col. George Cooke, its owner, was slain in Ireland in the wars in 1652. His mill is now Fowle's, near Arlington Centre, long known as Cutter's Mill.1
1642
The Proprietors' Records contain the statement that Capt. Cooke, or Mr. George Cooke, had imprimis, one dwelling-house, with mill and out-houses, with twenty acres of land; Charlestown line east, Common south, west and north, in 1642. This was outside of the ‘town’ proper. Capt. George Cooke had the grant of a farm of 600 acres from the town, in the vicinity of his mill, 1640 (Paige, 42); and mention is made in a deed of the Squa-Sachem (widow of the Sagamore) and Webecowit (her then husband) to the town of Charlestown, under date of 15 (2) 1639, of the ‘little runnet that cometh from Capt. Cooke's mill.’—Midd. Registry, i. 175.
Cooke came to New England in 1635, in the same vessel with Rev. Thomas Shepard, the minister of Cambridge. He was then twenty-five years of age, and he and his brother Joseph Cooke were registered as servants, as a disguise to enable them the more easily to leave England. Immediately on his arrival, he purchased, in connection with his brother, a large number of houses and lots in Cambridge, of those who were about removing to Connecticut. Mr. George Cooke was chosen captain for Newtown (now Cambridge) by order of the General Court in 1637 (Paige, 43). He was. Selectman, 1638, 42, 43; Deputy or Representative, 1636, 42-45, and Speaker of the House in 1645. He was one of the earliest members of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1638-9, and its captain in 1643; and when a similar company was incorporated in Middlesex County, May 14, 1645, he was its first captain. In 1643 the town paid him for the charge he had been at for making a fence to secure the Indians' corn (Paige, 384).2 In 1643 Capt. George Cooke was one of the Commissioners—three in number—and Commander-in-chief of
