BIOGRAPHY OF DANIEL J COOPER
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| DANIEL J. COOPER resides on Tenmile creek about ten miles up from The Dalles. He was born in Bradley county, Tennessee, on August 23, 1836. His father, Elbert E. Cooper, was a native of Kentucky. His parents were also born in Kentucky. The mother's father, the great-grandfather of our subject was George Frederick Cooper, a native of Germany. During the Revolution such was the intense feeling against King George that he dropped the name George and it was never used by him afterward, he always being known as Frederick. He fought during the Revolution and was finally married in North Carolina to Dorothy Call, who came from a prominent and influential colonial family, which is still a lead-ing family in the south. He made several trips to Kentucky with Boone and finally settled there where he died. It is stated that his little log cabin is standing there to this day. Our subject's father was reared in Kentucky until sixteen years of age when his father died and he went to Tennessee where he was married to Nancy Wann, a native of Meigs county, Tennessee. Her parents were natives of Virginia and their ancestors originally came from Wales, among the early settlers of the Virginia colony. Nancy (Wann) Cooper's mother, our subject's grandmother, was Lydia Stockton before her marriage to Mr. Wann. Her father, Clayton Stockton, married Nancy Patton. Clayton and Nancy (Patton) Stockton were born Quakers, but later became Baptists. They migrated from Virginia to Tennessee. Clayton Stockton served in the War of 1812. Our subject was raised principally in Missouri where his parents moved when he was two years of age. He was well educated in the district schools and the high school and when twenty left home for California with his uncle, Michael W. Buster. They crossed the plains with ox teams to Santa Rosa and vicinity. He did well cutting wood for the Santa Rosa mills, then went to Fraser river and finally came back to San Francisco broke and disgusted. He spent two years in charge of a cattle ranch and then took steamship to New York, finally landing in Missouri, in 1861. He tried several times to enlist but the company every time was disbanded or broken up. Finally, he was enlisted in Company D, Seventy-sixth Missouri, on August 30, 1862, and was in several battles and skirmishes and was then discharged honorably as second sergeant. Then with his wife and one child, and his parents, he turned his face westward with no definite place in view except to get out of the unsettled and uncertain state of affairs in Missouri and Kansas. When they came to the forks of the road on the Platte river, they finally decided to come to Oregon and in the fall of 1863, reached Polk county where they remained fourteen years. After following farming and stock raising for this time, our subject was in the mercantile business for three or four years, having purchased a warehouse on the river in company with his brother. In 1876, he sold out this property and went to Marion county, near the Silverton mills. He did well in business there for a couple of years then came to eastern Oregon and bought a portion of the place which he now owns. He has in this estate now twenty-nine hundred acres of land, sixteen hundred of which are tillable. This year he has seven hundred acres of grain and rents the balance. Mr. Cooper is one of the leading farmers of eastern Oregon and has made a fine success in his labors. On May 9, 1861, in Lawrence county, Missouri, Mr. Cooper married Arvazena Spillman, who was born in Allen county, Kentucky on April 13, 1845. Her parents, Nathan and Emily (Prewett) Spillman, were natives of Kentucky. Mr. Cooper has six brothers, William H., James S., Jacob C., Riley D., John E. and Albert and three sisters, Mrs. Sarah Gildow, Patience, single, and Mrs. Elizabeth Mann, deceased. Mrs. Cooper has the following named brothers and sisters, Lewis, Brownlow, John, William, Luther, Mrs. Parilee Cooper, the wife of our subjects brother, Jacob C., and Mrs. Julia Mize. To Mr. and Mrs. Cooper the following named children have been born: Charles C., a harness maker in Dufur; Elbert N., a stockman at Billings, Montana; Cyrus, with his father; Daniel J., in Wyoming; Avery J., a lieutenant in the regular army at Fort Stevens; James A., at home; Kenneth L., at the agricultural college at Corvallis; Belle, the wife of Dr. Elmer E. Ferguson, who is mentioned elsewhere in this work, and who, with her husband and Dr. Reuter owns The Dalles hospital and is one of the most successful physicians in this part of the state; Mary, wife of James F. Thompson, a flour mill owner at Lewiston, Idaho; Nancy, a teacher in The Dalles public school; Prudence, the wife of Fred W. Bailey, in charge of the grocery department of Pease and Mays establishment; Ruth, a trained nurse at Portland; Bingilia, the wife of Harry E. Northrup, an attorney of Portland; and Mildred, a school girl. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper are members of the Congregational church. He belongs to the G.A.R. and his wife to the Relief Corps. In political matters, Mr. Cooper is a Republican and is frequently delegate to the state and county conventions. After coming to Oregon our subject was a special agent in the land office with his head-quarters in Washington, D.C., for some time. Mr. Cooper's father was a Baptist preacher and for forty years preached the gospel, never accepting any pay for this service. He was well known in the Willamette valley, where he labored for many years.
An Illustrated History of Central Oregon, Western Historical Publishing Company, Spokane, WA. 1905, pages 368-369 A portrait of Mr. Cooper and Mrs. Cooper appears between pages 368 and 369.
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