William Cocke
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William Cocke (1748 – 1828) was, along with William Blount, the first United States Senator from Tennessee.
Cocke was born in Amelia County, Virginia. As a young man, he studied law and was admitted to the bar. He was also involved in the exploration of the frontier in the company of Daniel Boone, seeing much of what was to become eastern Kentucky and East Tennessee. He was elected a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and a colonel of militia; in 1776 he led four companies of that militia into to what became Tennessee for action against the Indians. Later that year he left Virginia and moved to what was to become Tennessee.
In 1796 he was chosen to the convention that wrote the first Tennessee state constitution. He was then elected to be one of the new state's initial Senators. While his service in this office is often dated from the date of Tennessee statehood, June 1, 1796, he in fact was sworn in and began his initial Senate service on August 2, 1796. His initial term expired on March 3, 1797.
However, the Tennessee General Assembly initally neglected to elect a Senate successor to Blount; he was subsequently appointed to the post in his former seat by governor of Tennessee John Sevier on April 22, 1797, when the General Assembly belatedly elected his successor, Andrew Jackson. Later he was elected by the General Assembly to the other Tennessee U.S. Senate seat, serving in it from March 4, 1799 to March 3, 1805.
Cocke was appointed a judge of the First Judicial Circuit of Tennessee in 1809. He later resigned this position and moved to Mississippi. There he was elected to the state legislature in 1813. He returned to military duty in the War of 1812, serving under Andrew Jackson. In 1814 he was appointed by President James Madison to be Indian agent to the Chickasaw nation; he died in Columbus, Mississippi in 1818 and is buried there.
Cocke County, Tennessee is named in his honor. His son John Cocke (1772–1854) was a four-term U.S. Representative from Tennessee; his grandson William Michael Cocke (1815–1896) was a two-term U.S. Representative from Tennessee.
Much of the material in this article is derived from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress