The John P. Cook photograph collection contains 9 photographs associated with U.S. Army officer John Pope Cook, including 7 images given to Cook by Dakota Territory-based Indian trader Charles Philander Jordan.
Among the photographs that were given to Cook by Jordan are a heavily retouched cabinet card studio portrait of Sitting Bull and a stereograph view on a cabinet card-sized mount captioned "No. 45 Spotted Tail's Tepee," both taken by photographer W. R. Cross; a studio group portrait of Red Cloud and Charles P. Jordan on a mount of Washington, D.C.-based photographer John Nephew bearing the verso inscription "To my most esteemed friend Gen. John Cook. C. P. Jordan July 9/89"; and five studio portrait photographs taken by John Alvin Anderson of six of Jordan's children born to his Lakota wife Julia Walks First Jordan (1859-1913; a niece of Red Cloud's, also known as Winyan Hoaka, True Woman, Weah-Wash-Tay, The Beautiful One), identified through verso inscriptions as "Mary J. Jordan," "Everard Cady Jordan," "Collins Custer Jordan," "Edwin E. & Wm Ward Jordan," and "Ella Adaline Jordan." The date and location of the portrait of Red Cloud and Jordan may point to the possibility of that image having been produced while the subjects were in Washington, D.C., during the 1889 Sioux Land Commission negotiations.
Also present are two photomechanically-illustrated postcards that date to the early 20th-century. One postcard bearing an advertisement for the Northern Pacific Railway was postmarked June 11, 1915 and addressed to John P. Cook's daughter Nina Cook in Frontier, Michigan, with the message "Dear Nina: I am on my way wish you were with me love Fred." The second postcard bears a profile view of the U.S.S. Nebraska and appears to have been postmarked August 1, 1910 and was addressed to Cook at his residence in Ransom, Michigan, with the message "Dear cousin sorry to make you all wait so long for ans (sic) to your kind letters but can't be helped this is a photo of one of the ships with the Atlantic fleet."
John Pope Cook was born in 1825 in Belleville, Illinois, to Congressman Daniel P. (1794-1827) and Julia C. Cook ( -1830) and became an orphan at a young age following his parents' untimely deaths. He went on to pursue a legal career and was elected mayor of Springfield, Illinois, in 1855, where he became acquainted with Abraham Lincoln. Cook married his first wife Susan A. Lamb (1828-1890) in 1847; only three of their seven children together survived beyond infancy. He married his second wife Mary Eliza Baker (1860-1948) on September 16, 1889, with whom he had an additional four children.
During the Civil War, Cook formulated his own militia known as the "Springfield Greys," was commissioned Colonel of the 7th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and was promoted to Brevet Major General following his performance at the Battle of Fort Donelson. After being made commander of the Department of Iowa and Dakota Territory in 1862, Cook led a campaign in 1863 against Dakota Indians that had fled westward from Minnesota in the aftermath of the Dakota Uprising. Following the conclusion of the Civil War, he became an Illinois State Representative and later an Indian Agent at the Rosebud Reservation before eventually living out his retirement years in Ransom, Michigan, where he passed away on October 12, 1910.
