William Cooley was born in Maryland in 1783. He arrived in East Florida in 1813, during a joint campaign of Tennessee and Georgia forces. His family was killed by Seminoles in 1836, during the Second Seminole War. Cooley survived the attack and lived for a further twenty-seven years. He was one of the first American settlers, and a regional leader, in Broward County.
About William Cooley in brief
William Cooley was born in Maryland in 1783. He arrived in East Florida in 1813, during a joint campaign of Tennessee and Georgia forces. His family was killed by Seminoles in 1836, during the Second Seminole War. Cooley survived the attack and lived for a further twenty-seven years. He was one of the first American settlers, and a regional leader, in what is now known as Broward County in the state of Florida. He sided with natives in a land dispute against a merchant who had received a large grant from the King of Spain and was evicting the Indians from their lands. His fortune and influence grew: he became the first lawman and judge in the settlement, besides being a land appraiser. He served three terms as a city councilor in Tampa before he died in 1863. He is buried at the Everglades National Cemetery in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with his wife and three children. His son, William Cooley Jr., served as a U.S. congressman from Florida from 1847 to 1858. He died of complications from a heart attack in 1864, aged 83. He had a son, Charles Cooley, who served in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1858 to 1859. He also served as the U.,S. Senate’s first African-American member of Congress from 1859 to 1864. His daughter, Mary Cooley Coolie, was a member of the House of Reps from 1864 to 1866. He later died in a house fire in Tampa in 1874, aged 85.
He lived in a home that is now the home of the Florida Museum of Natural History, which is located on the banks of the St. Johns River. His great-great-grandson, William Coolie Jr., was a Florida state senator from 1875 to 1881. His grandson, William C. Coolie III, served as Florida’s governor from 1881 to 1883, and was the state’s first state attorney general from 1883 to 1884. His grandchildren, William and William Jr., are still living and working in the Florida Keys, where they were the first Americans to visit the Florida Everglade National Park and the Florida Panhandle. They are also known as the “Cooley Boys” and “The Cooley Boys” for their association with the area’s early settlers. The family moved to Alligator Pond in 1823, where he traded with the local Seminole tribe led by Chief Micanopy. In 1826, he moved to the New River area to get as far away from the Spanish influence as possible. He became a farmer, cultivating and milling arrowroot, a staple of their diet. Arrowroot was used to make bread, wafers, biscuits, and other products. In 1830, Bahamian Frankee Lewis sold her business interests to Richard Fitzpatrick, who introduced a plantation regimen based on black slavery. After Fitzpatrick’s arrival, the settlement of 70 people prospered with the introduction of a plantation.
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This page is based on the article William Cooley published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 20, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
