Francis Cooke and Hester Mahieu

Francis Cooke was born around 1583. He moved to Leiden before 1603, where he met and married Hester Mahieu. They had seven known children, six of whom survived to adulthood.

Francis and Hester were members of the Puritan congregation in Leiden, although they were not part of the original congregation that left England together. Hester was a French Walloon, and upon marriage Francis joined the Walloon church in Norwich and then Leiden. Either Francis or Hester probably had some level of education because upon Francis's death his estate included one Bible and four older books.

Francis came to Plymouth aboard the Mayflower with his eldest son John, who would have been around 13 at the time.  (I will note that Anderson gives John Cooke his own chapter, even though he was still a child in his father's household at the time of his arrival. No such courtesy was afforded to the Carpenter sisters or Mary Chilton, of course). Hester and their three other children, including our ancestor Jacob Cooke, arrived on the Anne in 1623. Jacob was the second son, born around 1618. He would have been a toddler at the time of the voyage. Later, he married Damaris Hopkins, the daughter of Stephen Hopkins, another Mayflower passenger.

Francis was listed as a freemen before 1633. Like most respectable men of the Massachusetts colony, Francis fulfilled a variety of offices, including committees for laying out land and highways. He was listed among the men able to bear arms in 1643. He died in Plymouth in April 1663, and his estate was valued at over 86 pounds. After his death, there were a number of court cases relating to the distribution of his land between his children.

Francis Cooke -- Hester Mahieu
  - Jacob Cooke -- Elizabeth Lettice
     - Sarah Cooke -- Robert Bartlett
        - Lemuel Bartlett -- Mary Doty
           - Lemuel Bartlett -- Hannah Tinkham
              - Lydia Bartlett -- Thomas Kinney
                 - Simeon Kinney -- Olive Doane
                    - Thomas Kinney -- Mary Elizabeth Houghton
                       - Julia Kinney -- Ernest Hancock



References:

Anderson, Robert Charles 1995 The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633. New England Historic Genealogical Society.