Hon. LYMAN COOK was born in Licking County, Ohio, June 6th, 1820. He is the son of Jacob and Abigal Cook, who were natives of Massachusetts, and among the first settlers of Cook Settlement, Licking County, Ohio, where Mr. Cook followed farming for a livelihood. Here Lyman was reared on his father’s farm, and attended the common schools, and also Granville University, till the age of seventeen, when he went to Zoar, Ohio, and clerked at the Fairfield Furnace, owned by the Zoarites, a German community holding property in common. He remained here two years, when he came to Burlington, in March, 1840, on horseback, and was twenty-three days in performing the journey.

There were at that time about five hundred people in Burlington, and its appearance was that of a little frontier town. Mr. Cook has lived to see nearly all the present city grow up, and as an active and enterprising citizen, has done his part to bring about the great contrast between its appearance now and when he first came here.

About a year after his arrival he engaged in Tin and Hardware in the firm of Prugh & Cook, on Jefferson street, between Main and Water, now occupied by Burge & Son as a Furniture Store. He continued at that place about five years, when they bought and built on Jefferson street, between Main and Third, where J. Lehman & Brother’s Clothing Store now is. The building was a three story brick, and was burnt in 1857. In this last building they continued till 1854. In 1852 Mr. Prugh died, and the firm from that time till 1854 was Lyman Cook & Co. In 1854 he sold out to his partner, J. W. White, and engaged in Banking business in the firm of White, Cook & Co, in which he continued till 1858, when he went into partnership with John N. Baxter, under the firm name of Cook & Baxter, continuing till 1862, when he succeeded W. F. Coolbaugh as President of the Burlington branch of the State Bank of Iowa; and in 1864, when the First National Bank of Burlington was organized, he was elected President of that, and has continued in the same till the present time.

Mr. Cook has made his financial operations successful, and stands among the leading men as to wealth and business capacity in the city. He is a man of strong social nature, friendly and genial in his intercourse, and highly esteemed for his integrity and moral worth as a man and a citizen. In politics he is a Republican. In 1851 he was elected Mayor of Burlington, and by three consecutive elections held the office three years. As an officer he was popular with the people, and discharged his public duties with satisfaction to his constituants [sic]. In 1856 he was elected to the State Senate, and served in that capacity four years.

Mr. Cook was first married on the 12th of October, 1846, to Miss Octavia W. Lorain, of Burlington, by whom he had two children, both now living. His second marriage was to Mrs. Lucia G. St. John of this city, on the 4th of March, 1861. One child, a daughter, is the result of this union.

Source: An Illustrated Historical Atlas of Des Moines County, Iowa. A. T. Andreas, Chicago, Ill., 1873, pp. 27-8