Isaac Cooper
•Sex: M
•Birth: ABT. 1775 in Rowan Co., N.C.
•Death: BEF. 1845 in Monongalia Co., W.Va.

•Fact 1: 1799 Grainger Co. Tax List (Watauga Settlement)
•Fact 2: 1800 Deed recorded May 20 from Elizabeth Bean and Robert Blair, 100 acres 2
•Fact 3: 1810 Wayne Co., Ky. 21010-21010-00, p. 364
•Fact 6: 1821 Left Wayne Co. owing taxes, Tax list, Sumner Co., 40 acres; 1823 delinquent tax list in Wayne, moved to Tennessee
•Fact 7: 1822 Paid tax for 40 acres on Sink Creek, Sumner Co.
•Fact 8: 1829 Perry Co., Tenn.
•Fact 9: 1830 Sumner Co., Tenn., No Twp. p. 176; alternatively, Wayne Co. p. 226 (this is prob. his son Isaac)
•Fact 10: 9 NOV 1834 Witnessed Zachariah Pyles' application for Revolutionary War pension in Monongalia Co., Va./W.Va.
•Fact 11: 25 JAN 1837 Isaac Cooper acquired 65 acres on Wickwares Creek, Monongala Co., Va. (W.Va.) from Elinton Philips; 80 acres on Buffalo Cr. from Anthony Lemasters; 100 from Lewis Lemasters; and 38 from Thomas Lemasters; or financed them and held them in mortgage
•Fact 12: 25 JAN 1839 Last land transaction in Monangalia Co., Va.
•Event: Fact 1815 200 acres, Tellico Bndry., Wayne Co., Ky.
•Event: Fact 10 JUN 1815 50 acres on Little So. Fork, Wayne Co., Ky. (1/1:444)
•Event: Fact 1820 Sumner Co. 000001-01101, p. 148; alternatively Wayne Co., Ky., p. 92
•Event: Migration 1833 Apparently moved from Wayne Co., Ky. to Monongalia Co., Va. (he was mentioned as character witness John Adair's pension in Wayne Co., Ky. in September 1833)
•Event: Migration 1822 Moved from Wayne Co., Ky. to Tenn.
•Event: Tax List 1816 Sumner Co., Tenn.
•Event: Tax List 1799 No Twp., Grainger Co., Tenn.
•Note:
Isaac Cooper was a soldier and possibly also a gunsmith and iron worker. He is named in the List of Taxes and Taxable property in the bounds of Capt. (William) Bean's Company, returned by William Stone Esquire 1799. This was in Cherokee country along the Holston River and Clinch Mountain in Tennessee, later Grainger County (so-called Watauga Settlement, or State of Franklin). William Bean Sr.'s was the first white cabin in those parts. While in Grainger Co., he acted as bondsman to the marriage of William Cooper to Mary Moore, March 16, 1801; of John Cooper to Susannah Howell, June 5, 1799, and of James Harmon to Serenia Bunch, Aug. 13, 1799. These were all Melungeon surnames. A judgment of failure to pay was entered against Isaac Cooper and George Cooper (corrected to: Bean) in February 1805 in the same county (and collected). George Bean later moved to Franklin Co., Tenn. His wife Jane Bean who died about then may have been Isaac's sister. In other words, they may have been brothers-in-law. Bean and Cooper are Sephardic Jewish surnames.
1800 May 20 Grainger Deed from Elizabeth Bean and Robert Blair for one hundred acres proven in open court. Let it be registered for Isaac Cooper. (WPA) Grainger County Court Minutes 1796-1801 , p. 170. The original indenture is dated Oct. 11, 1799 and was registered July 9, 1800 (Grainger Register of Deeds, Vol. A-B: Sept. 1796-1811, Vol. A, p. 273. It conveyed 100 of an original parcel of 200 acres adjoining his land on German Creek to Isaac Cooper. This was near the second Bean's Station on the saddle of land leading over the ridge of Clinch Mountain called Copper Ridge (prob. after William Cooper, Isaac's grandfather). Two years later, Isaac resold the land to Stephen Brundige (Bunch?) at a handsome profit (Vol. A, p. 259). Elizabeth Bean was the widow of William Bean, Jr. who died in Grainger Co. in 1798. Her maiden name was Blair; she remarried to a Shaw. Capt. William Bean was a son of the famous Mrs. Lydia Russell Bean whose life was saved by Nancy Ward; his first marriage was with Rachel Ball. He married Elizabeth Blair in Tennessee in 1782. The Bean-Blair-Cooper deed was all "within the family," as these are related Sephardic Jewish lines. By 1810, Isaac had moved again. He is listed in the Wayne Co., Ky. 1810 census: COOPER, Isaac 21010-21010-00. In 1814, he was granted a certificate that later entitled him to 4x50 acres (200 total) of land in Wayne County, Ky., pursuant to the treaty with the Cherokee Indians at Tellico (Treaty of Oct. 25, 1805). The land was on the Little South Fork in Tellico Bounds, on Lonesome Creek. The survey for his tract was dated June 10, 1815. In 1822 he gave surety for his daughter Polly Bookout's marriage to John Lovelace in the same county. He appears to have moved to land on Sink Creek in Sumner Co. near Gallatin around 1825, after a stay in Perry Co. where his brother Capt. John Cooper lived. Isaac and Nancy are living with two daughters (?) 21-30 in Sumner Co. in 1830 according to the census. In 1816, Isaac Cooper paid tax on 40 acres in Sumner Co., Tenn. (Record of the Taxable Property and Polls in Sumner County for the year 1816 Contributed by Linda Carpenter Compiled by Linda Carpenter and E. James Keen 1997 Consult Sumner County Tax Book 1816 - 1822; Tax Aggregates 1838 - 1884-original book - Microfilm reel #332. A John and George Cooper (Cumberland River) were also there. In 1830 he is listed in Sumner Co., Tenn. as 1108 COOPER,

Another of Isaac Cooper's daughters was evidently Margaret (Peggy) Cooper who married Philip Conatser and was described of Scotch-Irish descent. The Conatsers were of German descent and joined the Wataugans around "Bean's Cabin," then moved to Fentriss County, Tenn. They also married with the Blevinses, who were openly Jewish. These families migrated together.
In 1820, shortly before Isaac and family moved to Alabama, there are two older females and an older man in addition to Isaac and Nancy in the household, also an extra boy and girl. I think this is part of the Capt. John and Nancy Ann Cooper family, with their old mother Molly.
Isaac Cooper must have been a capital fellow for there were many Isaacs named after him not only in the Cooper family but also Bean, Looney, Wallace, Burke and Blevins.
"The famous Dr. Ole McDeckle of Wayne County, Kentucky and Tennessee was a cousin to Isaac Cooper or his wife. I have heard this from several different sources. In my grandmother's bible (Nancy Cooper Burk) which members of the family had in the 1940s, it stated that Nancy's (Nancy Burke's) children were 1/3 Choctaw Indian" --Mrs. Ella Mae Perkinson, 6094 Taylor Mill Road, Covington, Kentucky 41015, via Mrs. Louise Leavelle, Palm Springs, Calif., via Bill Emmett.

The Isaac Cooper mentioned in the membership records of the Quaker settlement in Wrightsboro, Ga., 1774-1793 (wife Prudence Dunn) is probably distantly related, also the Revolutionary War soldier George Frederick Cooper (Kiefer, Kuepfer) who settled in Coopertown (Monticello), Wayne Co., Ky.

On the area:
HISTORY: Salt Works of the Big South Fork (BSF)
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 22:16:14 -0400
Submitter: Lanny R. Slavey

The Big South Fork of the Cumberland River empties into the Cumberland
River in Pulaski Co. East of Burnside. Today, the River is mostly in
McCreary Co. KY, and then crosses the border into Scott and Fentress Co's.
TN. Years ago, before McCreary Co. was formed, the West/North bank of the
River was Wayne Co. KY, and Fentress Co. TN. The East/South bank (the River
runs mostly North to South, with a large bend near Bear Creek that turns
the flow East to west for a few miles, then it turns South once more), was
Pulaski and Whitley Co. KY, and Campbell and then later on Scott Co. TN. In
the 1900's, this was a coal mining area, and today, it is a National Park.
It is stunningly beautiful place, with large bluffs along the River canyon.

There are a large amount of these depositions, and will take some time, butthis is something I have been wanting to do for the past year, since I found them in the Archives in Frankfort. These Circuit Court papers are in
boxes there, and some of these items have not been looked at since they bundled up, all those years ago (some still had sealing wax in place!)
Others were scattered about, and mis-filed, causing me to search bundle by bundle and box by box to find them. I still have several more bundles to get copied. There are a fantastic list of names in them, and this will be a
worth while project. I will do my upmost to keep things accurate in the transcriptions.

In 1807, John Francis first reported the discovery of saltwater along theBig South Fork of the Cumberland River. This initial discovery was reported to be "near the mouth of Bear Creek, where Richard Slavey now lives".
(I believe that Richard Slavey and John Francis where in laws, as both married a woman named Mounts.) Francis and Slavey petitioned the State Legislature, and in 1811, received a Grant for 1000 acres, conditional upon
their production of a 1000 bushels of salt. The time limit for this production was later increased, due to the War of 1812. By the time the 1000 bushels were produced (around 1818), several other items of interest occurred:
John Francis received another Grant just South of the 1000 acres for the same purpose; Marcus Huling, working with Col. James Stone, sank another saltwater well, on the sight of Francis's other Grant; Stephen F. Conn,
Martin Beaty, and a host of other people became involved in these enterprises in several different ways. This activity started a series of Law Suits, lasting up into the 1830's, as well as the accidental sinking of the world's first oil well.

There is also an Isaac Cooper between William Smith and William Little on p. 239, Pitt Co., N.C. 1800 census: Cooper Isaac

Isaac Cooper is listed in the Cincinnati Jewish Historical Archives records of Temple Shalom as the first "rabbi" of the congregation and benefactor of the Mt. Hood Jewish Cemetery:

WHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA. CONGREGATION LESHEM SHAMAYIM.
Records, 1849-1904. 0.4 linear ft., 1 reel microfilm.
Microfilm and photocopies of minutebooks (1867-1904),
and protocol book
(1849-1867).

Father: Henry Labon Cooper b: ABT. 1745 in Granville Co., North Carolina (?)
Mother: Mary (Molly) Houston b: ABT. 1750 in Lancaster Co., Pa. (on the Susquehanna River)

Marriage 1 Nancy Black Fox b: ABT. 1775 in Cherokee Nation (East)
•Married: ABT. 1795 in Tenn.

Children
1. James Cooper b: ABT. 1795 in Tenn. or N.C.
2. Mary (Polly) Cooper b: 30 SEP 1797 in Kentucky
3. Sarah Cooper b: 9 MAR 1800 in Grainger Co., Tennessee
4. Nancy Cooper b: 1803 in Wayne Co., Ky.
5. Isaac (Zack) Cooper b: ABT. 1804 in Wayne Co., Ky.
6. William L. Cooper b: ABT. 1805 in Tenn.
7. Margaret (Peggy) Cooper b: ABT. 1810
8. Daughter Cooper b: AFT. 1810
9. Harmon S. Cooper , Jr. b: 24 AUG 1811 in Kentucky

Sources:
1.Title: His son Harmon Cooper in 1880 census 2.Title: Grainger Co. Court Minutes 1796-1801, p. 170