Cook, Valentine

Cook, Valentine a Methodist Episcopal minister. He was born in Pennsylvania (date wanting), of pious and cultivated parents; removed early to Western Virginia; was converted in youth; entered Cokesbury College while a boy, where he was one of the four boys placed on the charity foundation, and, after a partial course in 1787, entered the itinerant ministry in 1788. In 1794-7 he was presiding elder on Philadelphia and Pittsburg districts; and in 1798; missionary to Kentucky. In 1799 he took charge of Bethel Seminary, the second Methodist literary institution in America; afterwards was some time principal of Harrodsburg Academy, and finally removed to a farm near Russelville, Logan Co., Ky., where he resided until his death. In his youth he was very studious and serious, and became in subsequent life a good classical scholar. He had great reputation as an eloquent and effective minister. Many were converted by his preaching, and his influence was widely extended. — Stevenson, Life of Cook (Nashville, 1856, 12mo); Methodist Quart. Rev. April, 1859, p. 183; Geo. Peck, D.D., Early Methodism (N.Y. 1860, 12mo, p. 71, 72, 86); Sprague, Annals, 7:151; Summers, Biograph. Sketches, p. 183.