Cooper, Ezekiel

Cooper, Ezekiel an early and celebrated Methodist preacher, born in Caroline County, Md., Feb. 22, 1763. He joined the Conference in 1785; labored from Boston to Baltimore as a traveling preacher for many years, and was editor and general agent of the Book Concern from 1799 to 1804. His abilities for this office were soon shown to be of the highest order. He gave to the "Book Concern" an impulse and organization which has rendered it the largest publishing establishment in the New World. After managing its interests with admirable success for six years, during which its capital stock had risen from almost nothing to forty-five thousand dollars, he resumed his itinerant labors, and continued them in Brooklyn, New York city, Wilmington, Del., Baltimore. etc., for eight years, when he located. He remained in the latter relation during eight years, when he re-entered the traveling ministry, but was soon afterwards placed on the supernumerary list in the Philadelphia Conference. He continued, however, for many years to perform extensive service, visiting the churches, and part of the time superintending a district. During the latter years of his life he resided in Philadelphia, where he died Feb. 21,1847. He was distinguished fu)r pulpit eloquence, logical ability, and especially for his multifarious knowledge, which obtained for him among his brethren the title of "the Wallking Encyclopaedia." He published a "Funeral Sermon" on Rev. John Dickens, and "the Substance of a Funeral Discourse on Rev. Francis Asbury," etc., Philad. 1819. The latter was a 32mo volume of 230 pages (Stevens, Hist. of Meth. Epis. Church, vol. 3; Sprague, Annals, 7:108; Minutes of Conferences, 4:104).