In 2026 I will be exploring early Sabbatarian Adventists in the states that now comprise the Mid-America Union. There is no way to know who the first Millerite or Adventist was in each state. Instead, I will feature the first people to write to the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald (forerunner of the Adventist Review) from the territories or states in what is now the Mid-America Union.
On March 6, 1866, the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, published a letter from Mary M. Cook,* who had, with her family, recently arrived in Mound City, Linn County, Kansas. Mary’s letter began:
Our journey to this State being ended, with thankful hearts we meet a few kind relatives with whom we have not mingled much since our childhood days. But they, like their neighbors, know but little of the third angel’s message. Our religious sentiments are a Wonder to them.
Mary found Linn County a beautiful place and praised God not only for His creation, but for the protection of His angels on their journey. She also found it lonely, having left behind likeminded Adventist friends in Iowa. She concluded:
We pray the Lord to turn the hearts of some of the friends this way that here we may raise a standard of the gospel. We beg the brethren and sisters to remember us in their devotions, that we may be humble, pure in heart, living for Christ alone.
Among the possible relatives Mary joined in Mound City were her brother Isaac Brock Palmer (1827-1908), his wife Hannah, and their children. Mary and Isaac’s grandparents had moved to Canada West (Ontario) from New York when their father, Abraham Sr. (1795-1862), was young. Abraham Sr. married Catharine Bradshaw (d. 1852) in the Quaker Leeds Monthly Meeting in 1821, and all of their children were born in Canada, including Mary who was born about 1826. The family moved to Iowa around 1848-1850. The date is obscured by conflicting information. Mary and Isaac’s brother, Abraham Jr., claimed in 1910 that he had arrived in Chicago, Illinois, aboard the Empire State (a Great Lakes steamer that operated between Buffalo, New York, and Chicago, Illinois, in May 1848; however, the Empire State did not begin passenger service until October 1848). The Leeds Monthly Meeting did not remove Abraham Sr. and Catharine from its roll until February 14, 1850. Regardless, upon arrival in Iowa, the Palmer family briefly settled in the Quaker town of Salem, Iowa. They would relocate several times before Abraham Sr. and his second wife, Sarah, settled in Grinnell, Poweshiek County, Iowa.
A week after Mary’s letter was published, a letter from her husband, Jesse H. Cook,** to the Review was also published.
There are in these parts six of us who are trying to live in obedience to the requirements of the third angel’s message. Here is a wide field of labor for those who have the cause at heart. . .At present we feel somewhat lonesome being so far separated from the people of God, and the endearing associations connected there with. Yet we are not without hope, for we realize even here, that God is the portion of all those who put their trust in him. . .
Jesse had also come from a Quaker family. He was the seventh child of Eli Cook (1777-1874) and Elizabeth Denny (1801-1874) who had married on November 12, 1817, in the Elk Monthly Meeting in Preble, Ohio. Jesse was born in Preble, Ohio, on July 13, 1828.
His ancestors had followed the Quaker migration from Pennsylvania to the Carolinas and then to Ohio. While the search for land motivated Quakers to move from Pennsylvania to points south in the 1760s, anti-slavery sentiment drove them to seek free soil in Ohio and Indiana in the early 1800s. In 1837 they were most likely again seeking land when the Cooks joined a group of Quakers who founded Salem, Iowa. Thus, they were among the first Quakers to settle west of the Mississippi River.
Anti-slavery sentiment was strong in Salem, and its proximity to Missouri made it an important part of the western Underground Railroad. Quakers in Salem sharply disagreed on how to help freedom seekers, and the monthly meeting split between those who actively assisted freedom seekers and those who merely protested enslavement but refrained from breaking the law. In 1846 the Salem Monthly Meeting took disciplinary action against an Elizabeth Cook for “Neglecting the attendance of our religious meetings and uniting with the separatist[s].” The separatists were active participants in the Underground Railroad, and given the date this woman was likely Jesse’s mother. (Cedar Creek and Its People)
From Quaker to Adventist
While it is easy to conjecture how Jesse and Mary met in Henry County, where they married on February 8, 1851, there is no information tracing their spiritual journey from Quakerism to Adventism. They remained in Salem Township, Henry County, Iowa, through 1852 and perhaps longer. By 1860 they were living in Lynn Grove, Jasper County, Iowa, with their four children—Almira E. (1851-1871), Horatio Nelson (1855-1931), Cordelia Ellen (1857-1936), and Melissa M. (1859-1947). In 1863, Jesse registered for the Civil War draft in Pleasant Grove Township, Marion County, Iowa. Comparing the locations of Adventist preachers and churches in Iowa, it appears that Jesse and Mary Cook encountered Seventh-day Adventists in Marion County where one of the first churches was organized at Knoxville. Moses Hull preached in Pleasantville, Iowa, (a town in Pleasant Grove Township) in 1860 where 12-15 unnamed people joined the Adventists (Review). Jesse and Mary may have been in this group.
Kansas Conference Founder
While Jesse H. Cook was not a minister and held no official position in the Seventh-day Adventist denomination in 1866, he exhibited leadership in Kansas from the start. In March 1868 he announced the first quarterly meeting of Seventh-day Adventists in southern Kansas (Review).
While it is not clear if the six Adventists Jesse referred to in his letter were only his family or whether he meant six families, when Elder J. G. Matteson visited in the fall of 1869, there only four members in Mound City, the first Adventist company in Kansas. Jesse was ordained the church elder of this group in the summer of 1870 (Review).
Jesse also served as site coordinator for the first Adventist camp meeting in Kansas in October 1870 (Review) at which the Missouri and Kansas Conference was organized with the assistance of James White and Stephen Haskell. Jesse was among the group of three men who received ministerial licenses at that time. The other two were T. E. Morey and J. H. Rogers. Jesse also became a member of the first conference committee during the organization of the conference (Review). When Missouri and Kansas separated into two conferences in 1875, Jesse would again be a member of the first Kansas Conference committee.
From 1871 to 1887 Jesse labored across eastern Kansas and western Missouri. He baptized many people, organizing new churches as well as tract and missionary societies. He accompanied J. D. Powers to Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1877 where they were the first Seventh-day Adventists to preach in that city (Review). In 1878 he baptized six people at the Sherman City camp meeting where James and Ellen White and Stephen Haskell were again present. Along with James White and Stephen Haskell, he also ordained L. D. Santee (Review). Jesse became the third president of the Kansas Conference serving from 1882 until 1887. He made a tour of Iowa in 1884 during which he spoke at Salem, Mount Pleasant, Knoxville, and Sandyville, visiting old friends (and one presumes family members) he had not seen in twenty years (Review).
Mary made her own contributions as she supported her husband, and the family moved from Mound City to Fort Scott. Her reflections on the “true vine” were published in the Review in 1875. She wrote a poem titled “Trust” that was published in 1884 (Review). In 1885 she was the delegate from the Fort Scott church to the Kansas Conference session.
Mary’s prayer for “the Lord to turn the hearts of some of the friends this way” was fulfilled when her brother was baptized in 1874. His wife and children appear to have joined him in his conversion. He later served as a delegate to the Kansas Conference session representing the Zion Church, the name of the congregation in Mound City.
In late 1886, Jesse was called to the Kentucky Conference. Arriving in May 1887, he served in Kentucky as president for only one year due to Mary’s “feebleness.” It is not clear what her ailment was. They moved to California—perhaps in search of a climate conducive to their health—eventually settling near Fresno. Jesse served on the California Conference committee and continued preaching, visiting places as far afield as Reno, Nevada, and Salt Lake City, Utah. However, his own health was failing as he suffered from tuberculosis. Jesse H. Cook died at home in Fresno, California, on March 28, 1898. Mary lived in Fresno for four more years. She died on March 6, 1902.
* Mary is sometimes listed with the middle initial M. and at other times A. There is no indication for what name either initial represents.
** In publication Jesse is nearly always referred to as J. H. Cook. In the 1880 Federal census record his name is mistakenly recorded as John.
