COOKE, Parsons, clergyman, born in Hadley, Massachusetts, 18 February, 1800; died in Lynn, Massachusetts, 12 February, 1864. He was graduated at Williams in 1822, studied theology with Dr. Griffin, at that time president of Williams College, and on 26 June, 1826, was ordained pastor of a newly organized Congregational church in Ware, Massachusetts. He removed to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1836, and a few months afterward became pastor of the 1st Congregational church in Lynn, Massachusetts, where he remained until his death. The financial embarrassment of his congregation, occasioned by the building of a new church, led him to undertake, in 1840, the editorship of the "New England Puritan," published in Boston, and he continued in journalism from the conviction that he could be useful in that work. The "Puritan" was subsequently united with the "Recorder," of which Dr. Cooke became senior editor, retaining the place until his death. Dr. Cooke was strongly Calvinistic in his views, constantly opposed the new-school or moderately Calvinistic Congregationalists, and occasionally became involved in discussions with other denominations. As a preacher, he was doctrinal rather than hortatory. Williams College gave him the degree of D. D. in 1849. His publications include a sermon on "The Exclusiveness of Unitarianism," the cause of his first controversy (1829); a "History of German Anabaptism"; "A Century of Puritanism and a Century of its Opposites" (Boston, 1857); and occasional sermons and addresses.