Russel Sturgis Cook

Cook was born at New Marlborough, Massachusetts. He attended Auburn Theological Seminary from 1832.{{cite book |last1=Hatfield |first1=Edwin Francis |title=The Poets of the Church: A Series of Biographical Sketches of Hymn-writers with Notes on Their Hymns |date=1884 |publisher=A. D. F. Randolph |page=155 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1X9Na4_B8TsC&pg=PA155 |language=en}} In 1836 he was ordained, and became pastor at Lanesborough, Massachusetts.{{cite book |last1=McClintock |first1=John |title=Cyclopædia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature: C-D |date=1894 |publisher=Harper & Brothers |page=498 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TA0MAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA498 |language=en}}

Cook encountered in New York in November 1838 William Allen Hallock (1794–1880), a minister and one of the founders of the American Tract Society (ATS). Cook shortly became Visiting and Financial Secretary of the ATS in New York. In 1841 he pioneered a new approach to the existing colporteur system, sending recruits to Indiana and Kentucky. By 1851 800 were employed in this way as tract sellers.{{cite journal |last1=Twaddell |first1=Elizabeth |title=The American Tract Society, 1814-1860 |journal=Church History |date=June 1946 |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=126 |doi=10.2307/3160400 |jstor=3160400 |s2cid=159836607 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3160400 |issn=0009-6407}}{{cite web |title=Hallock, William Allen, Dd from the McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia. |url=https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/H/hallock-william-allen-dd.html |website=McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia Online |language=en}}

At an extended ATS fundraiser in 1842 at the Broadway Tabernacle, Cook softened the anti-Catholic campaigning of the period with a comment that Americans were probably no less sinners, in matters such as drunkenness and Sabbath-breaking, than Catholic immigrants.{{cite journal |last1=Griffin |first1=Clifford S. |title=Converting the Catholics: American Benevolent Societies and the Ante-Bellum Crusade against the Church |journal=The Catholic Historical Review |date=1961 |volume=47 |issue=3 |pages=329 |jstor=25016897 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25016897 |issn=0008-8080}} After the Compromise of 1850, Cook defended the Society's policy of not circulating abolitionist material. He did so on the grounds that by its constitution, the Society could only promote views that reflected the consensus of "evangelical Christians"; and that on slavery that consensus did not exist. William Jay, an ATS director, criticised that line of argument.{{cite book |last1=McKivigan |first1=John R. |title=Abolitionism and American Religion |date=1999 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-0-8153-3106-3 |page=117 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PMsg4ByOaY8C&pg=PA117 |language=en}} Jay dropped his financial support for the ATS, explaining his reasoning in an open letter to Cook.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lPsRDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA151 | title=Faith in Reading: Religious Publishing and the Birth of Mass Media in America | isbn=978-0-19-517311-6 | last1=Nord | first1=David Paul | date=19 August 2004 }}

Cook died at Pleasant Valley, New York on 4 September 1864.

• Home Evangelization: A View of the Wants and Prospects of Our Country, Based on Facts and Relations of Colportage (1849 or 1850, anonymous), by "One of the Secretaries of the American Tract Society".{{cite book |title=Home Evangelization: a view of the wants and prospects of our country, based on the facts and relations of Colportage. By one of the Secretaries of the American Tract Society |date=1850 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=__VhAAAAcAAJ |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Nord |first1=David Paul |title=Faith in Reading: Religious Publishing and the Birth of Mass Media in America |date=19 August 2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-988389-9 |page=194 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ITL5BgAAQBAJ&pg=PT194 |language=en}} An enlarged version was published in England in 1859, edited by Mrs William Fison.{{cite book |last1=Cook |first1=Russell S. |title=Colportage: its history, and relation to home and foreign evangelization. With some remarks on the wants and prospects of our country. Edited and enlarged with the consent of the author, from an American work ["Home Evangelization; a view of the wants and prospects of our country, based on the facts and relations of colportage," by R. S. Cook] by Mrs. William Fison |date=1859 |publisher=Wertheim, Macintosh&Hunt |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0ZaqWvl91XAC |language=en}}

Cook was survived by his fourth wife. His wives were:{{cite book |title=Cook's Crier |date=1993 |publisher=B.H. Williams |page=13 |language=en}}

• Anna Maria Mills (married 1837); she was the daughter of the Rev. Henry Mills.
• Harriet Newell Rand (married 1841, died 1843); she was the daughter of the Rev. Asa Rand (1783–1871).{{cite book |last1=Dexter |first1=Franklin Bowditch |title=Historical catalogue of the members of the First church of Christ in New Haven, Connecticut (Center Church) A.D. 1639-1914 |date=1914 |publisher=New Haven : [s.n.] |page=210 |url=https://archive.org/details/historicalcata00dext/page/210/mode/1up}}{{cite web |title=Rand, Asa from the McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia. |url=https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/R/rand-asa.html |website=McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia Online |language=en}}
• Harriet Ellsworth (married 1845, died 1848, leaving no children); she was the daughter of William W. Ellsworth.{{cite book |last1=Stiles |first1=Henry Reed |title=The History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut |date=1893 |publisher=Press of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company |page=225 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U_lZ2glvEFQC&pg=PA225 |language=en}}
• Miss Malan, daughter of César Malan, married 1856–7 in Geneva on a voyage to Europe. Her sister Henriette Malan had married in 1850 James Cooley Fletcher,{{cite book |editor-last=Hilen |editor-first=Andrew |title=The Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longellow |publisher=Harvard University Press|volume=IV |page=528 note 8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h1cV5JHbsdEC&pg=PA528 |language=en}} and another sister Cecile had married in 1850 another minister, Eli Edwin Hall (1818–1896).{{cite web |title=The Political Graveyard: Clergy Politicians in Connecticut |url=https://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/CT/clergy.html |website=politicalgraveyard.com}}{{cite book |last1=Loomis |first1=Dwight |last2=Calhoun |first2=Joseph Gilbert |title=The Judicial and Civil History of Connecticut |date=1895 |publisher=Boston History Company |page=482 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g-gKlEG7SqIC&pg=PA482 |language=en}}

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Category:1811 births

Category:1864 deaths

Category:American Congregationalists

Category:People from Massachusetts