William Cocke

Cocke was born in Amelia County, Virginia in 1748. He was of English descent.A School History of Tennessee; Dyer; Gustavus W.; p. 52, {{ISBN needed|date=November 2022}} He was the sixth of ten or eleven children of Abraham (c.1695–1760) and Mary (Batte) Cocke. He was educated at home before reading law, and was admitted to the bar in Virginia. He owned slaves.{{Citation | title=Congress Slaveowners| date=2022-01-19| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/interactive/2022/congress-slaveowners-names-list/| newspaper=The Washington Post| access-date=2022-07-08}}

Cocke was an elected member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. In 1776, as a colonel of militia, he led a company of men into North Carolina's Washington District for action against the Indians. Cocke suffered accusations of cowardice following his actions at the Battle of Island Flats that followed him throughout his life.Lynch, Wayne; [https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/05/william-cocke-at-the-battle-of-long-island-flats-1776/ William Cocke at the Battle of Long Island Flats, 1776]; "Journal of the American Revolution"; [via WebPage; May 7, 2013; All Things Liberty online]; retrieved March 2023 Later that year, he left Virginia and moved to what was to become Tennessee. During the organization of the State of Franklin, Cocke was elected as the would-be state's delegate to the Congress of the Confederation.

In 1796, Cocke was chosen as a delegate to the convention that wrote the first Tennessee Constitution. The newly formed government selected Cocke to be one of the new state's initial senators, along with William Blount. Cocke and Blount presented their credentials to the United States Senate on May 9, 1796. The Senate, however, refused to seat Cocke and Blount while the debate regarding the admission of Tennessee into the Union was on. When Tennessee was finally admitted on June 1, the issue of Cocke and Blount's seating was again raised. The Federalist Senate held by a narrow margin (11–10) that Cocke and Blount's election was illegal because it had occurred without congressional authorization. The Tennessee legislature duly re-selected Cocke and Blount on August 2.{{cite book | last=Butler| first=Anne M.|author2=Wolff, Wendy | title=Senate Election, Expulsion and Censure Cases from 1793 to 1990| year=1995| publisher=Government Printing Office| location=Washington, D.C.| pages=10–12| chapter=Case 4: William Blount and William Cocke}}

Cocke's initial term expired on March 3, 1797. The Tennessee General Assembly, however, neglected to elect a successor to Cocke; he was subsequently appointed to his former seat by Governor John Sevier on April 22, 1797, until the General Assembly belatedly elected his successor, Andrew Jackson. Later, he was elected by the Tennessee Assembly to the other U.S. Senate seat, and served from March 4, 1799, to March 3, 1805.

Cocke was appointed a judge of the First Circuit Court of Tennessee. On November 7, 1811, he was impeached by the Tennessee House of Representatives, and on October 10, 1812, at the end of his impeachment trial, he was convicted by the Tennessee Senate on one of the three articles of impeachment and thereby removed from office.{{cite journal |last1=Ewing |first1=Cortez A. M. |title=Early Tennessee Impeachments |journal=Tennessee Historical Quarterly |date=1957 |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=291–334 |jstor=42621348 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/42621348 |access-date=31 December 2022 |issn=0040-3261}} In 1816 he was a witness to a treaty with the Chickasaw that was negotiated by Andrew Jackson and others.{{Cite web |last=Kappler |first=Charles J. |title=The Avalon Project : Treaty With the Chickasaw : 1816 |url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/nt004.asp |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=avalon.law.yale.edu}}

Cocke engaged in a limited law practice, and spent more time on the frontier than he did in a law office. He was involved in exploration while in the company of Daniel Boone, traveling through much of what was to become eastern Kentucky and East Tennessee.

His son, John Alexander Cocke, was a four-term U.S. Representative from Tennessee; his grandson, William Michael Cocke, was a two-term U.S. Representative from Tennessee.

Cocke was appointed a judge of the First Judicial Circuit of Tennessee in 1809. He later resigned this position and moved to Mississippi. There, he was elected to the state legislature in 1813. He briefly returned to military duty, serving under Andrew Jackson in the Creek War. In 1814, he was appointed by President James Madison to be an Indian agent to the Chickasaw nation.

Cocke died in Columbus, Lowndes County, Mississippi, in 1828 and is buried there, in Friendship Cemetery.

Cocke County, Tennessee is named in his honor.

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• {{cite web|last1=Cocke|first1=William|title=[Letter] 1787 June 25, Mulberry Grove, State of Frankl[in to] Governor George Mathews / William Cocke|url=http://metis.galib.uga.edu/ssp/cgi-bin/tei-natamer-idx.pl?sessionid=0dfd0a17-27aa824729-8905&type=doc&tei2id=TCC292|website=Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842|publisher=Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, The University of Georgia Libraries, Digital Library of Georgia|access-date=21 February 2018}}
• {{Find a Grave|8004425}}

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{{s-ttl|title=U.S. Shadow Senator (Class 1) from the Southwest Territory|years=1796|alongside=William Blount}}

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{{s-bef|before=Joseph Anderson}}

{{s-ttl|title=U.S. Senator (Class 2) from Tennessee|years=1799–1805|alongside=Joseph Anderson}}

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Category:1748 births

Category:1828 deaths

Category:People from Amelia County, Virginia

Category:People from colonial Virginia

Category:People from the State of Franklin

Category:American people of English descent

Category:Democratic-Republican Party United States senators from Tennessee

Category:Members of the Mississippi House of Representatives

Category:United States Indian agents

Category:Virginia lawyers

Category:American lawyers admitted to the practice of law by reading law

Category:People of the Creek War

Category:United States senators who owned slaves

Category:Impeached United States judges removed from office by state or territorial governments

Category:19th-century United States senators

Category:19th-century members of the Mississippi Legislature

Category:18th-century United States senators