Most individuals of whom we may recall as being eccentric, are remembered as such on account of their having exhibited some prevailing trait of social awkwardness or peculiar personal habit during their respective lifetimes. They are considered eccentric because of their distinctive patterns in behavior. This, however, is not wholly the case in regards to the eccentric preacher, Rev. Valentine Cook Jr. His chief peculiarity was to be found in his physical appearance. He was naturally strange looking. An 1858 biographical sketch of him by Edward Stevenson paints a very unflattering portrait:
“Valentine Cook was slightly above the medium height and size. There was no symmetry in his figure; his limbs, being disproportionately long, seemed more like awkward appendages than well-fitted parts of a perfect whole. He was what is called stoop-shouldered to such a degree, that his long neck projected from between his shoulders almost at a right angle with the perpendicular of his chest. His head, which was of peculiar formation, being much longer than usual from the crown to the point of the chin, seemed rather suspended to than supported by the neck. A remarkably low forehead, small, deeply sunken hazel eyes, a prominent Roman nose, large mouth, thin lips, a dark sallow complexion, coarse black hair, with here and there a thread of gray, formed a tout ensemble in which nature seemed to have paid no regard to order, strength, or beauty.”
Valentine Cook Jr. Was born February 13, 1763. We must conclude that both his rugged looks and his rugged individualism originated with his parents, Valentine (Sr.) and Susannah, who were among the very first permanent settlers in the area that would later be named Monroe county, West Virginia. They had arrived in 1773 with young Valentine Jr. and seven other children from the Shenandoah Valley, and by 1774 had claimed a 650 acre tract immediately west of what is now Greenville. In 1778 and 1781, their fort on this land sheltered up to 300 settlers during tensions with Native American tribes.
From an early age on, Valentine Jr. was an avid hunter. Being an excellent marksman, and having at command a well-trained pack of hounds, he pursued wild game of every kind, from the stately bison to the screaming pheasant. On one occasion, he set out to recover his father’s horses that had been stolen by Native Americans. He discovered the horses tied up in a dense thicket, and unaware that their captors were watching, leaned his rifle against a tree and proceeded to untie them. Several Native Americans appeared and overpowered him. To quote again Edward Stevenson:
“After carefully surveying him from head to foot, laying their hands on his long black hair, and looking him full in the face for some time, one of the most elderly of the party exclaimed, ‘Booh!’ and added (purportedly in broken English), ‘Indian! Young Indian!’ They returned the horses, saying ‘Indian won’t kill Indian boy!’”
(The above anecdote being further evidence of Valentine Cook Jr.’s unusual appearance —especially, in light of his Caucasian descent.)
It was during the 1780’s that Valentine Jr. found his calling as an itinerant Methodist preacher. Thanks, in part, to a visit paid by Francis Asbury, the well known circuit-rider and one of the first bishops of the Methodist Church ordained in the United States. According to Owen F. Morton in “The History of Monroe County” (1916):
“[Francis Asbury’s] first visit west of the Alleghenies was in 1781, and Methodism in the Greenbrier dates from about this time. Jacob and Valentine Cook (Jr.), sons of Valentine Cook (Sr.) of Indian Creek, were the first Methodist preachers belonging in Monroe. Jacob was a local preacher and traveled a great deal. Valentine, Jr., born in Pennsylvania, had few advantages in early life and yet managed to acquire the rudiments of an English and German education at Cokesbury College, the first Methodist school in America. ‘He was an instance of the triumph of intellect and goodness over singular physical defects. But when he began to preach these peculiarities were forgotten as attention was arrested by the tones of his voice and his words.’”
In addition, we are told that the first Methodist society in Monroe county was founded in 1784 on property belonging to the Cook family. Elderly parishioners of “Cook’s Chapel” would later recall Valentine Jr. as their “youthful champion of Methodism” and as “the chief instrument of their awakening and conversion to the new religion.” Their reminiscing also heralded him posthumously as “that wonderful young man,” and “that angel of a preacher.”
By 1788 Valentine Jr. was received into the traveling ministry, and labored on different circuits in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania until 1793. It was around this time that he met and married his first wife, Katherine Kraft (c. 1789). In 1794 and 1795, he traveled the Philadelphia District. In 1796 and 1797, he was appointed to the Pittsburgh District. The following extracts are once more gleaned from Cook’s sole biographer:
“At all times and in every place, he was ready to preach Jesus Christ crucified. By day and by night, during the weekdays, as well as on the Lord’s Day, he was always ready to proclaim the glad tidings of salvation to a perishing world. To him the place was nothing. Wherever the people were assembled and willing to hear—whether in the church, the courthouse, the schoolroom, or the marketplace, in the mansions of the wealthy and the shacks of the poor as well as to the vast multitudes on the campground, he was never found unprepared to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. No ordinary circumstances could prevent the full and faithful discharge of his duty in this respect. His travels were never impeded by inclement weather. Through summer’s heat and winter’s cold, amid torrential rains and blinding snows, he was always at his appointments, holding forth in strains of melting sweetness the gospel of the grace of God. The conversion of sinners—whether poor or rich, learned or illiterate, bond or free—was the all-engrossing subject of his thoughts, and the all-controlling intent of his life. His word, whether in the pulpit, the classroom, the prayer-meeting, or the social circle, at all times, and in every place, was ‘living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart’ (Hebrews 4:12 ESV).”
Cook’s peculiar devotion to the study of God’s Word, and his “being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts” (James 1:25), contributed greatly to his exceptional style of preaching. Like his blessed Master, he was constantly “going about doing good” (cf. Acts 10:38 ESV).
“The Bible was his constant companion, at home and abroad, in public and in private. Other books he read as opportunity served and occasion required, but the Bible he read every day. Whether found in his private study, the schoolroom, the field, or the forest, he always had the precious volume at command. He was often observed poring over its sacred pages when travel-ling on horseback as well as on foot. So thoroughly was he posted in the teaching of the inspired pen-men, that no passage could be called for that he was not able to repeat, or to which he could not turn in a few moments. Of him it may in truth be said, he was ‘mighty in the Scriptures.’ In the pulpit he usually announced the book, chapter, and verse of his quotations; and when he deemed it necessary, as he sometimes did, for the establishment of an important position or doctrine, it was truly astonishing with what facility he could call up his proofs from all the different parts of the inspired volume.
“. . . The principal ground of complaint among unbelieving, impenitent sinners, and cold-hearted, worldly-minded professors was that they understood him too well for their comfort and quietude.
“A wicked man once remarked that he could listen to the Rev. Mr. so-and-so all day, and sleep soundly all the following night; but added, ‘I never get a comfortable night’s rest for at least a month after hearing Father Cook preach one sermon. He always says something that I can’t forget.’
“At a camp meeting held in Southern Kentucky, while Mr. Cook was preaching on these words, ‘Beware lest wrath entice you into scoffing, and let not the greatness of the ransom turn you aside’ (Job 36:18 ESV), a gentleman arose in the congregation and exclaimed under great excitement, ‘Stop! Stop until I can get out of this place!’ Mr. Cook immediately paused, and said, ‘Let us pray for that man.’
“The gentleman started from where he stood, but just as he reached the outskirts of the assembly he sank to the earth and began to cry aloud for mercy.
“Valentine Cook literally preached the gospel ‘with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven’ (cf. 1 Peter 1:12 KJV), and with so much sincerity, affection, and tenderness, as not only to arrest and fix the attention, but to carry the truth directly home to the hearts of his hearers. Though deeply read in the arts and sciences, and possessing as intimate a knowledge of the original languages as any man of his day, he made no ostentatious display of his learning; and, except in controversy, was seldom known to recite the original in the pulpit. In the elucidation and enforcement of his subjects, he sometimes alluded to science, philosophy, and history, and, in fact, to every thing within the range of his knowledge: this, however, he always did in a manner so perfectly plain and simple, that the most ignorant and unlearned could not possibly fail to understand his meaning. He studiously avoided metaphysical discussions. His subjects were always strictly evangelical, and well adapted to the occasions. In their discussion the important points were generally illustrated and enforced with such well-known facts and familiar circumstances, as to make a deep and lasting impression on the minds of his hearers.”
Charles Spurgeon, in his book “Eccentric Preachers,” points out how during the American Pioneer, most itinerant preachers were woefully lacking in “classical” education. Some, we may deduce, were practically illiterate. Valentine Cook Jr. was quite the opposite. As previously mentioned, Cook was a highly educated man, having “managed to acquire . . . an English and German education at Cokesbury College” in Maryland. That rare acquisition of a formal education benefited him immensely, and aided him in practical ways throughout much of his ministerial journeys. Spurgeon relates:
“After traveling a whole day without refreshment in a region where he was unknown, he halted in the evening at the house of a German, and asked if he could obtain some feed for his horse and something for himself to eat. Being a tall, rough-looking specimen of humanity, the good woman, who was busy spinning yarn, took him to be an Irishman. She was not at all favorably impressed with his appearance, but at her husband’s request she fixed a lunch for him and returned to her spinning wheel, saying to her husband somewhat petulantly in German, that she hoped the Irishman would choke while eating. After Cook had finished his meal he asked the privilege to pray, which being granted he knelt down and offered up a fervent petition in German. In his prayer he asked the Lord to bless the kind woman at the wheel and give her a new heart, so that she might be more hospitable towards strangers. Such a personal reflection was more than the good woman could stand, and she left her spinning wheel and ran from the house overwhelmed with chagrin at her wicked wish.”
By 1798 Valentine Jr. was sent as a missionary to Kentucky; that same year he was appointed Presiding Elder of Cumberland District. On November 9, 1799 he married his second wife, Tabitha “Tabby” Slaughter, the niece of future governor Gabriel Slaughter. His declining health precluded the rigors of the itinerant preacher’s life and he eventually settled on a farm along Muddy River in Logan county, KY but remained active in preaching and teaching in the nearby area. It was at this stage of life that another eccentricity appears to have surfaced: his absentmindedness. According to Stevenson:
“He was frequently known to leave his horse tied up in the woods, or safely housed in the stable of some friend where he had preached, and walk all the way home, never once thinking of his horse, until interrogated on the subject by his wife or children. On one occasion, he started for an appointment some six or eight miles from his residence. When but a short distance from the chapel at which he was to preach, he turned aside into the barrens, as was his custom, for the purpose of spending a moment in private devotion.
“On remounting his horse and returning to the road, he unwittingly took the wrong turn, and was jogging along towards home, humming a favorite tune, when met by some of his friends who were going to hear him preach. ‘Well, brethren,’ said the old gentleman, very pleasantly, are you not going the wrong way?’ They thought not. ‘We are going to Bibb’s Chapel to hear you preach, and this is certainly the right road.’ He appeared much astonished, but yielding the point, he turned around and accompanied them to the church, being much more inclined than any of the company to laugh at his blunder.”
Rev. Valentine Cook Jr. died August 22, 1822 at the age of fifty-nine in Russellville, Ky. Per a gravesite monument erected by the Louisville Annual Conference Historical Society (July 29, 1934), his grave lies 500 yards due East to “the site of the first camp meeting held in the world in July 1800.”
“He was a man of great learning and genuine piety.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Morton, O. (1916). A History of Monroe County West Virginia. Ruebush-Elkins Co. (Google Books). <https://books.google.com/books?id=NkEVAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=snippet&q=Asbury&f=false>
Rev. Valentine Cook. Find a Grave. <https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/123027131/valentine-cook>
Rev. Valentine Cook (1763–1822). Historical Marker Database. <https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=165537>
Rev Valentine Cook Jr. FamilySearch. <https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/KGMG-VDC/rev-valentine-cook-jr-1763-1822>
Spurgeon, C. (1879; updated edition, 2024). “Eccentric Preachers (Updated Edition).” Aneko Press. <https://anekopress.com/product/eccentric-preachers/>
Stevenson, E. (1858). Biographical Sketch of the Rev. Valentine Cook, A.M. with an Appendix Containing his Discourse on Baptism. J. B. M’Ferrin (Google Books). <https://books.google.com/books?id=hFWnnQEACAAJ&pg=PA9&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false>
Ziegler, F. (2006). Valentine Cook Jr. Cook’s Old Mill. <http://www.cooksoldmill.com/text/article-vcookjr.html>
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