The First Black Typefounder in the United States?

Nelson Cook (c.1826–1873)
For several months I have been compiling a list of people employed in the type founding business in the United States in the 19th century. My primary resource for this project is digitized city directories. Many directories indicate the race—white or black—of city residents via either segregated listings or a code (e.g. colored, col’d, or c) attached to a name. In the 1845 New York directory (p. 85) published by John Doggett, Jr. there appears “Cook Nelson, (col’d) type founder, r. 65 Sullivan”.

Doggett’s New-York City Directory for 1845 & 1846 (Fourth edition) (New York John Doggett, Jr., 1845), p. 85  with listing of “Cook Nelson, (col’d) type founder, r. 65 Sullivan”.

Mr. Nelson is the first—and so far, the only—black person in the type founding trade I have come across anywhere in the United States in the 19th century. He does not appear in the competing 1845 directory published by Groot and Elston. But, he does show up in every other New York directory until 1851 with the exception of 1848.

In 1846 and 1847 Cook was still listed as a typefounder but with a new address of 154 Sullivan Street. He is missing from the 1848 directory. When he returns in 1849 he is still living at 154 Sullivan Street, but his occupation is now stereotyper. He has the same residence and occupation in 1850 and 1851. After that he disappears from New York City directories.

Doggett’s New York City Directory for 1849–1850 (Eighth Edition) (New York: John Doggett, Jr. & Co.), p. 103 with “Cook Nelson, stereotyper, 154 Sullivan”.

The 1850 United States Census was the first to include “Profession, Occupation, or Trade of each Male Person over 15 years of age”. Cook appears in it as a “free inhabitant” of the Eighth Ward of New York City [Manhattan] with an occupation of “labourer”, a designation that covered numerous trades, possibly including both typefounder and stereotyper. He is described as a mulatto 24 years of age, the head of a household including Ann (age 22) and Sarah (age 19), also mulattos.  Since none of the three of them is listed as married, it can be presumed that Sarah and Ann were Nelson’s sisters. (But see claims to the contrary below.)

1850 United States Census for the Eighth Ward in New York listing Nelson Cook and household.

Cook disappears from the public record until 1856 when he resurfaces in San Francisco, working as a porter for the bank of Drexel, Sather & Church and living on Green Street between Kearny and Dupont. For the rest his life he remains a porter, even as the bank underwent several name changes from Drexel, Sather & Church to Sather & Church (in 1858) to Sather & Co. (in 1864). Cook constantly changed his residence over the course of eight years: in 1858 he was living at the corner of Clay and Battery; in 1859 he was at the corner of Dupont and Green; in 1860 he was on Kearny Street between Green and Union; in 1861 he lived at 1224 Kearny Street; in 1862 he returned to the corner of Dupont and Green; and in 1863 he was living at the corner of Dupont and Filbert. Then, in 1864 Cook settled into a home at 1526 Dupont Street where he remained until 1869 (the last available listing) or perhaps until his death in 1873.

San Francisco City Directory, for the Year Commencing October 1856 compiled by Harris, Bogardus and Labatt (San Francisco: Whitton, Towne & Co. 1856), p. 39 with “Cook Nelson, porter at Drexel, Sather & Church”.

1860 United States Census for the 1st District in San Francisco listing Nelson Cook’s household.

In the 1860 United States Census Nelson, Ann and Sarah are living together in the 1st District of San Francisco. Their race is listed as “M” [mulatto] and their place of birth as New York State (In 1850 only Sarah was listed as having been born in New York State with Ann listed as having been born in New Jersey and “unknown” as Nelson’s place of birth.). Nelson is listed as age 35, while Ann is listed as age 29 and Sarah as age 14! All are unmarried. Nelson is a porter with real estate worth $1200 and a personal estate of $1000.

The San Francisco Directory for the Year Commencing December 1869 compiled by Henry G. Langley (San Francisco: Henry G. Langley, Publisher, 1869), p. 167 listing “Cook Nelson, (colored) porter with Sather & Co., del 1526 Dupont”.

1870 United States Census for the First Precint of Ward 10 in San Francisco listing Nelson Cook.

Ann died 7 December 1869 of a uterine tumor at age 42. Neither the 1869 Mortuary Record for the City and County of California nor the 1870 Federal Mortality Census records a marital status for her. However, a brief obituary notice in The San Francisco Chronicle (8 December 1869) describes her as a native of Schoharie, New York and “the wife of Nelson Cook”. There is no mention of Sarah as a surviving relative.

What happened to Sarah is unknown as only Nelson appears in the 1870 United States Census.* There he is part of a household with Thomas and Jane Dustin, a black couple. Thomas was a store porter and Jane was a hairdresser. Her personal estate was worth $300 but no estate is listed for either her husband Thomas or for Nelson Cook. Cook, age 47, is described as a bank porter.

Cook is absent from San Francisco city directories for the years 1870 to 1873. He may have moved to Virginia City, Nevada since that is where he died on 2 June 1873. The Virginia Chronicle described his sad, final hours: “Nelson Cook, a colored man somewhat advanced in years, committed suicide at the County Hospital about 9 o’clock this morning, by severing the main artery of his left arm at the wrist, [?] laboring under a fit of temporary insanity. He went to the hospital on Friday or Saturday, suffering from nervous prostration superinduced by drinking, and ended his sufferings by severing an artery with a knife, and bleeding to death this morning. Deceased was a native of New York, a pioneer of California, and has a married daughter in San Francisco.”

The Gold Hill [Nevada] News provided a lengthier, more detailed and more gruesome account of Cook’s death, one that in some points contradicted that of The Virginia Chronicle and also contained some obvious errors:

One of the patients admitted to the County Hospital on Friday last, was a colored man by the name of Nelson Cook, who was afflicted at that time with that most terrible of diseases—delirium tremens. Dr. Berthier, physician in charge, did everything in his power for the relief of the sufferer. At about 9 o’clock last night the unhappy man, bent upon self-destruction, got possession of a razor, with which he inflicted a terrible gash upon his left forearm, severing the main artery and a number of blood vessels. When discovered, shortly afterwards, by the nurse he was bleeding profusely. Dr. Berthier checked the hemorrhage promptly and dressed the wound, but no sooner was his back turned than the would-be suicide tore the bandages from his arm and started the wound bleeding afresh. The doctor went through the operation of dressing the wound three times, and was finally was compelled to lash the patient to his bed, when he became quiet from sheer exhaustion and the loss of blood. The doctor estimates that he must have lost at least ten pounds of blood. It appears that the drain upon his life currents was too great, as the unfortunate man, after lingering through the night, expired at an early hour this morning. The deceased was a native of Louisiana, and at the time of his death was about thirty-five years of age. [reprinted in the Salt Lake Weekly Tribune 7 June 1873]

Both Nelson and Ann Cook are buried in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma (nicknamed “the City of the Silent” because it has more dead residents than living ones), located south of San Francisco. The whereabouts of Sarah Cook are unknown.

There are several questions surrounding Nelson Cook’s life. How and when did he enter the type founding trade? Did he move to San Francisco as part of the California Gold Rush fever of the early 1850s? Did he become a porter because there were no type foundries or stereotype businesses in San Francisco prior to 1858? Were he and Ann married and, if so, what was Sarah’s relationship to them? Did grief over Ann’s death lead him to drink? How did he end up in Virginia City?

It is unfortunate that the one aspect of Nelson Cook’s life that we know about in detail is his unhappy death. Although specifics of his brief career as a typefounder and stereotyper remain unknown, there is the small consolation that a black man in the type founding trade prior to 1850 has been identified.

*Although The Virginia Chronicle account of Nelson Cook’s death indicated he had a married daughter, it is unclear if that referred to Sarah. In the 1850 census she was listed as 19 years old which would rule her out as Nelson’s daughter. However, if her age of 14 in the 1860 census is more accurate, then she would have been age 4 in 1850 and theoretically the daughter of Nelson and Ann. But a discrepancy in age of 15 years for a child seems highly unlikely. Furthermore, ancestry.com has no records of a black woman named Sarah Cook being married in California in the 1860s.

Addendum
What was Nelson Cook’s racial status? In the 1850 and 1860 United States Censuses he is listed as mulatto even as black was an option for the enumerator. Intriguingly, in the 1870s United States Census Cook and his housemates Jane and Thomas Dustin are described as black, but with the “B” written on top of a “W” [white]. All of this suggests that Nelson Cook was biracial, most likely with a white father and a black mother. Did he “pass” to become a typefounder and stereotyper?