John Cook

Little is known about John Cook outside of his employment as coachman at the White House during the presidency of John Quincy Adams. The president hired Cook sometime in the winter of 1824 to 1825, around the time Adams entered the White House.¹ 

On January 25, 1826, President Adams recorded in his diary: “Our Coachman John Cook was found this morning dead in his bed.” Adams claimed Cook had “a pulmonary complaint” but otherwise appeared healthy and had even driven the carriage the previous day and attended a tavern late into the night. In the same diary entry, Adams called Cook “a safe and skilful driver, with a quiet and sober disposition— We have suffered a loss by his death; and its suddenness is a fresh lesson of the frail and feeble tenure of human life.”² John Quincy Adams’s son, John, attended Cook’s funeral the next day.³