James M. Cook

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James M. Cook was an American businessman, banker and politician.

[edit] Life

From 1838 to 1856, he was the first President of the Ballston Spa Bank. Besides, he owned cotton mills at Ballston Spa.

In 1842, 1843 and 1845, he was President of the Village of Ballston Spa in Saratoga County, New York.

He was a member of the New York State Senate from 1848 to 1851.

At the state election in November 1851, he was elected New York State Treasurer on the Whig ticket by a margin of only 228 votes (200,693 for Cook; 200,465 for Welch), and took office on January 1, 1852. His Democratic opponent Benjamin Welch contested the election successfully, and on November 20, 1852, Welch succeeded to the office for the remainder of the term.

He was New York State Comptroller from 1854 to 1855, defeated for re-election in 1855 by the American Party candidate Lorenzo Burrows.

In 1856, he was appointed Superintendent of the Banking Department.

[edit] Sources

• [1] Official state canvass, in NYT on January 1, 1852
• [2] Political Graveyard
• [3] History of Saratoga County, New York by Nathaniel Bartlett Sylvester (1878)
• Google Book The New York Civil List compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough (pages 34, 36, 39 and 139; Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858)
• [4] The Whig ticket in 1855, in NYT on September 29, 1855

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