1. "Charles C. Cook"
Posted by njwolfe on Apr-7th-03 at 8:35 PM

I was wondering if there is any info on this guy, I don't
find anything in my references.  In Lizzie's will she
gives him 10,000 plus the Baker Lot on French Street for
"his long and faithful services to me"...  I understand he
was like a business manager?  Seems like he was quite important
to her, does anyone have more on Charles Cook?

From "Lizzie Borden, Past & Present", Leonard Rebello, Copyright 1999

Page 329 --

Profile: Charles C. Cook was born in Fall River on March 28, 1854.  He was the son of Alexander Otis Cook and Mary S. (Bronson) Cook.  He was married to Wealthy Winslow (1857-1934).  They had a son, Benjamin A. Cook, who died on August 20, 1882, of dysentery at the age of four.

Mr Cook's father had a shop (stoves, furniture, tin, crockery and glassware) in the mid 1800's at 31 South Main Street and Globe Village.  The shop was later located at 43 Second Street in 1864 near the Borden home.  It was known as Cook & Grew, plumbers and tinsmiths.  As a young man, he worked for his father as a clerk (1873-1884).  From 1885, Mr Cook was a conveyancer, claims agent and insurance agent with an office at the Granite Block.  In 1896, he became involved with real estate, stocks, bonds and insurance.  He had an office at 109 South Main Street in the Andrew J. Borden Building.  He remained there until Lizzie died in 1927.  He resided on Main Road in Tiverton, Rhode Island.  Mr Cook was a very close friend of Lizzie Borden and she rewarded his trust and financial guidance by naming him executor of her will and a legatee.

Mrs Wealthy (Winslow) Cook died on May 16, 1934.  Mr Cook wrote and signed his will two months later on July 10, 1934.  Four months after his wife died, Mr Charles C. Cook died.  (September 28, 1934)  Funeral services were held at the Baptist Temple.  Interment was at Oak Grove Cemetary in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Mr Charles C. Cook left an estate of $69,288.55 to various friends, employees and a cousin.  His nieces were left $5.00 each.  The Second Baptist Church of Fall River, Massachusetts, received the remainder of his estate.  Mr Cook, at the time of his death, owned a house and land on Main Road, Tiverton, Rhode Island, and according to Probate Records "unimproved land on Highland Ave. and French St."  This land, the Baker lot, was left to him by Lizzie A. Borden.

(end of Rebello quote)

Chas. Cook was apparently Andrew Borden's "financial advisor" before being brought along by Emma & Lizzie.

Also, Chas. Cook's grandfather was Rev. Asa Bronson, the pastor who married Andrew & Abby.

An excellent job of research. But what does it do for solving the crime? We have heard of others of Lizzie's class defending her.

Cook is also in Emma's Codicil to her Will, designated as point #1, and being left $2,000 for his services to her father, and herself.
Cook made out like a bandit!

Cook was very much involved in the Borden's financial history, yet he is rarely ever mentioned.

He was a financial advisor to Andrew and he pretty much was involved in all the "girls" financial dealings. I believe a property was bought for them under his name. So I assume they trusted him.

It would be interesting to know whether all their finances passed through him.  And if so were the books ever audited? After Jennings passed out of their lives I wonder who they sought legal help from.

Kat is right in that he did very well for himself in Lizzie's will but he still sued the Borden estate for I believe $10,000 and only received $5,000 from the courts.

Thanks for the feedback folks! Surprised that he sued the
Borden estate.  Rays, you never know what question or thread
might lead to something new, seems like you are 100 percent
with A. R. Brown's book, which I also thought was a good book
but Not the "final chapter". 

I always found it odd that Cook refused to go on the record during the Witness Statements, saying he was not sure that he could speak. The Hilliard papers may contain this statement alluded to at the end of his quote.

Charles C. Cook made the following statement. "I am business manager for Mr. Andrew J. Borden, for the Borden Block. I did not see Mr. Borden Thursday. I have had charge of the Block almost since it was built. He used to come in once in a while, but not every day, nearly always alone. The only other person who ever came with him was his wife, excepting once when Lizzie came with him to sign a deed conveying some property she owned to her father. This property was owned jointly by the two sisters, and was situated on Ferry street. Lizzie has been here three or four times, once came to ask me about the value of the property she was going to .convey to her father. I told her, and she went away."
(Question.) "Mr. Cook, have you any reason to believe Mr. Borden had, or had not, made a will?"
(Answer) "I do not think Mr. Borden had made a will, unless it has been made recently. I will tell you how I know. He came to my office one day when I was writing, and waited until I finished, when I told him I was just writing a will. He said "Charles, do you know that is something I have never done yet, but I must attend to it."
(Question) "Mr. Cook, do you know of anything that would lead you to imagine that Lizzie and her father did not get along well together?"
(Answer) "I do not like to answer that question on account of my position as custodian of property, as I do not know what my relations may be with the family, when this thing is settled."
(Question.) "Would you be willing to answer that question in strict confidence to the City Harshal?"
(Answer) "Yes sir, I would."

Cook not only made out well, he ended up still a sort of mystery, because he managed to pretty much stay out of the papers, the books Victorian Vistas, and the Knowlton Papers Glossaries A & B.
That's really something, for such an important character!

I was confusing 10,000 bequest which nj posted, with the executor's fee in my memory.  So I looked and found that outright bequst, per nj, AND the executor's fee.  The fee he charged was 10,000 and the court allowed half that, $5,000.  It made him seem greedy, because I think the probate rules were from the beginning, that the executor couldn't charge outrageously, which it seems he did.  (Is that part right?)

Also an inconvenient thing I noticed about Lizzie's will and the disbursments made from her estate to her legatees, was how LONG it took!  The ladies received Installments!, which I would find galling, but probably real esatate had to be sold to pay eveybody and that can take time.
That will wasn't finished with disbursements until March 3rd, 1933!  Six years!  I think nowadays there is a time limit, at least a shorter time limit.

Ran across these two newspaper reports in the Evening Standard  August 18, 1892. 

"An out-of-town official, who has been working on the case, had this to say yesterday regarding the subject of a will:
'Soon after the murders were committed, it was learned that Mr. Borden said to Charles C. Cook, an insurance agent, who occasionally transacted business for him, 'I must make a will.  I am getting to be an old man and I have put it off too long already.'  This statement was made by Mr. Borden about three weeks before he was killed, and the city marshall heard of it soon after he began his work.'"

But another report on the same day contradicts the above.  [Two different editions of the paper maybe? a.m. and p.m.?]

"Charles C. Cook denies all knowledge of a will or of Mr. Borden having spoken of making one, or of Borden's ever having hinted at making an inventory of his property.
Mr. Cook was out of town yesterday and until noon to-day.  He has been an agent of a portion of the Borden estate for two and a half years."

(from: Lizzie Borden: Did She? ... Or ... Didn't She?)

I wonder who the *out-of-town official* was?
And the next snippet says Cook was *out of town yesterday until noon today*.
That sounds odd.
Maybe Cook went to the news agency after reading the *spurious* comment and had it negated?
But what could that out of town official know?
Maybe Hanscomb was meant?  But he's not an official, right?  And he's working for the defence.
?????

IF you receive property, you may be willing to wait a few years until the prices recover from their depression. You can't get money for a property until somebody is willing to buy it!

AR Brown did supply the "final solution", one that has never been topped. It works, since it explains a lot thru its "parallax view".
If only Bridget and Lizzie were there, one of them had to have done it. But there was no evidence for either one!!!

Assume there was somebody there whose presence and identity was hidden. Now everything falls into place. It explains the inconsistencies, why there was something hidden by the statements of Lizzie and Uncle John, etc.

I also believe that the "third rate burglary" of Watergate was only the cover story for what happened the preceding month: the assassination attempt on Geo Wallace which took his out of the race, and didn't split off the Southern vote from R Nixon. THAT does explain a lot, in my opinion.

That is my opinion. I wasn't there. But I hope you are open minded enought to agree that this solves this "unsolved mystery"?

I was thinking about the inheritence money coming in in drips and drabs as a far cry from a huge windfall.
But yes you're right about the Depression and maybe they were lucky after all, to have that legacy come to them in installments.  It was something to depend upon after the stock market crash.