Reverend Samuel Cooke was arguably the most influential man in Shrewsbury Township at the start of the Revolutionary period. For a decade, he led the county’s leading Anglican congregations at Shrewsbury and smaller congregations at Middletown and Freehold. He lived in a comfortable home in Shrewsbury immodestly named “the Glebe”. As anti-British agitation swept the colonies, Cooke led the resistance. He wrote that “he prevented any committee from being chosen in Shrewsbury” for a half year. But the winds were blowing against Cooke’s public support of the British government.

As sentiments turned against the British, Cooke felt unsafe. He wrote that "he rec'd several threats before he came away, this hastened his departure.” Cooke left for England on May 1775. In his final sermon at Shrewsbury's Christ Church, Cooke alluded to the mixed motivations of Continental leaders in a sermon titled, "The Duty of Mutual Love Enforced by God's Example.” In an apparent swipe at the Continental movement, Cooke warned against following leaders with “secret intentions” and "pretended love.” He urged his congregants to be wary of men “where nothing but self interest is at their bottom."

Cooke’s departure was hastened by a clash with Josiah Holmes. Holmes was a former Magistrate who was stripped of the office by the Governor for showing sympathy for the rioters who closed the county courts in 1770 and 1771. Holmes was a church warden at the Christ Church and he challenged Cooke’s political influence over the congregation. Later in the war, Cooke would write of Holmes, "He broke out, took the lead as a Committeeman, and joining with a few Presbyterians created all the disturbances in his power against me."  Cooke had Holmes removed as a Church Warden in 1775, but Holmes remained influential. He returned to the Christ Church after Cooke’s departure.

There is little documentation of Cooke’s time in England. He wrote fondly of the Loyalism of his flock in Shrewsbury: “few of them have, indeed, swerved from the path of duty.” He also noted the minority status of Anglicans in Monmouth County: “the congregation of the Church of England is small in comparison to the number of dissenters.” Cooke was known by Philip Van Courtland, one of New York’s wealthiest Loyalists, who referred to him as “the worthy Doctor of Kings” and urged a colleague in England to send Cooke his “sincerest respects.”

Cooke returned to America in June 1776. He wrote that “he came home in 1776, hoping that the confusion in the colonies would subside.” Cooke soon learned that returning to Shrewsbury would be dangerous. Instead, he joined the British Army as deputy chaplain to the Brigade of Guards, a British Army unit. Cooke’s family, however, stayed in Shrewsbury. He wrote that he "was compelled to leave behind his large & helpless family, with but slender support.” The family initially owned to two farms – 165 and 50 acres – and two slaves. That did not last. In May 1779, Cooke’s was in the first group Loyalist estates sold in Shrewsbury. His daughter, Mary, was permitted to purchase some of the family estate. But Cooke’s main estate was purchased by his old rival Josiah Holmes who, according to Cooke, “took possession of the Glebe and continues to live in it with his family.”

Cooke was not immediately replaced. The minister at Spotswood, William Ayres, attempted to serve the Monmouth County congregations, but the war years were hard on him. A 1785 report on the Episcopal Clergy in New Jersey noted that Ayres was “afflicted with insanity” for much of the war, but had recovered his mental health by 1785. Records from the Christ Church note the assignment of a “Mr. Beach” as Reverend 1782, but it is unclear if this was permanent assignment. The next long term minster was Henry Waddle, appointed in 1787 after serving the church as its “Lay Delegate” in prior years. Waddle was an early leader of the county’s Revolutionary militia, but he soured on military service early in the war and was permitted to weather the war as a non-participant. 

Cooke stayed in the Army until the end of the war. In 1780, he wrote a letter about the large number of his former Shrewsbury congregants with him in British-held New York. His Loyalist compensation application to the British Government was supported by William Franklin (the last Royal Governor of New Jersey) and Cortland Skinner (the commander of the Loyalist New Jersey Volunteers). This proves that Cooke was on good terms with the most important Loyalists at war’s end.

After the war, Cooke settled in New Brunswick, Canada, and was appointed Chaplain to the military garrison at Saint John. In 1786, he became the first rector of the Episcopal Church at Fredericton and in 1791 was named Commissary to the Bishop of Nova Scotia. Reverend Cooke died a few years later. His canoe overset in the St. John River on May 23, 1795. His son, Michael, died while attempting to save his father.

Sources: Records of the Shrewsbury Christ Church, Shrewsbury Christ Church; Dennis P. Ryan, "Six Towns: Continuity and Change in Revolutionary New Jersey, 1770-1792" (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1974) p 167.  Ryan, New Jersey's Loyalists (Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1974) p 11; Dennis P. Ryan, "Six Towns: Continuity and Change in Revolutionary New Jersey, 1770-1792" (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1974) pp. 46-59; United Empire Loyalists, Loyal Directory: http://www.uelac.org/Loyalist-Info; Monmouth County Historical Association, Vault, Shelf 4, Christ Church (Shrewsbury) - Vestry Book; Leonard Lundin, Cockpit of the Revolution the War for Independence in New Jersey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950) p 68; Hugh Edward Egerton, The Royal Commission On The Losses And Services Of American Loyalists, 1783-1785 (London: Kessinger, 2010) pp. 35-7. See also Rutgers University Special Collection, Loyalist Compensation of Application of Samuel Cooke, D96, AO 13/108, reel 8; Frederic Parris, "The Case of Rev. Samuel Cooke: Loyalist," Monmouth County Historical Association Newslettervol. 3, May 1975; Gregory Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (Westport, Conn.: Meckler, 1984) p 174; Monmouth County Historical Association, Samuel Cooke Papers, sermon #7; Great Britain, Public Record Office, Audit Office, Class 13, Volume 54, folio 633-634; Journals of the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the State of New Jersey, 1785-1816, (New York: John Polhemus, 1890), p 34;"Six Towns: Continuity and Change in Revolutionary New Jersey, 1770-1792" (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1974) pp. 169-76. Ryan, New Jersey's Loyalists (Trenton: New Jersey Historical Commission, 1974) p 19; Anglican Church at Shrewsbury, Christ Church, October 7, 1782, Monmouth County Historical Association, Vault, Shelf 4, Christ Church (Shrewsbury) - Vestry Book; Rev. Samuel Cooke's United Empire Loyalist bio: Minister at Shrewsbury before the war; becomes the Rector of the first church of Fredericton, NB after the war -- United Empire Loyalists, Loyal Directory: http://www.uelac.org/Loyalist-Info; Journals of the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the State of New Jersey, 1785-1816, (New York: John Polhemus, 1890), p 112-113.

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