John Alexander Cocke

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John Alexander Cocke was an American politician who represented Tennessee as a member of the United States House of Representatives. He was born in Brunswick, Nottoway County, Virginia in 1772. He moved with his parents to Tennessee, where he attended the public schools. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1793, and practiced in Hawkins County.

He was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1796, 1797, 1807, 1809, 1812, and again in 1837. He served as speaker in 1812 and 1837. He served in the Tennessee Senate between 1799 and 1801. He served as major general of the Tennessee Volunteers in the Creek War in 1813 and as colonel of a regiment of Tennessee riflemen, under General Andrew Jackson, at New Orleans.

Cocke was as a Democratic-Republican to the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Congresses, as a Jacksonian Republican to the Eighteenth Congress, and as a Jacksonian to the Nineteenth Congress. During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Congresses, he was chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Indian Affairs.

John Cocke engaged in agricultural pursuits, founded a school for deaf mutes in Knoxville, Tennessee, and again became a member of the Tennessee Senate in 1843. He died in Rutledge, Tennessee on February 16, 1854. He was interred at Methodist Church Cemetery. He was the son of U.S. Senator William Cocke and the uncle of U.S. representative William Michael Cocke.

This article incorporates facts obtained from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.