Thomas Butler Cooper

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Thomas Butler Cooper was a teacher, merchant, lawyer, and politician in Alabama. He served in the Alabama House of Representatives after the Civil War including as Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives. [1]

He was born in South Carolina. His father was from Philadelphia. He married Nancy P. Powell of Georgia in 1832. He was first elected to the Alabama House in 1842 and served six terms in the Alabama legislature. He succeeded W. R. W. Cobb of Jackson in the Confederate congress after Cobb's expulsion. He was a delegate at Alabama's 1865 constitutional convention. The U.S. congress removed Confederate officers from offices in the south during the Reconstruction era. He was described as shrewd, stout, and corpulent. [2]

An 1863 letter to Alabama governor John Gill Shorter that Cooper and others signed survives. [3] A letter he wrote to Alabama governor Thomas Hill Watts in 1864 survives. [4]

He helped name short-lived Baine County in honor of a Confederate civil war officer. It was succeeded by Etowah County. [5]

James Cooper was his brother. [6]

References

  1. ↑ "Alabama legislative acts, 1866-1867". November 7, 1866 – via Internet Archive.
  2. ↑ Brewer, Willis (March 7, 1872). "Alabama, Her History, Resources, War Record, and Public Men: From 1540 to 1872". Barrett & Brown – via Google Books.
  3. ↑ "CONTENTdm". digital.archives.alabama.gov.
  4. ↑ "CONTENTdm". digital.archives.alabama.gov.
  5. ↑ Staff Writer. "County comes, goes, comes back". Gadsden Times.
  6. ↑ "Settlers of Northeast Alabama". Northeast Alabama Genealogical Society. March 7, 1967 – via Google Books.
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