Eli Nugent, and Siby McCoy,
are the only survivors of the resolute little band of Colored men and
women who gathered with and guided that Sunday-school. They had, in
the successor of Mr. Prout, a man after their own heart,

JOHN F. COOK,

who came into charge of this school in August, 1834, about eight years
after his aunt, Alethia Tanner, had purchased his freedom. He learned
the shoemaker's trade in his boyhood, and worked diligently, after the
purchase of his freedom, to make some return to his aunt for the
purchase-money. About the time of his becoming of age, he dislocated
his shoulder, which compelled him to seek other employment, and in
1831, the year of his majority, he obtained the place of assistant
messenger in the Land Office. Hon. John Wilson, now Third Auditor of
the Treasury, was the messenger, and was Cook's firm friend till the
day of his death. Cook had been a short time at school under the
instruction of Smothers and Prout, but when he entered the Land Office
his education was at most only the ability to stumble along a little
in a primary reading-book. He, however, now gave himself in all his
leisure moments, early and late, to study. Mr. Wilson remembers his
indefatigable application, and affirms that it was a matter of
astonishment at the time, and that he has seen nothing in all his
observations to surpass and scarcely to equal it. He was soon able to
write a good hand, and was employed with his pen in clerical work by
the sanction of the commissioner, Elisha Hayward, who was much
attached to him. Cook was now beginning to look forward to the life of
a teacher, which, with the ministry, was the only work not menial in
its nature then open to an educated Colored man. At the end of three
years he resigned his place in the Land Office, and entered upon the
work which he laid down only with his life. It was then that he gave
himself wholly to study and the business of education, working with
all his might; his school numbering quite a hundred scholars in the
winter and a hundred and fifty in the summer. He had been in his work
one year when the storm which had been, for some years, under the
discussion of the slavery question, gathering over the country at
large, burst upon this district.

THE SNOW RIOT,

or "Snow storm," as it has been commonly called, which occurred in
September, 1835, is an event that stands vividly in the memory of all
Colored people who lived in this community at that ti