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John James McCook was born in New Lisbon, Ohio. He was the fifth and youngest son of John, a physician, and Catharine Julia (Sheldon) McCook, and brother of Edward Moody, Anson George, and Henry Christopher, and Roderick S. McCook. Alexander McDowell McCook was his first cousin.
McCook attended Jefferson (now Washington and Jefferson) College, 1858-60. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was reading law in Steubenville, Ohio. His four brothers and an uncle, Daniel McCook, with his eight sons, enlisted in the service of the Union and made a record that gave them the name of "the fighting McCooks. " As a lad of eighteen, John James helped to organize a company which was mustered into the 1st Regiment of Virginia Volunteers. He rose from private to be second lieutenant, served throughout McClellan's West Virginia campaign, and was later attached to McClellan's headquarters as acting assistant-quartermaster. Declining a permanent staff appointment, he entered Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, from which he was graduated in 1863. He studied a few months in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York and then transferred to the Berkeley Divinity School, graduating in 1866. In that year he was admitted to deacon's orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church.
After a year in St. John's Church, East Hartford, John was ordained priest (1867) and became rector of St. John's Church, Detroit, Michigan, but returned in 1868 to the church in East Hartford which he served thenceforth until his death in 1927. In 1883, he began forty years of teaching as instructor of Latin in Trinity College. In 1886, he was made professor of modern languages. At different times he taught German, French, Italian, and Spanish, finally specializing in German. Though voluntarily carrying more than the usual quantity of class work and active in building up his East Hartford church and a summer congregation in Niantic, he took vigorous part in civic affairs. In 1890, he was chairman of a "Committee to Confer with the Selectmen in the Matter of Outdoor Alms in the Town of Hartford. " The Report submitted in 1891, led to a reform of abuses. In the years following, McCook started a movement to establish a state reformatory for youthful delinquents and in 1895 was appointed chairman of the first commission of the Connecticut Reformatory. After agitating for some time against the prevalent bribing of voters, he became in 1901 chairman of a nonpartisan committee which, with the cooperation of the two major political parties, succeeded in putting a stop to the practice in Hartford. In 1901, also, he was elected a member of the high school committee of Hartford, on which he served until 1915, the last two years as chairman. In his civic activities he always sought exact knowledge, especially of a statistical character, and thus found matter for a number of publications. From 1892 to 1901, he published articles on venal voting, tramps, the saloon, and pauperism, in the Forum, the Independent, Charities Review, and Journal of Social Science. The most entertaining of these papers are the "Leaves from the Diary of a Tramp" which appeared in the Independent at intervals between November 21, 1901, and June 26, 1902.
McCook's most considerable contribution is the Report of the Special Committee on Outdoor Alms (1891), referred to above, of which he was the author although his name does not appear on the title page. The report is broader than the title indicates, since indoor relief is also considered and the Appendix contains material on methods followed in other places. At the time of issue it was the most informing American publication on official poor-relief.
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member of the high school committee of Hartford
All his papers are well-written and interesting because of their concrete detail, but his writings do not reveal the dynamic personality of the man and the deep impression which he made on those who knew him personally.
On June 7, 1866, McCook married Eliza Sheldon Butler of Hartford.
