as judge of the western circuit. Again running for Congress in 1818, Cook defeated McLean in the general election, and again in 1820 (after a debate over slavery), 1822 and 1824, thus serving as the second representative from Illinois (although the first to serve a full term). While in Congress, Cook served on the Committee on Public Lands and later on the Ways and Means Committee. He secured a grant of government lands to aid in the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. In the 1824 election, Cook also helped defeat a proposed convention to legalize slavery in Illinois, and at year's end helped elect John Quincy Adams as President (by one vote when the election was thrown to the House). Cook, in ill-health, campaigned little in 1826, and while he again scored more votes than McLean, the pro-slavery Jacksonian Democrat, Joseph Duncan, won the election. The following spring, President Adams sent Cook on a diplomatic mission to Havana, Cuba, but that did not restore his health. He returned to Edwardsville, and asked to be taken back to his birthplace in Kentucky. Family On May 6, 1821, Cook married Julia Catherine Edwards, the daughter of his mentor Ninian Edwards (who was related by marriage to the Pope family of Kentucky). After Daniel Cook died, Julia Cook moved back to Belleville, Illinois, but only survived her husband by three years. Their son, John Cook (born 1825), remained true to the family's anti-slavery principles and became mayor of Springfield, Illinois, in 1855, brigadier general for Union forces in the Civil War and state representative for Sangamon County, Illinois. Death and legacy Daniel Cook, who always suffered from poor health, died on October 16, 1827, at the age of 32 in Scott County, Kentucky. Four years after his death, the home county of Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, was named in his honor. He was buried in Kentucky, then reburied with the Lamb family (relatives of his son's wife) in 1866 in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois. References DeLove, Sidney L. Cook County and Daniel Pope Cook-their Story. An Illinois Sesquicentennial Publication. Chicago: Independence Hall, 1968. 1794 births 1827 deaths Members of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois Illinois Attorneys General Auditors of Public Accounts of the Illinois Territory 19th-century American newspaper editors American judges People from Scott County, Kentucky Illinois National Republicans 19th-century American politicians Illinois Democratic-Republicans Democratic-Republican Party