William Cocke (1748–1828), frontier public official, was a native of Amelia County who studied law before moving about 1773 to land near the present Virginia-Tennessee border. He served in the militia during Lord Dunmore’s War and moved to the Kentucky region by 1775, when he sat in the House of Delegates of the short-lived colony of Transylvania. Cocke represented Washington County in the Virginia House of Delegates, 1777–78, where he became acquainted with TJ. In 1778 he briefly represented Washington County, North Carolina (later Tennessee), in the state House of Commons, but he was removed due to his conflicting position as county clerk. Cocke represented the same county in the North Carolina Senate, 1782–84. During the ensuing four years he was a leader in the ultimately futile effort to found a new state called Franklin. Cocke represented Hawkins County, North Carolina (later Tennessee), in the House of Commons in 1788 and sat for Person County in the North Carolina Senate, 1793–94. He was also active in the Southwest Territory, where he practiced law and served as territorial attorney for Washington district, 1791–94, served in the territorial legislature, and was a delegate to the convention that established the state of Tennessee, which he represented in the United States Senate, 1796–97 and 1799–1805. Cocke lost Tennessee gubernatorial races in 1807 and 1809. In the latter year state lawmakers appointed him to a circuit court judgeship, but after impeachment they removed him from that position in 1812. Cocke then volunteered for the East Florida campaign, returned to Tennessee to serve as a state legislator, and won praise from Andrew Jackson for his valor during the Creek War, 1813–14. He was briefly federal agent to the Chickasaw Indians, with his headquarters in Columbus, Mississippi, and he served in that state’s legislature in 1822 (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; Robert M. McBride, Dan M. Robison, and others, Biographical Directory of the Tennessee General Assembly [1975– ], 1:153–4; Leonard, General Assembly description begins Cynthia Miller Leonard, comp., The General Assembly of Virginia, July 30, 1619–January 11, 1978: A Bicentennial Register of Members, 1978 description ends , 127; Jackson, Papers description begins Sam B. Smith, Harold D. Moser, Daniel Feller, and others, eds., The Papers of Andrew Jackson, 1980– , 7 vols. description ends ; PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 34 vols. description ends , 2:93–5, 8:508, 29:169–70; John L. Cheney Jr., North Carolina Government, 1585–1979 [1981]; Terr. Papers description begins Clarence E. Carter and John Porter Bloom, eds., The Territorial Papers of the United States, 1934–75, 28 vols. description ends , 4:437, 442, 459; Acts passed at the first session of the General Assembly of the Territory ... South of the River Ohio [Knoxville, 1794], 89–91; Walter T. Durham, Before Tennessee: The Southwest Territory, 1790–1796 [1990]; Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Tennessee [1796 sess.], 15–6; Journal of the Senate ... of the State of Tennessee [1811 sess.], 187–93, 198; Cocke to TJ, 28 Jan. 1814, 10 May 1825; ASP description begins American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, 1832–61, 38 vols. description ends , Indian Affairs, 2:106–7).