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- WILLIAM COOPER. Sachem of the Unkechaug Indian Nation of Long Island in New York.
He was born around 1784.In 1806, Cooper married Dorothea Smith, who went by Dolly, in a service at Poospatuck, the Unkechaug reservation near Mastic, New York. At the time, both were working for the Robert family, one of several white landowners nearby. At some point Cooper went to work for another landowner, General John Smith. There Cooper fell deep in debt to Smith as a result of the lay system in which employers deducted the cost of food and goods from the income they paid to laborers. Fleeing the debt, Cooper went to sea on a merchant vessel as a seaman. Around March 14, 1810, he was impressed by the British Royal Navy and forced to serve aboard the British warship, HMS Defence, which was lost in a shipwreck off the coast of Denmark in 1811. In the spring of 1812, Dorothea received remarkable news that her husband was alive and aboard USS Constitution. Cooper had managed to desert from Defence in February 1811, before the ship sailed on its fatal voyage, and enlisted aboard USS Essex and then on Constitution. He died 29 Dec 1813 while in service on in USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) while in battle with the British frigate H.M.S. Java.
Last Changed: November 28th, 2023
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RogerHatch
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1784 - 1812 (28 years)
