soldier, businessman, politician, Congressman, b. Ontario, Canada. About 1855 he moved with his parents to Wisconsin, settling on a farm in Calumet County. At the age of 15 he enlisted in the 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry, serving from Jan. to Nov., 1865. Returning to Wisconsin at the close of the Civil War, he farmed and engaged in various business in Calumet and Marathon counties. In 1881 he moved to Neenah where he became a paper manufacturer, and in 1898 founded the S. A. Cook Manufacturing Co. in Menasha. He was later president of the Alexandria (Ind.) Paper Co. and treasurer of the Wisconsin Northern Railway Co. (now part of the Chicago & North Western). A Republican, he was mayor of Neenah (1889) and served as state assemblyman (1891-1892). He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (Mar. 1895-Mar. 1897), where he was the author of the anti-filled cheese bill. He aligned himself with the Stalwart faction of the Republican party in the Stalwart-Progressive struggles of the I900's, and was nominated by the Stalwarts in the "opera house" convention of 1904 to oppose Robert M. La Follette, Sr. (q.v.) for the Wisconsin governorship. He withdrew his name shortly before the election, when the state supreme court upheld La Follette's control of the party and his right to the Republican label on the ballot. Cook was commander of the Wisconsin G.A.R. (1915-1916), and donated the S. A. Cook Armory to the city of Neenah. Biog. Dir. Amer. Cong. (1928); P. V. Law-son, et al., .Hist. of Winnebago Co. (2 vols., Chicago, 1908); Neenah Daily Times, Apr. 4, 1918.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]