{"id":110387,"date":"2026-08-27T13:55:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T17:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/?p=110387"},"modified":"2026-08-27T14:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T18:01:11","slug":"pamunkey-chief-tecumseh-deerfoot-cook-of-virginia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/pamunkey-chief-tecumseh-deerfoot-cook-of-virginia.html","title":{"rendered":"Pamunkey Chief Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook of Virginia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry writes about Pamunkey Chief Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook, whose tribe had family ties with Chief Powhatan and Pocahontas. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, <\/em>americana-archives.com<\/em><\/a>, and a Facebook group, <\/em>New England Family Genealogy and History<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

My story today focuses on Pamunkey Chief Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook (1899-2003) and his family, who lived on the Pamunkey Reservation in King William County, Virginia.<\/p>\n

\"Photos:
Photos: the Pamunkey Reservation in King William County, Virginia, taken in 1918. Credit: Frank Gouldmith Speck Photograph Collection at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Pamunkey Indian Tribe<\/a> was one of the most prominent tribes Europeans encountered along North America\u2019s East Coast.<\/p>\n

This prominence stems in part from notable allied figures, especially Powhatan<\/a> and Pocahontas<\/a>, whose actions became central to American history.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:
Photo: Powhatan bronze. Credit: Pamunkey Indian Museum and Cultural Center.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Pamunkey Indian Tribe played an important role in England\u2019s early North American settlements, and records preserved in U.S. and English archives document its presence as early as Captain John Smith\u2019s 1607 visit, when the English settled Jamestown.<\/p>\n

Chief Turns 100 with \u2018Lots of Honor\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

On 14 November 1999, over 400 people gathered at the Pamunkey Indian Museum and Cultural Center<\/a> located on the Pamunkey Indian Reservation to celebrate the 100th birthday of Chief Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook, son of Chief George Major \u201cWahansacook\u201d Cook and Theodora Octavia \u201cMini Haha\u201d Dennis Cook. Tecumseh served as Pamunkey chief from 1942 to 1984.<\/p>\n

According to his student file at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania<\/a>, his name Tecumseh means \u201cShooting Star.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo:
Photo: Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook as young man. Credit: Frank Gouldmith Speck Photograph Collection at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Richmond Times-Dispatch<\/em> covered Tecumseh\u2019s 100th birthday party and featured two photographs of him. The one on the top right shows him grinning with joy and vitality. The lower photo shows him in a blue pinstripe suit wearing a traditional headdress, dancing next to Preston Adkins of the Chickahominy Tribe.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia), 21 November 1999, page 35 (AI enhanced)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A receiving line formed to greet the guest of honor, but he simply wanted his well-wishers to dance and celebrate. The great chief was full of life and plenty of energy and told the press his good health and endurance are due to his Pamunkey diet. His advice:<\/p>\n

\u201cEat plenty of raccoons and muskrats, and drink Pamunkey River water, but lay off the \u2019possum.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This article reports:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a whole lot of honor here,\u201d said Lonnie Custalow, one of the group\u2019s drummers, who added: \u201cI hope I\u2019m in half as good of shape as he is when I\u2019m 50.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spry doesn\u2019t do justice to Cook, who led the Pamunkey Tribe for 42 years and guided sportsmen to the river\u2019s fabled duck and goose hunting for at least half a century.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the time of his 100th birthday, about 75 tribe members lived on the 1,200-acre peninsula of the Pamunkey River set aside in a 17th-century peace treaty. The Pamunkey Tribe and their neighbors, the Mattaponi Tribe, are the only tribes living on reservation land originally designated by 17th-century treaties.<\/p>\n

Despite the daylong festivities, the 100-year-old chief was not sitting out the hunt planned for the next day. He intended to join a group of hunters pursuing deer for a Thanksgiving tribute to Virginia\u2019s governor.<\/p>\n

One of the Most Photographed Men in Pamunkey<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tecumseh was a celebrated figure in his lifetime. Here is a photograph of him printed in the Buffalo News<\/em> in 1983. He was 83 years old and told the press about his love for fishing.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Buffalo News (Buffalo, New York), 20 June 1983, page 11 (AI enhanced)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tecumseh said he may be using gill nets and a 14-foot johnboat, but he still gets the same excitement fishing as the young lads who proved their bravery over 300 years ago by wading into the Pamunkey River to rope giant sturgeon by the tail.<\/p>\n

In Pennsylvania on 22 April 1926<\/a>, Tecumseh married Ruth Estelle Bradby, daughter of James E. Bradby and Elmira (Page) Bradby.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:
Photo: Ruth Bradby (later Cook) sits atop a horse near the house of Chief George M. Cook, 1918. Credit: Frank Gouldmith Speck Photograph Collection at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here is a photo of Tecumseh\u2019s father George Major Cook, chief of the Pamunkey Tribe, offering game in a symbolic annual tribute to the governor of Virginia, on 22 November 1910. U.S. President William Taft attended the ceremony that day, along with Governor William Hodges Mann. Cook signed the photo below with the inscription, \u201cFraternally yours, George Cook, Chief of the Pamuckers [Pamunkeys].\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo:
Photo: George Major Cook. Credit: W. W. Foster Studio of Richmond; Library of Virginia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Below are photos of the Cook and allied families living on the Pamunkey Reservation, all courtesy of the Frank Gouldmith Speck Photograph Collection at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian (MAI).<\/p>\n

Speck used these images to illustrate the Pamunkey section in his 1928 publication \u201cChapters on the Ethnology of the Powhatan Tribes of Virginia\u201d in the MAI\u2019s Indian Notes and Monographs<\/em> series.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:
Photo: \u201cOutdoor view of the Cook residence where Tecumseh grew up, seen across a snowy road on the Pamunkey Reservation, Virginia.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo:
Photo: \u201cA younger Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook in 1919 sitting on porch with his dog.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In this next photo from the collection, we see: \u201cPamunkey women seated outdoors in chairs with Tecumseh\u2019s mother Theodora Octavia Dennis Cook standing behind on left, and her daughter Princess Pocahontas Cook standing to right. Seated, from left to right: Theodora\u2019s daughters Theodora Dennis Cook; Ruth Cook; Ruth Estelle Bradby (later wife of Tecumseh Cook); and Theodora\u2019s daughter Captola (Kaptola) Eulala Cook.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo:
Photo: Pamunkey women.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo:
Photo: \u201cGroup of Pamunkey men and boys, some with feather headdresses and face paint, gathered around a fire at night.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Photo:
Photo: \u201cPamunkey Chief George Major Cook, 1918.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Explore your family history by creating your free account<\/a> at GenealogyBank for 7 days, because every life deserves to be remembered, recorded, and rediscovered.<\/p>\n

Note on the header image:<\/em><\/strong> close-up of the Powhatan bronze. Credit: Pamunkey Indian Museum and Cultural Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry writes about Pamunkey Chief Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook, whose tribe had family ties with Chief Powhatan and Pocahontas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":110421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12247],"tags":[21465,59365,59363,59364],"class_list":["post-110387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-native-american-history-genealogy","tag-native-american-history-and-genealogy","tag-pamunkey-reservation","tag-pamunkey-tribe","tag-tecumseh-deerfoot-cook"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/photo-0827-2026-featured-graphic-powhatan-bronze.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110387"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110423,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110387\/revisions\/110423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}