Lawyer
Centurion, 1918–1957
Born 19 September 1877 in Catskill, New York
Died 31 March 1957 in New York (Manhattan), New York
Buried Green-Wood Cemetery
, Brooklyn, New York
Proposed by Howard T. Kingsbury and Edwin H. Blashfield
Elected 2 November 1918 at age forty-one
Century Memorial
Carleton Sprague Cooke prepared at Exeter, and graduated from Harvard in 1899. He took his senior year in the Harvard Law School, but completed his training at the Buffalo University Law School and was admitted to the Bar in 1901. He remarked of himself that he was a lawyer by vocation, and a soldier and sailor by avocation—and so he was.
He practised law in the City for nearly fifty years. Very early he joined Squadron A, and he spent twenty years as a cavalryman. In 1926 he built the ketch, Seven Bells, and he used to cruise in the Sound and the waters north of the Cape. He had a good time at these occupations and became extraordinarily competent at them.
Carl was a tough-minded man. He always seemed to know what he was doing and what he wanted to do. In the period between the wars, card playing broke out in the Club, and he was one of the regulars at bridge. When he cut out of a rubber, he had a marvellous faculty of being able to doze in his chair impervious to the bidding, groans, or exultations. He said that as a cavalry officer he had learned to sleep on horseback, and that it was considerably easier than in the bridge chairs.
He was a member of the Century for forty years, faithful in attendance, not in the least shy, a pleasant and amusing companion.
George W. Martin
1958 Century Association Yearbook
