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George Hammell Cook

American geologist

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ5540189
Source-derived summary

George Hammell Cook (January 5, 1818 – September 22, 1889) was the state geologist of New Jersey and vice president of Rutgers College. His geological survey of New Jersey became the predecessor for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Biography

He was born in Hanover Township, New Jersey, on January 5, 1818, to John Cook and Sarah Munn. He married Mary Halsey Thomas on March 23, 1846. He served as the principal of The Albany Academy in Albany, New York from 1850 to 1852.

He came to Rutgers in 1853 and was appointed professor of chemistry. His teaching duties also included mathematics and theology. Among his first research projects was the chemical analysis of marl. This research led him to determine better places to mine marl, which led to his appointment as the assistant state geologist. He published a geological survey of New Jersey to replace the one made in 1840.

Editorial summary

“George Hammell Cook” enters the record as american geologist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what George, Hammell and Cook can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1818, 1889, 1846, 1850—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1818-01-05. Its strongest next move is a source search built around George, Hammell and Cook.
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Why this record matters

“George Hammell Cook” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, George, Hammell and Cook provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5540189. VIAF identifies the subject as 6390324. The Library of Congress control number is n85332268. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1818, 1889, 1846 and 1850.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from George Hammell Cook” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.