William Tuttle Cook w William Tuttle Cook was born on December 19, 1872 near Fort Gibson on the Grand River in the Cherokee Nation, in what is now Cherokee County. His father, James Cook, had come from Tennessee after serving in the Union Army during the Civil War. His mother, Caroline Victoria Post, born in 1849, carried one-quarter Cherokee blood as the daughter of Tatnall Holt Post, who had served as sheriff of the Illinois District of the Cherokee Nation, and Mary Reese.