William Cooley

Who was William Cooley?

William Cooley was one of the first American settlers, and a regional leader, in what is now known as Broward County, in the US state of Florida. His family was killed by Seminoles in 1836, during the Second Seminole War. The attack, known as the "New River Massacre", caused immediate abandonment of the area by whites.

Cooley was born in Maryland, but little else is known about his life prior to 1813, when he arrived in East Florida as part of a military expedition. He established himself as a farmer in the northern part of the territory before moving south, where he traded with local Indians and continued to farm. He sided with natives in a land dispute against a merchant who had received a large grant from the King of Spain and was evicting the Indians from their lands. Unhappy with the actions of the Spanish, he moved to the New River area in 1826 to get as far as possible from the Spanish influence.

In New River, Cooley sustained himself as a salvager and farmer, cultivating and milling arrowroot. His fortune and influence grew: he became the first lawman and judge in the settlement, besides being a land appraiser. Local Indians held him responsible for what they saw as a misjudgment involving the murder of one of their chiefs and attacked the settlement in revenge on January 4, 1836.