Cooper, William Frierson, Born: Mar 11, 1820 Died: May 7, 1909, "Son of Matthew D. & Mary Agnes Cooper Mar 11, 1820-May 7, 1909 A LIFE OF PERFECT SERVICE RENDERED DUTIES DONE IN CHARITY, JUSTICE, AND STAINLESS DAYS".
Excerpts from Lillian L. Word Roberts book "Hugh Cooper" pg 634. In the summer of 1834 James K. Polk, then a member of Congress, was to take his youngest brother and two nephews to enter Yale. Polk was a personal friend of the Cooper family and knew the brilliant intellect of William Frierson Cooper and suggested to his father that he allow William to join the other boys at Yale. Although he was only a few months over fourteen when he entered, he became an outstanding student and was graduated at the age of eighteen in 1838, becoming its youngest graduate." His diaries together with other family papers of his father's and brothers' were given to the Tennessee State Library by his niece, Alice Stockell. William Frierson Cooper entered the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania. He liked the lectures but the dissecting room was too much for him, and haunted him through out his life. He was much too sensitive for medicine and abandoned it. The history of the Riverwood mansion a historic Nashville home of the William Frierson Cooper.
Submitted by Mary Bob McClain Richardson. 8/24/2004
