Our Arklahoma Heritage: Texas-born Civil War child instrumental in early Fort Smioth medical scene

With apologies in advance to the memory of Paul Harvey...

The American Civil War had been going on for ninety-two days when St. Cloud Cooper was born on July 13, 1861, in Jefferson, Madison County, Texas.

Genealogical tracking, certified by the Church of LDS Research Center in Salt Lake City) traces the bloodlines of Cooper back to 1568 to Little Horwood, Aylesbury Vale District in Buckinghamshire, England. That is about as far back as most legitimate family history research can be verified, but from John and Agnes Lucas Cooper all the way through to 1986, there is a viable record of the Cooper family.

How St. Cloud Cooper wound up in Fort Smith, Arkansas is a story in and of itself

John and Agnes had one son--another John -- who was an innkeeper in Little Horwood, England. Married to Wibroe Griggs Pierson, the couple came to Massachusetts Bay in 1635 on the "Hopewell" and first settled in Lynn and moved to Southampton, New York in 1640.

Their children, John and Thomas., traveled with them to the "English Colonies". John Cooper III was the father of James Cooper Sr, born in Long Island, New York, as was James Jr., the father of Moses Cooper.

The fragility of the life cycle is such that from 1568 until Moses Cooper was born, in four of the five generations only one son was born to keep the Cooper name alive. Moses Cooper changed all of that and in 1777 0r 1778 started with a large family from New Jersey for Washington County, Pennsylvania, crossing the Allegheny Mountains.

Some of the company traveled by horseback. Moses Cooper, however, failed to reach the journey's end and died on the way in Fayette County, Pennsylvania where he is buried.

But there were six surviving children-- six girls and a son, Zebulun, who was two years old at his father's death.

Zebulun served in the Revolutionary War as a private in the 3rd Regiment, NY Militia and as a private in Captain Abner Howell's Company, 3rd Battalion, Washington Co, Pennsylvania Militia. Zeb and wife, Mary White Cooper, were the parents of three children, one of which was Sylvanus Cooper.

Sylvanus Cooper was born December 27,1789 near Van Buren, Pennsylvania, the son of Zebulon Cooper & Mary White. He married Mary Bryant on Oct 17,1812 and was the father of twelve known surviving children.

After his marriage to Mary Bryant, they began life on a large farm called 'Pheasant's Resort', an inheritance from his father, and he prospered well at farming.

The farm was located on the north fork of the Ten Mile Creek, Morris Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania.

Sylvanus studied for the ministry but a growing family claimed his attention and he never entered the profession.

For many years he was an elder in the Presbyterian Church. In 1864, at age 75, he entered into the mercantile business in Washington, Pennsylvania.

He never remarried after his wife died; and sometime after 1870, when he was already 80 years old, the elderly widower joined his married daughter, Catherine Cooper, widow of Harvey Gamble in Winfield, Iowa, where he died April 10, 1873.

 In 1832, Sylvanus and Mary Cooper had a son they named John. To that union was born the subject of this feature.

Almost three months to the day after the Civil War was started, St. Cloud Cooper was born. Dr. John Cooper was a surgeon in the Confederate Army and rode on horseback from Texas to Pennsylvania where he was discharged.

St. Cloud Cooper, who had been born in Texas, also went to medical school and became a doctor.

St. Cloud received his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1882.

On November 22, 1887 St. Cloud Cooper married Dora Hudson in Carrolton, Missouri.

He received postgraduate education at Long Island College Hospital and in Boston, Chicago and Montreal. In 1895 after stops in Missouri and Texas, , he moved to Fort Smith to practice.

A member of the Sebastian County Medical Society, Cooper also served as its president in 1899 and 1909; president of the Arkansas Medical Society in 1915; and president of the Medical Association of the Southwest in 1916 and 1921.

He wrote and published many articles in the Journal of the Arkansas Medical Society. For 15 years, Cooper was a member of the Fort Smith Board of Health and was a member of the staff of Sparks Memorial Hospital for 17 years.

In 1920 St. Cloud started a "clinic" in Fort Smith.The first location of that clinic was on the sixth floor of the First National Bank building on Garrison Avenue.

Patterned after the Mayo Clinic, it had outgrown those offices and moved to a new building at 100 South 14th Street by 1924.

Dr. St Cloud and Mrs Dora Cooper

 By 1922, X-ray equipment had been added to the clinic and Fort Smith's first electrocardiograph was acquired by St. Cloud Cooper just a few years later.

St. Cloud and his wife Dora were the parents of three children - Charles Hudson Cooper, Lucy Kathryn Cooper, and Dora Bryant Cooper. St. Cloud died March 22,1930 and was laid to rest at Forest Park Cemetery just west of what is now Midland Boulevard.

To this day, the clinic that bears his name is still serving Fort Smith and the surrounding area. Cooper Clinic--which merged with Mercy Hospital on November 1, 2017--has long been a valued member of the medical network in western Arkansas.

And now you know the rest of the story.