Excerpted from Boulder: Its Friends and Neighbors, written by Boulder’s only female mayor, Olive Hagadone, and originally published serially in The Monitor in 1985-86.
Hiram Cook was born May 7, 1817, in Norwich, New York, and educated in New York and Ohio, later moving to Michigan, where he engaged in farming. On Oct. 30, 1838, he married Mary E. Vining, the daughter of Rev. R. W. And Lydia Vining of Genesee County, Michigan.
The Civil War was in its second year when Hiram became Captain of Company H 25th Regiment of Michigan Infantry. He later resigned from the military because of ill health and the family moved to Montgomery County, Missouri. Probably influenced by their son, Vining, who was operating a ranch at Horse Prairie near Bannack, Captain and Mrs. Cook, with their family, headed west, landing in Helena, then on to Little Boulder, as postmaster.
