Cooke studied at Wake Forest College but did not graduate, and served in the 55th North Carolina Regiment during the American Civil War.

[1] After the war, he entered into the practice of law in Louisburg, North Carolina, at first in partnership with future congressman and N.C. Supreme Court justice Joseph J.

[2] Cooke, a Democrat, represented Franklin County in both houses of the state legislature at various times in the 1870s and 1880s.

Cooke made an unsuccessful run for Congress in 1894, losing to William F. Strowd.

His childhood home, Cooke House near Louisburg, North Carolina, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.