Elisha Cooke Jr.

Elisha Cooke Jr. (December 20, 1678 – August 24, 1737) was a physician and politician from the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

[2] Like his father, the junior Cooke was the leader of the "popular party", a faction in the Massachusetts House that resisted encroachment by royal officials on colonial rights embodied in the Massachusetts Charter.

[3] There is strong evidence to suggest that the Boston Caucus was established around 1719 by Elisha Cooke Jr.[4] According to Peter Oliver, the last chief justice of Massachusetts before the revolution, the caucus spent huge amounts of money on liquor to win elections in the 1720s.

[5] Cooke seems to also have had much influence in the marked relaxation in liquor licensing in the 1720s, which was popular with large numbers of voters.

Warden, Elisha Cooke Jr. "contributed more than anyone else to the public life of colonial Boston.