[8] After her father lost his property in the Morus Multicaulis Speculation, the family moved to Hartford, taking up their residence in a large brick mansion built in 1799 by Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth for his daughter,[9] who had married Nathaniel Terry.

When Cooke was about ten, she was sent to the Hartford Female Seminary where she asked to be admitted to a special class considered far beyond her grade level, being instruction in literature and composition given by the principal, John P.

[13][2][11][3] Terry's first published poem appeared in the New York Daily Tribune in 1851 and received high praise[7] from the editor Charles A. Dana.

In 1855, she published "The Mormon's Wife" in Graham's Magazine, of which Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward wrote that it "dealt powerfully with the leprosy of Mormonism, and wrung from the heart tears dried only by the heat of indignation," and interpreted the story as early evidence of Cooke's "intuitions of genius... a genius [which] became the ultimate expression of generations of hard Puritan ancestry.

Among those who admired the short stories of Miss Rose Terry was a young banker named Rollin S. Cooke, who lived in Winsted, Connecticut.

The literary reputation of his wife give him satisfaction more than the making of money, and he would take greater pleasure in hearing her praises sounded than she would herself.

This person aroused a wild religious excitement among the young people of the place, fell into hysteric trances on hearing sacred music, and made herself generally adored and followed.

After a time, Harriet Beecher Stowe received a note from the lady with whom this pretender boarded, which ran, —"dear Madam,—I call upon you to silence the base reports spread about here concerning a lovely Christian woman at present staying with me.

Years afterward, this deceiver came to Rose Terry's home town, established herself there as one of the leaders in religious and charitable matters, told someone that she had written much under Rose's name, told someone else that she had US$1,800 a year from the "Atlantic Monthly," and marked several of the best poems in a religious collection as her own, the publisher positively denying her statement when asked about it.

This peculiar individual held a trusted position in a city charity, and lived in a wealthy family as a guide, although the truth was told to her clientele, who persisted in regarding her as a persecuted saint.

Number three of these replicas simply offered her services in a New York Sunday school, and having registered this name of her fancy, never appeared.

Number four, however, very soon replaced her, making her avatar at a hotel in New York and confiding the fact of the authorship of certain sentimental, romantic, and humorous stories and verses to a Southern lady who then betrayed her.

One of these tales, entitled "Mrs. Flint's Married Experience," setting forth the "closeness" of the average farmer nature, was severely criticised as overdone, but its correctness was proven by recourse to certain records in town and church books, which exhibited just such a state of facts existing in the life history of certain people in the town of Torringford, Connecticut.

[2][16] The verses "Samson Agonistes," "Fremont's Ride," and "After the Camanches," demonstrate the writer's patriotism, politics, and lively interest in the questions of the day.

"How Cecilia Changed Her Mind" also tells the story of an "old maid" who marries a deacon, only to resent his controlling and demanding ways.

Cooke's details notably pay attention to the paperwork of marriage, noting how women lost their wealth and could be left penniless or helpless at the hands of uncaring husbands.