Richard Fielding Cooke was born in Virginia in 1787 and served as a major with Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. He moved with his family to Tennessee in 1816, settled nine miles southwest of Cookeville, and acquired 3000 acres. While serving in the Tennessee Senate from 1851 to 1854, he sponsored the 1854 bill to reestablish Putnam County, and the bill named the county seat Cookeville. Cooke died in 1870.