Zebedee Cooke, Jr., was another of Dorchester’s experimenters in agriculture. His last name was sometimes spelled without the “e.” He lived at Cook’s Hill, on the west side of the Dorchester Turnpike (Dorchester Avenue) approximately where Columbia Road crosses the Avenue now. His estate and Cook’s Hill stretched east of the Turnpike to the salt marshes.
Zebedee Cooke, Jr., was the second president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. He grew several kinds of foreign grapes, apricots, peaches and pears.
The following is from Transactions of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 1901.
“Zebedee Cook, Jr., was a prosperous business man of the period and owned a fine estate of twenty-five acres, or more, in Dorchester. It was of irregular shape, fronting westerly upon what then the turnpike road, now Dorchester Avenue, and southerly, with narrow dimension, on Crescent Avenue. The southerly slope was made to be a triumph of horticulture, flowers and fruits sharing about equally in the honors. Near the front, this garden was adorned by a lively brook, arched with graph vines, and in the rear, the ground was thrown into terraces, which in the season were made brilliant with flowers. The ascent was crowned at the north with a rocky summit, which gained the name of Cook’s Hill. Thence a tract of arable land stretched, with ever widening margins and with gradual descent to the salt marshes. This northerly tract was the farm. Agriculture had full sway here, and in the center was a huge barn for cattle and the storage of crops. Through this farm-tract, the parkway called Columbia road now extends towards South Boston.”