The daily gazette., 1877-08-04
OSCEOLA'S DEATH.
From the N. Y. Sun.
THE SON OF A SEMINOLE INDIAN
CHIEF AND A SPANISH LADY OF
RANK

hANhs
In an attic chamber of Bond street
lodging house, Thursday morning, was
found dead in his bed Osceola Cooper,
who is said to have been nephew of the
great r lorida chief, and the last Of the roy
al line of the Seminoles. His father was
the Indian doctor, Solomon Cooper, who
| vended his natures nostrums in this city
about twenty years ago. After burying
his brother Osceola at Fort Moultrie in
1885, the elder Cooper, so the story goes
led the remnant of the Seminoles to their
reservation in the West, aud on the jour
ney fell in with and saved the life of Sol
omon Cooper, a New York merchant,
and the latter left him his name and a
considerable fortune. This fortune he
| increased by his practice and fortunate
speculation. When the war broke out
! he took the side of the South, fighting in
! the rebel army from his hatred of negroes
| to whom he attributed his brothers ber
trayal and capture. In the meantime his
son Osceola, then fifteen or sixteen years
of age, ran away from school, and enlist-
ed in the Union army. He served as a
courier under Sherman, and in the same
capacity under Grant during the battles
on the Chicahomlny. Worn out by age
and privation, the father came home to
die in his house in Forty nine street in
1868, and after the war was over and the
young Osceola applied in his federal unis
| form for assistance his mother at first
| forbade him the house, saying that it was
his fellows who had killed her husband
| That mother is said to have been Span
ish lady of rank whom the elder Cooper
won and married while he was wander,
ing in Europe. The marriage ceremony
was performed in Barcelona, where the
subject of this sketch was born.
| IA hio fri nf
his Spanish blood. His war episode
over, Cooper seems to have done little
but care for the property left him by his
| father, which amounted to about 500, 900
! This he apparently held in trust for the
| children Of his sister, the wife of a Gel
Marshall. Recently Alfredo Powell, the
daughter of Delaware Indian, who bad
been adopted by the father of the first
Osceola, kidnapped Willie Marshall, ,and
| it is supposed that grief and excitement
at the loss of his little nephew whom the
detectives failed to find, preyed upon
Cooper and hastened his death.
| The name Powell was that of OSceola's
| grand father, who was British trader
| and married the daughter of Seminole
che ef in 1905. The original Osceola was
conspicuous in the second Seminole war
which was begun in 1885. In the course
of the war NJ ajor Dade and 40 soldiers
were cut off to man. Osceola was cap
tured under cover of a flag of truce by the
Federal forces under Gen. Jesup, and
confined in Fort Moultrie, where he died
a year later. His nephew, despite his
Spanish blood and New York surround
lings, spent part of his life with his
Indian countrymen, the Seminoles, anc
OF late years considered himself stran
ger in strange land here where he wa
reared. He once owned farm in Chap
pauua, and is said to have been visito
of the Greeley family, but until lately a
Bergen Point, N. j. Recently he came t.
this city, and moved into his lodgings oil
Monday last. He was victim OF the In
dian love of "fire water"