History of Bucks County, Pa Volume 3 by William H. Davis
Names and Page # Index

WILLIAM JOHN COOLEY, Esq., of the Philadelphia bar, though not a native of Bucks county was reared from childhood within its borders and still retains his residence at New Hope, where his grandfather was a prominent manufacturer many years ago. Mr. Cooley was born at Trenton, New Jersey, July 8, 1877, and is a son of John P. and Catharine Young (Umbleby) Cooley. On the paternal side he is descended from an old New Jersey family, and on the maternal side his grandfather, William Umbleby, came from England at the age of eight years and located in Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was a manufacturer of cordage, and later removed to New Hope, Bucks county, where he owned and operated the flaxor cordage mills for many years. He was a man of a high sense of honor and of a deep religious nature, and was for many years a local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal church. He had one son, John, and two daughters, Mary, the wife of William H. Closson, and Mrs. Cooley. On the death of Mrs. Cooley, in Trenton, New Jersey, the subject of this sketch was reared by his uncle, William H. Closson, of New Hope.

Published November 2001 on the Bucks County, Pa., USGenWeb pages at www.rootsweb.com/~pabucks/