Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889

Further about Josias Alexander Ireland, M. D., the following is taken from James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, editors, Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography (D. Appleton and Company, New York: 1887 - 1889):

IRELAND, Josias Alexander, physician, born in Jefferson county, Kentucky, 15 September, 1824. He studied medicine in the University of Louisville and in the Kentucky school of medicine, where he was graduated in 1851. He practised in Louisville, and since 1864 has confined himself to the specialties of obstetrics and gynecology. He became professor of obstetrics in the Kentucky school of medicine in 1864, professor of clinical medicine in the University of Louisville in 1866, and in 1867 returned to his former chair in the Kentucky school of medicine. In 1872 he was elected professor of the diseases of women and children in the Louisville medical college, and was afterward chosen dean of that institution.

Lawyers and Lawmakers of Kentucky, by H. Levin, editor, 1897. Published by Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago. Reprinted by Southern Historical Press. p. 204. Jefferson County.

LYTTLETON COOKE, of Louisville, Kentucky, was born in King and Queen county, Virginia, on the 28th day of October, 1831, and is a descendant of one of the old and prominent families of the Old Dominion. The founders of the Cooke family in Virginia came from England, and were among the earliest immigrants to that colony, their names appearing as officials and land owners among the records of the several counties on the peninsula between the York and James rivers, and in the counties of Gloucester and King and Queen, early in the seventeenth century. They and their descendants have always occupied highly respectable positions in both business and social circles, and many of them, both male and female, have intermarried with some of the most prominent and influential families in Virginia and in other states to which some of them emigrated. Captain Dawson Cooke, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a commissioned officer in the Continental or Virginia navy during the Revolutionary war, and was serving as such on the ship Gloucester at the close of that war, being present at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. After the close of the war, Captain Cooke retired from the navy, and in 1787, as it appears from the county records, was serving as sheriff of King and Queen county.

Henry Cooke, father of Lyttleton Cooke, was born in King and Queen county, Virginia, about the year 1801. After receiving a fairly good education, he commenced life as a country merchant, and thus continued until after his marriage in 1830 to Louisa Johnston, of Gloucester county. Soon after his marriage, as he and his wife had each inherited a considerable number of negro slaves, he purchased a farm or plantation in King and Queen county, and lived the quiet life of a country gentleman during his few remaining years. He died at the age of thirty-five or thirty-six years. Louisa Johnston was the only child of her parents who survived infancy. She was born in Gloucester or Matthews county, Virginia (the latter county having been formerly a part of Gloucester county), in 1811, and died in 1858. Her father was Thomas Johnston, and her mother was a Miss Kemp. They owned an estate on the Piankantank river, where they both died, the mother when their daughter Louisa was less than two, and the father when she was about five years old. The Johnstons were of Scotch descent.

Lyttleton Cooke, the only son of Henry Cooke, was only five or six years of age at the time of his father's death, and, his mother having contracted a second marriage, he was while still a child sent from home to school, and passed nearly all of his childhood and youth in boarding schools and academies until he commenced the study of law, which he did at the early age of seventeen, having determined to leave Virginia and seek a home in the west as soon as he could possibly do so. He was thus separated to a great extent from his relatives and family connections, and has had but little communication with them since, having, as will be seen from the above, very few who were or are closely related to him. At the age of eighteen he entered the law school of the University of Virginia, but did not graduate, having a few days before the examination commenced, consented to act as "second" for a friend who had been challenged by another student to fight a duel, and in consequence thereof the parties involved in the affair were quietly informed not to present themselves for examination in any of their classes. After leaving the University of Virginia, Mr. Cooke. although not having attained his majority, in the early part of the year 1851 removed to St. Louis, Missouri, having been previously examined and declared competent to be admitted to the bar by Judge John B. Clopton of the Williamsburg (Virginia) circuit court, and by Judges Cabell and Brooke of the court of appeals of that state. After familiarizing himself with the Code of Practice and the statute law of Missouri, he was admitted to the bar in St. Louis without being required to stand any further examination. At this time the conflict between the Benton and the anti-Benton wings of the Democratic part in Missouri was at its height. Mr. Cooke, who was always a Democrat, warmly espoused the cause of the anti-Benton wing of the party in that contest, and in 1854, although not eligible because of his youth, he was nominated as one of the anti-Benton Democratic candidates to represent the city and county of St. Louis in the legislature of Missouri; but, those with whom he acted being in a hopeless minority in that city and county, he was, as he expected to be, defeated with the other candidates of his party. However, in 1856, because of the ability he had shown as a political debater in his canvass for the legislature, he was nominated by the Democratic state convention of Missouri as a candidate for presidential elector, and was elected, and cast his vote in the electoral college for James Buchanan for president and for John C. Breckinridge for vice president.

The following year Mr. Cooke, having in the meantime met and become engaged to be married to the lady who subsequently became his wife, in order to eschew politics, in which he felt that he had become too deeply involved to conveniently withdraw therefrom in Missouri, and feeling that he was not financially able to pursue a political career, removed to Paducah, Kentucky, for the purpose of devoting his entire time to his profession as a lawyer. He soon acquired a fair practice in that growing little city and the surrounding counties.

But in 1861, the war between the states having broken out, and there being at that time little or no law to practice in Kentucky, and Mr. Cooke's home in Paducah having been broken up and destroyed by federal soldiers, because of his strong and pronounced sympathy with the cause of the south, he removed to Louisville. However, he was able to do but little in his profession during the continuance of the war, as he did not hesitate to avow his sympathies with the south during that period; although, as Kentucky did not secede from the Union, his extreme states-rights views compelled him to recognize his allegiance to that state and the Union to which it belonged.

In 1867 Mr. Cooke was elected, as a Democrat, to the Kentucky senate from the thirty-seventh district, composed of the central wards of the city of Louisville, in which the great preponderance of its intelligence and wealth is located, and served in that body for four years, and was a member of the judiciary committee, and chairman of the committee on railroads and also that on banks and insurance. He was a close personal friend of Hon. John W. Stevenson, who was governor of the state during that time, and was one of his most intimate and trusted friends and advisers in respect to public matters. Mr. Cooke's service as a senator, commencing soon after the close of the war, covered a period of unusual excitement and feeling in state politics, and many questions of great interest and importance came up before the legislature during that time, in all of which he took a prominent and leading part, being the author of the statute which first admitted negroes to testify on an equality with whites in the courts of Kentucky.

In 1868, pending his services in the senate, he was chosen a delegate from Kentucky to the national Democratic convention in New York, which nominated Seymour and Blair for president and vice president, respectively, of the United States. At that convention he was one of the close personal friends and trusted advisers of the Hon. George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, who at that time was a prominent candidate for the nomination for president of the United States, and was uncompromising in his opposition to the nomination of Salmon P. Chase, or any other Republican, as the Democratic candidate, as was proposed and advocated by many members of that convention.

In 1877, unsolicited on his part, Mr. Cooke was elected a member of the house of representatives in the general assembly of Kentucky, and served one term. But this interfered to such an extent with his practice as a lawyer that he declined further public service or office. In 1873 Mr. Cooke was appointed district attorney for Kentucky of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company, which position he has held continuously since, and which engrosses all his time.

During the late presidential canvass Mr. Cooke, like many other Democrats who for some years had not been actively participating in political movements, became deeply interested and aroused at the action of the so-called Democratic convention which met at Chicago in July, 1896, and was among the first to unite in movement which resulted in the protest of the true Democrats against what he considered the insane, revolutionary and anarchic sentiments promulgated by that body, and took an active part in forwarding the movement which resulted in the assembling of the Indianapolis convention, and the nomination of Palmer and Buckner, and cast his vote for electors pledged to vote for them; and he is an uncompromising believer in gold as the only measure or standard of values, and that it must ever be the basis for a sound and stable currency, and has always been such a consistent and uncompromising Democrat that he refused to vote for electors pledged to vote for Horace Greenley, when he was nominated by a so-called Democratic convention for president, and in that campaign cast his vote for electors pledged to vote for Charles O'Conor.

In Louisville, June 12, 1860, Mr. Cooke married Miss Alice Wilson, third daughter of Dr. Thomas E. and Caroline (Bullitt) Wilson, both of whom were descendants of leading and honored pioneer people of Louisville, who in the development and progress of the city left the impress of their individuality on its public advancement and culture, and on its business and social life. Mrs. Cooke died in 1890, leaving two daughters, Alice and Caroline Wilson, the former now the wife of David A. Keller.

At the bar Mr. Cooke occupies an eminent place, accorded him on account of his superior legal attainments and high personal character which commands the greatest respect. With methodical business habits and untiring industry, his fine analytical mind enables him to successfully cope with his adversaries in all departments of law, and his comprehensive knowledge of the science of jurisprudence supplies him with almost unlimited authority and precedent. "Time tests the merits of all things," and for thirty years it has set the stamp of approval upon the work and character of Lyttleton Cooke, who today is one of the foremost among the citizens of Louisville, and one of the leading members of the Kentucky bar.

Also about Josias Alexander Ireland, M. D., the following is taken from W. H. Perrin, H. Battle, G. C. Kniffin, Kentucky: A History of the State, eighth edition (F. A. Battey and Company, Louisville and Chicago: 1888):

Josiah Alexander Ireland, M.D., was born September 15, 1824, in Jefferson County, and is a son of William and Jane (Stone) Ireland, the former of Scotch and the latter of English ancestry. He is the eldest of three surviving children, and received a good English education, with a fair knowledge of Latin and Greek. At the age of seventeen he commenced the study of medicine with Dr. James F. Pendergrast, of Jefferson County; but subsequently continued his studies in Louisville under Drs. Bullitt and Cummins. He attended his first course of lectures in the winter of 1845; in the medical department of the University of Louisville; in 1851 he graduated from the Kentucky School of Medicine, and at once commenced the practice of his profession in Louisville. He was elected, in 1864, to the chair of obstetrics and diseases of women and children in the Kentucky School of Medicine, which position he held until the school was merged into the University of Louisville, and was elected at that time professor of clinical medicine in the University. Upon the re-establishment of the Kentucky School of Medicine, he was again elected professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children, a position he resigned upon being elected to the chair of diseases of women and children in the Louisville Medical College in 1870; in 1875 he was elected to the same chair in the Kentucky School of Medicine. In 1876 he was a delegate of the International Medical Congress at Philadelphia; and at the meeting following of the Kentucky State Medical Society he was appointed a delegate to the American Medical Association. He is a member of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, and has taken an active interest in the local and State organizations of the profession. Dr. Ireland was licensed to preach in 1848, in the Baptist Church, and for many years was pastor of several churches, in addition to attending to his professional duties. He is a life member of the General Association of Kentucky Baptists, and is regarded as a substantial, earnest and valuable member of his church. During his active professional labors, he has found time for literary pursuits, and has written some for the press, both religiously and in connection with his profession. He is a man of quiet, unassuming habits, and void of any disposition for personal display. Few men in his profession have done more hard and successful labor, and few physicians enjoy a more wide-spread reputation in his section of the State, and especially in that branch of the medical profession relating to the diseases of women and children; and in the church, in which he has been an active member for over forty years, he has been a zealous worker, and a pillar of strength. He is a man of fine personal appearance, above six feet in height, and weighing over two hundred pounds. He is exceptional in all his professional, social and personal habits; agreeable and attractive in manner; broad and liberal in his treatment of men; free from personal and selfish enmities; takes an active interest, not only in everything relating to the good and advancement of his profession and the church, but also to the community at large. He was married in 1846 to Miss Sarah E. Cooper, daughter of Levin Cooper, Esq., of Jefferson County. By this marriage he had one son, Henry Clay Ireland, a graduate of two medical colleges. In 1859 he was married to Susan M. Brown, daughter of the late Furtney Brown, of Louisville. By this marriage he has one son, William F. Ireland. Dr. Ireland holds sacred in memory the names of his teachers while at two medical colleges. While at the University of Louisville, he was taught by such men as Samuel D. Gross, M.D., Henry Miller, M.D., Charles Caldwell, M.D., Charles W. Short, M.D., Lansford P. Yandell, M.D., Daniel Drake, M.D., Jedediah Cobb, Md. While at the Kentucky School of Medicine, he was instructed by Joshua B. Flint, M.D., James M. Bush, M.D., Henry M. Bullitt, M.D., Robert Peter, M.D., Ethelbert L. Dudley, M.D., Samuel Annan, M.D., Llewellyn Powell, M.D., and others, all of whom at that time enjoyed a national reputation as great teachers of the different branches of medicine and surgery. Dr. Ireland's success in life has been largely due to the sound and thorough teaching he received from the above named accomplished gentleman and scholars.

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About Josias Alexander Ireland, M. D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Louisville Medical College, the following is taken from Judge Charles Kerr (editor), William Elsey Conneley, and E. M. Coulter, History of Kentucky (The American Historical Society, Chicago and New York: 1922), vol. 4, p. 342:

Dr. Josias Alexander Ireland, father of Henry Clay, was born on Pennsylvania Run in Jefferson County (Kentucky) September 15, 1824, and died at Louisville in September, 1901. In 1848 he entered the ministry of the Baptist Church and was pastor of the church at Jeffersonville. In 1851 he graduated from the Kentucky School of Medicine, and except for eight years of professional labors in his native locality his practice was in Louisville, where he became especially distinguished as one of the founders of the Kentucky School of Medicine, now the Medical School of the University of Louisville. In 1864 he was made Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, and held that post until he was the oldest member of the medical faculty. After 1875 he held the same chair in both the Kentucky School and the Louisville School of Medicine. He continued his close relationship and activities in the Baptist Church and was a member of the Board of Missions of both the Foreign and Home departments.

October 6, 1846, Dr. J. A. Ireland married Sarah Elizabeth Cooper, who was born June 2, 1826, and died July 10, 1856. She was a daughter of Levin and Nancy (Cooper) Cooper, and was a sister of the late Dr. Marcus Lindsey Cooper, an honored old time physician whose career is briefly sketched on other pages. Her father Levin Cooper was a son of Levin Cooper, Sr., who came from Maryland in Indian days. it is said that the Cooper family has supplied nineteen members to the medical profession. Two brothers of the late Dr. M. L. Cooper, both physicians, were William McMahan Cooper, who practiced at Smith's Mills in Henderson county and was killed at the age of fifty-six when his horse ran under a thorn tree; the other being James Waller Cooper who died soon after beginning practice. The only surviving child of Sarah Elizabeth (Cooper) Ireland is Henry Clay Ireland. Dr. J. A. Ireland married for his second wife Susan Mary Brown who died April 1, 1912, at the age of eighty-six. Her son William F. Ireland was a contractor at Louisville and died in 1900.