Wapiti Tooth Stick Pin

The tooth of a Wapiti mounted as a stick pin, engraved around the setting ‘Wapiti Shot 1886 by P T D Cooke’, accompanied by an envelope on which is written ‘The head from which this tooth was taken from in the first hill at ????. Shot while in America with W H Cooke who had a ranch in Colorado near Meeker’.

William Hugh Cooke landed in New York in 1883. His letters home chronicle a life ranching in and around Colorado, from a paid hand to being an employer of men and owner of property in a very short time. Unfortunately for Cooke, and a great many others, the hard winters and low prices of the late 1880’s, put an early end to his American enterprise. On his return to England Cooke founded the firm of Cooke and Arkwright, chartered land surveyors, handling sales and valuations of many important estates in North Wales and the border counties.