'''Mary Leggett Cooke''' (1852-1938) was an American [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] minister.<ref name="UUDBCookeGeorgeWillis">{{cite web |author1=UUDB Admin |title=Cooke, George Willis |url=https://www.uudb.org/cooke-george-willis/ |website=Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography |access-date=25 April 2024 |date=28 October 2000}}</ref><ref name="WillardLivermore1893">{{cite book |last1=Willard |first1=Frances Elizabeth |author1-link=Frances Willard |last2=Livermore |first2=Mary Ashton Rice |author2-link=Mary Livermore |title=A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life |year=1893 |publisher=[[Charles Wells Moulton]] |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Woman_of_the_Century/Mary_Lydia_Leggett |page=456 |chapter=LEGGETT, Miss Mary Lydia |access-date=24 April 2024}} {{Source-attribution}}</ref><ref name="Leonard1914">{{cite book |last1=Leonard |first1=John W. |title=Woman's Who's who of America |date=1914 |publisher=American Commonwealth Company |page=485 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=COsLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA485 |access-date=25 April 2024 |language=en |chapter=LEGGETT, Mary Lydia}} {{Source-attribution}}</ref> She was a member of a group of women ministers, the [[Iowa Sisterhood]],<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/river/workshop9/178600.shtml|title=Remembering the Iowa Sisterhood|date=2011-10-26|work=UUA.org|access-date=2018-11-08|language=en}}</ref> who organized eighteen Unitarian societies in several [[Midwestern United States|Midwestern]] states in the late 19th century and early 20th century.<ref>{{cite web|last=Hepokoski|first=Carol|title=Women Ministers in the Prairie Star District|url=http://www.psduua.org/heritage/bring/part1/1b_hepokoski.html|work=Bring, O Past, Your Honor|publisher=The Ministers Association of the Prairie Star District of the Unitarian Universalist Association|access-date=April 17, 2011}}</ref>

She was educated in [[Monticello Seminary]], [[Godfrey, Illinois]],<ref name="WillardLivermore1893" /> and was the first woman graduate from [[Harvard Divinity School]].<ref name="Wayne2014">{{cite book |last1=Wayne |first1=Tiffany K. |title=Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism |date=14 May 2014 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |isbn=978-1-4381-0916-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hckauAdkix0C&pg=PA69 |access-date=25 April 2024 |language=en}}</ref> She also completed special study and travel in Egypt, Greece, and Italy.<ref name="Leonard1914" />

In 1887, she was formally ordained to the Unitarian ministry in [[Kansas City, Missouri]], Rev. Charles G. Ames, of [[Philadelphia]], preaching her ordination sermon. She built and dedicated a church in [[Beatrice, Nebraska]], of which she was minister until 1891, when she went to [[Boston]], [[Massachusetts]], and became minister of a sea-board parish {{convert|36|miles}} from that city. Her church in [[Green Harbor, Massachusetts]] was founded by the granddaughter of the statesman, [[Daniel Webster]], whose summer home was in that hamlet. Leggett's study contained the office-table on which Webster penned his speeches.<ref name="WillardLivermore1893" /> In that state, she also served at [[Dighton, Massachusetts|Dighton]]. Thereafter, she was at [[Fort Collins, Colorado]], [[Wolfeboro, New Hampshire]], and [[Revere, Massachusetts]].<ref name="Leonard1914" />

Cooke was actively involved in [[Settlement movement#United States|social settlements]] and [[Women's suffrage in the United States|equal suffrage]].<ref name="Leonard1914" />

She married Rev. [[George Willis Cooke]] on April 23, 1923,<ref name="Wayne2014" /> and he died a week after their wedding, at her home in Revere, Massachusetts.<ref name="Hannan1998">{{cite book |last1=Hannan |first1=Caryn |title=Michigan Biographical Dictionary |date=1 January 1998 |publisher=State History Publications |isbn=978-1-878592-95-8 |page=158 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aWR5HJJktL8C&pg=PA158 |access-date=25 April 2024 |language=en}}</ref>