John Crookes (ca. 1769–1818), newspaper publisher, editor, and author, of New York City, began his career at the New York Register of the Times and the New York Diary in 1797. From 1798 until his retirement in 1816, he was the printer of the New York Mercantile Advertiser, serving also as publisher beginning in 1806. Crookes also wrote biographical and poetic pieces that were published in various newspapers and journals (Crookes to TJ, 25 Mar. 1807 [DLC]; MB description begins James A. Bear Jr. and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826, 1997, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:1249; Brigham, American Newspapers description begins Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690–1820, 1947, 2 vols. description ends , 1:627, 661, 683; New-York Columbian and New York Mercantile Advertiser [reporting age at death as forty-nine years] and New York Commercial Advertiser [reporting death in forty-seventh year], all 29 June 1818).

Crookes had translated into rhyming couplets the speech of 1774 in which the Mingo Indian James logan mourned the murder of his family by white settlers (New York Shamrock, 30 July 1814). TJ had praised the eloquence of the original in his Notes on the State of Virginia (Notes, ed. Peden description begins Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, ed. William Peden, 1955 description ends , 62–3).