Dr. Daniel Coxe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Coxe

Dr. Daniel Coxe (1640 – 19 January 1730) was a governor of West Jersey from 1687-1688 and 1689-1692.

The first Colonial influence in Hopewell, New Jersey was the purchase of a 30,000-acre (120 km2) tract of land by Daniel Coxe a Royal British governor of West Jersey, in the latter half of the 17th century. All land in Hopewell can be traced back to this purchase.[

Biography

The Coxe family traced their lineage to a Daniel Coxe who lived in Somersetshire, England in the 13th century and obtained a doctor of medicine degree from Salerno University. Daniel Coxe's father was also called Daniel Coxe. He was from Stoke Newington, London and died in 1686. His son Dr. Daniel Coxe was born in London the oldest of thirteen children and was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge where he became a doctor of medicine in 1669. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Royal College of Physicians (Coxe is the Society member referred to by Samuel Pepys in his diary entry of 3 May 1665 when he poisons a cat with tobacco oil at Gresham College). Coxe was appointed a physician to the court of King Charles II of England and later to that of Queen Anne. He married Rebecca Coldham (only surviving child and heiress of John Coldham, Esquire of Tooting Graveney, Alderman of London and Rebecca Dethick, a daughter of the Lord Mayor of London) on 12 May 1671 and had a son Colonel Daniel Coxe and a daughter Mary Coxe who became a Maid of Honour to Queen Caroline, the wife of King George II and later married John Montgomery (died 1733) in 1732 and had a son Alexander, who were both M.P.'s for County Monaghan in Ireland. After Col.John Montgomery's death she married William Clement LL.D. Vice Provost of Trinity College, Dublin and M.P. both for the College and the City of Dublin. She died at Beaulieu, Co. Louth in 1790 aged 97 years.

Dr.Coxe received an immense grant of land in the lower Mississippi valley from Charles II but he never actually went to the North American continent; instead, his son Colonel Daniel Coxe, Jr.(1673–1739), and an agent, John Tatham, went in place of him. Colonel Daniel Coxe, Jr. lived in the American colonies from 1702 to 1716 and after returning to England he published an account in 1722 of his travels and a description of the area encompassed by his father's claim, entitled A Description of the English Province of Carolana, by the Spaniards called Florida, And by the French La Louisiane. Although Dr. Coxe never left England, he served nominally as Governor of New Jersey by purchase of land, and bought other large tracts of land throughout America. He attempted to settle a colony of Huguenots in Virginia, but failed. Dr.Coxe purchased a grant of land in 1698 known as the "Carolina" from the heirs of the Heath family. The "Carolina" holding remained with the Coxe family until 1769 when it was exchanged for land in the Mohawk valley of what is now New York state

Coxe opened the earliest commercial-scale pottery in New Jersey.

Dr. Coxe's son, Colonel Daniel Coxe was appointed by the Duke of Norfolk as Provincial Grand Master of Freemasons for the provinces of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but died before he had chartered any lodges.

In 1691, Dr. Coxe purportedly sold a vast 30,000-acre (120 km2) tract in western New Jersey to a new group of Proprietors called the West Jersey Society, who heavily promoted it to settlers in Long Island and New England. But in 1731, Dr. Coxe's son Col. Daniel Coxe suddenly showed up, claiming that he possessed superior title via a superseding deed that his father had recorded years earlier. To the dismay of the settlers, the courts agreed with Col. Coxe's claim. Hundreds of families were forced to repurchase their own property from Col. Coxe or be forcibly evicted. The ensuing scandal was one of many injustices that inflamed American anger against the British during the years leading up the Revolutionary War. There were lawsuits; there were riots; Col. Coxe was burned in efigy; but to no avail. As a result, many Hopewell residents left New Jersey, either unable to pay Col. Coxe or disgusted with the colony's rampant political corruption. One group of Hopewell expatriates settled on the Yadkin River in what was then Rowan County, NC. This community, the Jersey Settlement, continued to attract new settlers from the Hopewell area for several decades.

At the request of Queen Anne he relinquished the governorship of Jersey but retained the other proprietary rights.

Coxe died in 1730, and was buried in London, England. His portrait is held by the Royal College of Physicians in London.

"History of Ritchie County" written by Minnie Kendall Lowther, and published in 1910.

http://ftp.rootsweb.ancestry.com/pub/usgenweb/wv/ritchie/history/hr...

ChapterXXIII

Slab Creek Settled

The Coxes have a distinguished ancestral line, which they trace back to Dr. Daniel Cox, of London, who was the Royal family's physician when Queen Anne was on the throne (from 1702-1714), he being a cousin of the Queen.

Dr. Daniel Cox had three sons, Isaac, John, and Daniel, junior, who came to the New Jersey colony at a very early day, and from these three brothers, nearly all of the Coxes in the united States are said to be descended. From Isaac, the Ritchie county line comes; but the generations from him to the Isaac that came to Harrison county, are about six or seven, and the heads of the line down are alternately "Isaac" and "Phillip", and it is quite difficult to make the matter clear. However, Isaac Cox, the Harrison county pioneer, was born in New Jersey in 1731. He was the son of Phillip and Hannah Trembly Cox-- the youngest and only son that lived to rear a family.

Isaac Cox, the first, in making a disposition of his property, had willed all his immense fortune to his eldest son, Phillip, thus setting a precedent that was adhered to for seven generations. But Isaac Cox, the Harrison county Pioneer (being the youngest of the family as above stated), became the legatee of the property, owing to the fact that he was the only survivor of the family. His brothers, having gone some distance from home to make an improvement, in advance of the settlement, and raise a crop, pitched their tent near a fine spring from which they got water for constant use, and in a short time, they all sickened and died; and upon investigation, it was found that the water came from a copper-mine, and thus was poisonous. Isaac being but a lad, and drinking here and there where he chanced to be herding the stock, escaped death.

References

• Ancestry.com. The Cox family in America [database on-line]. Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Original data:Cox, Henry Miller,. The Cox family in America : a history and genealogy of the older branches of the family from the appearance of its first representative in this country in 1610. New York: Printed for the author by the Unionist-Gazette Association, 1912. “Daniel Coxe, of County Somerset, England.” Page 210-211. AncestryImage
• “London Lives” Danll Cox St Thomas's Hospital : Minute Books of Courts and Committees TH | MC, 8th November 1709 e Premisses now agreed to be Granted to him) Standing neare the Gally Hole in the Parish of St. Thomas aforesd. He Put 5s: into Poors Box Upon the Applicacon of Mr. Danll. Cox & Mr: Edwd: Stracey , Ordered that the Clerke deliver to them Extracts of the