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Researching Friend Cox this week. Adams’ “The Coxes of Cox Creek, Kentucky” mentions that Friend had four sons–John, Jonathan, Joseph, and Benjamin. We’ll start our research with John.

The following records were found in a volume titled “Ohio County Records Referring to Brooke County Property”. Brooke County was formed from Ohio County in 1797. These records would have been recorded prior to that date.1

  • Survey Book #1, Page 241 – Land survey for George Cox in 1785. George is a son of Isaac Cox. It is mentioned that the land was settled in 1774 and a certificate was obtained in 1780.
  • Survey Book #1, Page 241 – Land survey for Friend Cox in 1785. Land was settled in 1771 and certificate was issued in 1783. Land is next to George Cox’s land. While the fact they were neighbors is not definitive proof that they are related to each other, it makes the possibility more probable.
  • Book #1, page 50 – Bill of sale between David Cox and George Glaze recorded in 1783. Gabriel Cox was also named. David and Gabriel are likely to be Isaac’s sons.
  • Book #1, page 111 – A land record indenture between John and Mary Cox and Van Swearingen made in 1787 mentions that John Cox is heir at law to Friend Cox. Friend Cox died intestate but had intended to give all or a portion of the property to Benjamin Cox. Also mentioned was William McMahan who holds the power of attorney for Benjamin. William McMahan was the husband of Ann Cox, daughter of Isaac. This would be another clue connecting Isaac and Friend’s family.
  • Book #1, page 119 – Land transfer from John Cox, heir at law of Friend Cox, to Jonathan, Joseph and Benjamin Cox. This track of land was at the mouth of the Buffalo Creek. It is mentioned that Joseph lived near Friend. This deed transfer was witnessed by George and Gabriel Cox, sons of Isaac.
  • Book #1, page 149 – A land transfer made in 1788 where John, Jonathan and Joseph sold property to Charles Praether, the founder of Wellsburg.
  • Book #2, page 60 – An indenture made in 1790 between Peter and Hannah Cox and Benjamin Wells. This tract was along Buffalo Creek. Peter was the son of Gabriel.
  • Book #2, page 372 – An indenture made in 1793 between Israel Cox and Benjamin Wells in the Buffalo Creek area. Israel was the son of Gabriel.

The proximity of landholdings by members of the three Cox families supports that possibility that these families were related. I’ve always been skeptical of this assumption made and accepted by others. These documents help to ease my cynicism on the topic.

A Simple Text Search on FamilySearch produced 226 possible documents with mention of “John Cox”. If I had performed the search at an affiliate library, I’m sure there would have been more. A good number of them merely referenced property owned by John Cox when describing a tract of land. There were also many that identified a John Cox purchasing an item from a probate inventory. The following is a list of those that stood out to me, providing a timeline of sorts and relationships.

  • 1788, Washington County, PA – A pair of indentures between James Chambers and John Cox.2
  • 1788, Washington County, PA – An indenture between John and Mary Cox and the Baptist Church on Peter’s Creek. It was drafted in 1788 and recorded in 1815.3
  • 1809, Washington County, PA – An estate file for John Cox who died in 1807. Abraham Cox, administrator and father of John, died prior to August 18, 1827. Henry Cox was an executor of of Abraham’s estate. Henry was the only heir to John and he still had an assigned guardian in 1827. Elizabeth Cox is John’s widow. 4
  • 1813 & 1817, Washington County, PA – A pair of property transfers to Enoch Cox, son of John Cox, from his siblings James Cox (wife Peggy) of Washington Co, PA; Benjamin Cox (wife Elizabeth) of Breckinridge Co, KY; Rachel Cox McMahon (husband Richard); Susanna Welsh (husband Joseph); Catherine Fentress (husband Pleasant) of Hardin Co, KY. James died between the execution of the two transfers.5
  • 1833, Washington County, PA – A pair of indentures between John Cox and Joseph Chester. Enoch and Rachel Wright are mentioned in both.6
  • 1835, Washington County, PA – An indenture between Levi and Rachel Finley and John Cox and Joseph Chester.7
  • 1835, Washington County, PA – an indenture between John Cox and Joseph Chester and their wives and Samuel French. Since John and Joseph were selling the land, their wives had to waive dower rights. John’s wife was named as Eliza Jane.8
  • 1836, Washington County, PA – An indenture between Richard Dewhurst and John Cox.9
  • 1834 & 1837, Washington County, PA – An indenture between John and Susannah Cox and Samuel Barr. It appears that the tract was left to Susannah by her late father, James Lauler in 1818.10
  • 1839, Washington County, PA – An indenture between Joseph Graham and John Cox. Recorded in 1843.11
  • 1841, Washington County, PA – An indenture between John & Eliza Jane Cox and Enoch and Mary Cox.12
  • 1845, Washington County, PA – The Last Will and Testament of Zachariah Cox. Widow is Amelia. Children: Rebecca Cox, Benjamin Cox, Thomas Cox, John Cox, Zachariah Cox, Lucy Huston (husband John), Alethea Powers (husband John), Susannah Cox, Amelia Notel (husband Matthias), Robert. Zachariah did not think highly of John Huston.13
  • 1850, Washington County, PA – A series of quitclaims issued to John Cox. Those transferring ownership included Zachariah Cox (wife Mariah), Susannah Cox Miles (husband Elijah), and Thomas F Cox (wife Mary), all who inherited property from presumably their father Zachariah. Recorded in 1852.14
  • 1850, Washington County, PA – A quit claim from John and Margaret Cox to Andrew and Samuel Herron. This John is a son of Zachariah Cox.15

These documents answer some questions I had and raise others. While I had a list of John and Mary (Collins) Cox’s children from the Adams’ article and some dates from The Cox Family in America, the property transfers in 1813 and 1817 shown above in red provided me with so much more information about several of his children. I still do not have an exact date of death for John or a copy of his will. Since he was listed in the 1810 census, I have estimated it to be between 1810 and 1813. John’s wife Mary was not mentioned in the property transfers; had she predeceased him? Also, several of their children are not mentioned–Nancy, Isaac, and Friend. Were they also deceased? Were they left out of the will? Or, did they choose to keep their portion of the estate? I will want to investigate each of John and Mary’s children a little more in the next week before I move on to John’s brother Benjamin.

While John (son of Friend) did not name any of his children after him, there were several men named John in the next generation that bear mentioning. It is not clear if these men are somehow related to my Cox family or if they are part of a separate line. Only time and research may tell. There were potentially three additional John Coxes identified in Washington County, PA, during the period 1830 to 1850. John (son of Zachariah) had a wife named Margaret; a John who married Susanna Lauler; and a John married to an Eliza Jane. Building out the tree a bit more might help to sort these individuals out.

The properties mentioned above in Ohio/Brooke County were located where Buffalo Creek meets the Ohio River. I was curious as to where that was. As I was scanning the topo map of West Virginia, I came across Tomlinson Run and the state park by the same name. Since Isaac’s wife Susannah was a Tomlinson, I wanted to know more. The tributary and the park are named for the Tomlinson family who were pioneers of the area. While I cannot be sure it is my Tomlinsons, there is a possibility. Maybe I can convince the husband to check it out when we do our retirement RVing in a few years.

I did find Buffalo Creek on the map. It empties into the Ohio River just south of Wellsburg.

Error resolution. The last available update: I have 5023 errors in the tree–512 possible duplicates, 4062 with no documents, 449 other errors.

  • Father-in-law of a distant cousin. I’m pruning the tree so he will be deleted.
  • A floater. He will be deleted.
  • The last error is for a second husband of the wife of a distant cousin. He needed citations and a first name. I finally found him on FamilySearch in the Indiana marriage records. The information on the marriage record produced a multitude of Ancestry hints to resolve the error.

Goals and progress…
Beginning of Week: 27,236 people
End of Week: 27,279 people
Change = +43 persons
Tasks for coming week:

  • Continue research on Isaac Cox, “The Immigrant” and his wife Susannah Tomlinson.
  • Review Coxes of Cox Creek
  • Run newspaper search, especially for articles recounting local history
  • Review the Cox package of information from Sweden
  • Look for documents in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky
  1. Survey Land Records, 1777-1801, Ohio and Brooke County, VA, IGN 007901647, FamilySearch. ↩︎
  2. Deeds, 1786-1789, Washington County, PA, volume 4, page 243, IGN 008036003, image 135, FamilySearch. ↩︎
  3. Deeds, 1815-1817, Washington County, PA, volume 25, page 462, IGN 008036011, image 246, FamilySearch. ↩︎
  4. Probate Estate Case Files, 1792-1813, Washington County, PA, File C, packet 32, IGN 005552438, images 2328-2353, FamilySearch. ↩︎
  5. Deeds, 1818-1820, Washington County, PA, volume 28, pages 293-295, IGN 008084637, images 165-166, FamilySearch. ↩︎
  6. Deeds, 1834-1836, Washington County, PA, volume 42, page 14, IGN 008084642, image 14, FamilySearch. ↩︎
  7. Deeds, 1834-1836, Washington County, PA, volume 42, page 428, IGN 008084642, image 237, FamilySearch. ↩︎
  8. Deeds, 1834-1836, Washington County, PA, volume 42, page 428-429, IGN 008084642, image 237, FamilySearch. ↩︎
  9. Deeds, 1834-1836, Washington County, PA, volume 45, page 397, IGN 008036100, image 515, FamilySearch. ↩︎
  10. Deeds, 1834-1836, Washington County, PA, volume 42, page 28, IGN 008084642, image 21; Deeds, 1837-1839, Washington County, PA, volume 47, page 460, IGN 008084643, image 514, FamilySearch. ↩︎
  11. Deeds, 1842-1844, Washington County, PA, volume 52, page136, IGN 008084646, image 79, FamilySearch. ↩︎
  12. Deeds, 1839-1840, Washington County, PA, volume 50, page 301, IGN 008030736, image 170, Family Search. ↩︎
  13. Wills, 1841-1848, Washington County, PA, volume 6, page 378, IGN 005537971, image 206, FamilySearch. ↩︎
  14. Deeds, 1851-1853, Washington County, PA, volume 61, pages 108-109, IGN 008084673, images 431-432, FamilySearch. ↩︎
  15. Deeds, 1850-1851, Washington County, PA, volume 58, page 496, IGN 008036113, image 285, FamilySearch. ↩︎