Tag Archives: Cox

John L. Cox

04 Monday May 2020

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John L Cox was the first of at least five children born to Jonathan Piety Cox and Rachel Lemen Tigert.  He was born on May 4, 1820 in Knox County, Indiana.  There are some variations on his middle name with some sources listing it as Lemen, a family name from his mother’s side, and others referring to him as Lemuel.  His siblings included Mary J, Harvey Innes, Alexander and Harriet.  Mary was the mother of Henrietta Polk and Alexander was the father of Rachel Cox Rafferty, both women who were recently the subject of biographies on this blog.

John lived his entire life in Knox County, in the area between Bruceville and Bicknell.  He actually amassed a respectable-sized farm which in 1880 totaled more than 300 acres.  John was married twice.  His first marriage began on October 3, 1849 to Mary Robinson.  She gave him three sons, John Crittenden and twins Harmon and Jonathan.  She died at the age of 23 in 1852.

John L Cox Washington Twp

A couple years passed and John married Naomi Steen on September 21, 1854.  Together, John and Naomi added at least six children to their family, all reaching adulthood and all but one living into their late sixties or beyond.  The children in order of birth: Enoch S, James L, Richard T, Logan, Naomi and Caroline.

All of the family was well-known and respected in the community.  Logan, after serving in the military, went to medical school.  Unfortunately, just week’s shy of graduating, he was stricken with a debilitating ailment which slowly killed him for over a year.  He died in 1894 at the age of 32.  John C, the oldest of the nine siblings, was elected County Sheriff in 1898.  Harmon, one of the twins, died at the age of 46.  He was a business man in Daviess County.

After fifty-six years of marriage at the age of 80, John Lemuel Cox passed away at the family home from jaundice.  He is buried in the Asbury Chapel Cemetery located in Ragsdale, Indiana, as are many of his family.

 

John L Cox is my 1st cousin 5x removed on my dad’s side.

REFERENCES

  • United States Census, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900
  • Indiana Death Certifcates
  • Indiana Marriage Index
  • United States Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1880
  • The Indianapolis Journal, November 14, 1900 via Newspapers.com
  • The Vincennes Commercial, July 2, 1898 & August 14, 1894

Rachel Cox

28 Tuesday Apr 2020

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On April 28, 1860, Rachel Cox was born in Widner Township, Knox County, Indiana to Alexander Cox and Angeline Sartor.  She was the third child born to this family of at least seven children.  Of her six siblings, two were sisters (Mara Alice and Flora) and four were brothers (Elliott, John, Charles, and Lew).  Alex supported the family through farming until the early 1880s when they packed the house and moved to Elm Grove, Kansas.  It is in Elm Grove where Rachel met Benjamin Franklin Rafferty.  He worked on a neighboring farm and on July 4, 1886, he married Rachel.  In January 1887, Rachel’s mother Angeline died and was buried in Kansas.  Her father died of Bright’s disease in 1905 at his home in Welch, Indian Territory.

Rachel and Frank returned to Indiana and northern Knox County not long after they were married.  Their daughter Roxie Ruth was born in 1888 and their son Charles Russell followed in 1895.  Frank was working as a day laborer in 1900 living outside of Bicknell, Indiana.  The family then moved to Indianapolis prior to 1905.  Not long after, on Jun 16, 1909, Rachel died of breast cancer.

Rachel Cox

Rachel Cox was my 2nd cousin 4x removed on my dad’s side.

REFERENCES

  • United States Census, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900
  • Kansas State Census, 1885
  • Indiana Death Certificates
  • Find a Grave website
  • Kansas County Marriage Records
  • Vincennes Commercial, December 12, 1905

Henrietta Polk

23 Thursday Apr 2020

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On April 23, 1848, Henrietta Polk was the third child born to Isaac Polk and Mary Jane Cox.  She was preceded by Jeannette and Benjamin, and followed by six more siblings–Charles, Rachel, Alice, Harriet, Florence and Jonathan.  The family resided in the Oak Station (Widner Township) area of Knox County, Indiana, where her father apparently had a sizable farm.  When Henrietta was eleven, her mother died, leaving Isaac with many mouths to feed.  Two years later, Isaac married Martha Couchman Ferguson, the widow of John Ferguson.  They added three more daughters to the family–Delilah, Hester and Eva for a total of twelve children born to Isaac.

Henrietta attended school as a youngster and lived on her father’s farm well into her twenties.  On November 8, 1879, she married single father Ellis Hill.  Ellis had been married and widowed twice previously–first to Lavinia Risley and then to Henrietta’s older sister Jeanette.  Both women appear to have died as a result of childbirth complications.  Henrietta, consequently, became a stepmother to nine year old Mary.

Ellis and Henrietta made their home in the north central part of Washington Township in Knox County where Ellis farmed 80 acres of land.  Over the next two decades, they had five children, three of which made it to adolescence–Walter, Fannie and Hallie.  Hallie apparently had some health issues and was sent to live with an aunt in Idaho where the climate was more favorable for her.  Unfortunately, the improvement was short lived and she died in April 1906 in Idaho.  Henrietta, who suffered from paralysis, passed away a few short months later on July 17, 1906 on the family farm on the outskirts of  Bicknell, Indiana.

Henrietta Polk Widner

Isaac Polk farm in Widner Township, Knox County IN

Henrietta Polk Washington

Ellis Hill farm in Washington Township, Knox County, IN

 

Henrietta Polk was my 2nd cousin 4x removed on my dad’s side.

REFERENCES

  • United States Census, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900
  • Indiana Death Certificates
  • Indiana Marriage Index
  • Find A Grave
  • The Western Sun, April 27, 1906
  • Combined Atlases of Knox County, Indiana, 1880-1903

 

It’s all in the details, Frank Cox.

22 Saturday Feb 2020

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Recently, I have been doing some housekeeping in my family tree.  Things like do I have a birth record, marriage record and death record? Do I have a census record for all available years? Do I have an obituary?  As I go through this exercise, I add details to my ancestors’ files that might be on those records such as occupations or cause of death.  These are all details I want to include when I write their biographies.  My end goal is to at least paint a bit of a picture of who these people were.

This brings me to my 2nd great grandfather, Frank Cox.  I’ve mentioned Frank before when I discussed his daughter Blanche and again as I presented his parents, John and Mary.   Frank married Arabelle McCullough in Missouri in 1888 and they had 5 children–Raymond, Blanche, Mura Mae, Anna and Jessie.  In 1907, Frank married Molly Schwepker in Missouri and in 1910, Jessie was living with her aunt and uncle in Knox County, Indiana.  The big mystery is what happened to Arabelle between Jessie’s birth in January 1904 and Frank’s marriage in 1907.

As I examined Frank’s documentation, I found some things that I had previously overlooked.  In 1880, he is living with his half-brother Thomas Azbell In Sandborn, IN.  What struck me as odd was he was listed as married, however, no wife was listed.  It was also well before 1888 when he married Arabelle.   Hmmm.  I kept searching and found an Eliza J Cox with a two year old daughter named Carola living with Daniel Hollingsworth in the next township.  Eliza is listed as Daniel’s daughter.

In the June 24, 1881 edition of The Western Sun, an altercation between Frank and a John Cooper was reported.  The article mentioned that Frank had been estranged from his wife for two years which would be consistent with the 1880 census information.  A compilation of family histories, “Descendants of Some Early Settlers in Knox and Sullivan Counties, Indiana” found at FamilySearch.org, provided further evidence that Frank Cox married a Jenny Hollingsworth, daughter of Daniel, although an exact date was not included in the document.

So Frank had a family before the one he had with Arabelle.   What happened to Jenny and Carola?  With a little work, I was able to piece together the rest of Jenny’s short life.  It would seem that Jenny was able to secure a divorce from Frank.  In 1884, Jenny married James William McFadden.  He appears to be the brother-in-law of one of Jenny’s sisters. In 1888, the McFaddens were living in Sullivan County and Jenny gave birth to a son (Jesse) in February.  She died a few days later, likely from complications.  James went on to marry again and had another son, Philip.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been as lucky determining what happened to Carola after her mother died.  Did she stay on with her step-father James McFadden? Or was she raised by one of her Hollingsworth relatives?  Was she even alive?  Other than the 1880 census, there really is no paper trail for my 2nd great aunt.  Hopefully a shred of evidence will surface in the future.

 

 

 

Oliver P. & Rachel Frost McCullough

12 Wednesday Nov 2014

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Oliver P McCullough (3rd great-grandfather) was born circa 1825 in Kentucky.  He married Eliza Grimsley in 1843 in Daviess County, Indiana.  As best as can be determined, they had four children: James, Mary, Perlina and Jesse.  The 1850 census has them in Elmore Township in Daviess County, then in 1860 they had relocated southward to Steele Township.  Oliver’s wife is listed as Rebecca in 1860, so it is unclear if this is Eliza or another wife.

Indiana marriage records has Oliver wedded to Rachel Frost in Knox County, IN, in July 1862.  This is  one month before he mustered with the 83rd Infantry, Company F in southeastern Indiana as a lieutenant.  He mustered out less than a year later, in June 1863.  In 1870, the McCulloughs could be found in Richland Township, Greene County (Bloomfield), along with Oliver’s mother Elizabeth.  In 1880, they were back in Daviess County.  Oliver and Rachel had the following children:

  1. Sarah (1863-?)
  2. William (1868-?)
  3. Emily Arabelle (1870-ca. 1904) m. Frank Cox (2nd great grandparents)
  4. Perry (1873-?)
  5. Thomas (1875-?)
  6. Miranda (1879-?)

Little is known about Oliver’s parents other than his mother’s first name was Elizabeth and she was born ca 1798 in Kentucky.  I have not been able to locate Rachel prior to 1862 and her parents are a mystery as well.  Oliver and Rachel’s whereabouts are also unknown after 1880.

80th Indiana Infantry, Company C

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

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The Civil War began on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.  Initially, seven southern states seceded from the United States to form the Confederate States of America.  This number grew to eleven before it was all said and done.  In 1862 President Abraham Lincoln raised the call to arms among the Union States, requesting 300,000 volunteers step up and help bring an end to the war.

The men of Southwestern Indiana heard the call and the 80th Indiana Infantry was formed.  The regiment consisted of 1,049 men from several southwestern counties in the state.  The men were grouped in to 10 companies identified by letters of the alphabet.  About 100 men from Edwardsport mustered together at Fort Gibson in Princeton on September 3, 1862 to form Company C.  The 80th spent their first year battling for Kentucky before moving on to Tennessee and the Siege of Atlanta.  They returned to battle in Tennessee, then were shipped to North Carolina to fight under General William T Sherman in early 1865.  They war ended in April 1865, along with the assassination of President Lincoln.  The 80th finished out their duties at Salisbury NC where they were mustered out in late June 1865.  In the end, the 80th lost 237 men to death, 49 to desertion and 3 were unaccounted for.  A more detailed account of their battles can be found in the Civil War Index and the website devoted to the 80th Indiana Volunteer Infantry.

William Lankford

William Lankford

Members of Company C were all from the Edwardsport area.  Three men in particular, John S. Cox, George W. Winkler, and Isaac DeMoss, were my 3rd great grandfathers.  All three mustered in on September 3, 1862.  Unfortunately, not all of them came home.  John died at New Haven, KY on January 14, 1863.  George and Isaac fared better, mustering out on June 22, 1865.  While all three entered service as privates, Isaac finished as a corporal.

Of course, these three were not the only ones in my family’s tree that served in Company C.  Isaac’s cousin Samuel Reeve entered as a Sergeant and had attained the rank of First Sergeant by the time he returned home in 1865.  George had two of his extended family fighting by his side.  William Lankford, George’s brother-in-law, mustered out as a Sergeant after the war while Robert Gilmore, who married one of William’s sisters, was discharged early on April 24, 1863.

Blanche Cox DeMoss Robertson

10 Monday Nov 2014

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Yesterday, when I was reviewing my information on Blanche Cox DeMoss Robertson, my great-grandmother, there were some questions raised.

  1. My data said Blanche and Samuel I. DeMoss were married in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.  This concerned me because both were born in Knox County, and census records showed they settled in Knox and Greene Counties after they were married.
  2. Blanche’s obituary listed a sister named Jessie, however, I had not located her in the census records or vital records.  I wasn’t sure when she was born or which of her father’s marriages she was a product of.

Blanche was born 1894 to Frank and Arabelle (McCullough) Cox in Knox County.  She had an older brother Raymond and three sisters—May, Anna, and Jessie—according to her obituary.  As of the 1900 Knox County Census, Jessie had not yet been born and Arabelle was still alive.

The Cox family had always lived in Knox County, but I had a 1910 Census record showing them in Cape Girardeau.  Blanche wasn’t listed with the family in the 1910 census.  She was found in another household working as a live-in maid in Cape Girardeau.  The census also listed  a woman named Mollie as Frank’s wife and that they had only been married 3 years.  So, Arabelle was gone and Jessie couldn’t be located.

A copy of Blanche and Samuel’s marriage license was indeed found in the Missouri marriages database. It was obtained on December 22, 1911 and filed on December 26.  What I am curious about is how did this marriage come about?  Samuel was about 5 years older than Blanche and the Coxes had moved to Missouri a good 4-5 years earlier.  Blanche wasn’t even 18 at the time of the wedding, so how did they get together?  Was this an arranged marriage or was he coveting her when she was 12?  At any rate, Blanche and Samuel returned to the Knox/Greene County area and went on with their lives, having four children, one of which was my grandfather Samuel T. DeMoss.  Samuel Isaac died in 1945.  Blanche married Coen Robertson before my grandfather died in 1955.  She died in 1965.

Jessie’s whereabouts were still a mystery.  I stumbled across another researcher’s data on Ancestry.com which referred to the 1910 census where she was listed as an adopted daughter of Charles and Anna Rogers in Westphalia.  Her birth was circa 1904 which would make Arabelle her mother, and most likely Arabelle died in childbirth.  Since fathers did not raise their infants back then, Jessie was given to someone else to raise; that someone else being the Rogers’.  Today I discovered that Anna Rogers was Frank’s sister, so Jessie was raised by her aunt and uncle. Yet another aunt and uncle, August and Emerine Cox Begeman lived in the next house down the road.  By 1920, I had lost Jessie again.  She wasn’t with the Rogers’ who had moved to Greene County, her sister Blanche, or the Begemans.

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Westphalia is just down the road from Edwardsport  in Widner Township, Knox County.

John S. and Mary Cox

09 Sunday Nov 2014

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John S. and Mary (?) Cox are my 3rd-great grandparents.  John was born about 1819 in Kentucky.  According to another researcher, his parents might possibly be Gabriel Squire and Nancy (Gaston) Cox.  John and Mary were married sometime between 1846 and 1849 in Indiana.  Mary’s maiden name is unknown.  She had previously been married to an Azbell and had four children from that union.  In 1850 they were residing in Elmore Township, Daviess Co, IN and moved to Vigo Township, Knox County by 1860.  In 1862, John joined the 80th Regiment of the Indiana Infantry and fought the Civil War with his neighbors in Company C.  He was killed on January 14, 1863 at a battle in New Haven, KY.  He left behind four children of his own, including my 2nd-great grandfather, Frank Cox.

In 1870, Mary and her three youngest children are living with her son Thomas Azbell and his wife Nancy in Vigo Township.  By 1880, Mary cannot be located, but Frank is still living with Thomas.

Children of Mary Azbell

  • Sarah (1838-?)
  • Isabella (1841-?)
  • William (1843-after 1910) m. Sallie ?
  • Thomas (1846-after 1880) m. Nancy Chambers

Children of John S and Mary Cox

  • Emirine (1850-1934) m. August Begeman
  • Jemima (1852-?)
  • Frank (1855-1915) m. Arabella McCullough
  • Mary A (1858-?)

Samuel Thomas DeMoss

04 Tuesday Nov 2014

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Samuel-Lillian-DeMoss

Thursday of this week marks the anniversaries of the deaths of two men in my direct family tree.  Today I’ll talk about the older of the two–my grandfather Samuel Thomas DeMoss, Sr.

Samuel was the third child of Samuel I. and Blanche (Cox) DeMoss, born February 25, 1918 in probably Knox County, IN.  He had two older sisters, Doris and Frances, and a younger brother William.  The 1920 census has the family living in Taylor Township, Greene County and in Edwardsport in 1930.

Samuel married Lillian Edeine Fielden on April 23, 1937.  They are residing in Edwardsport in the 1940 census.  He is reported having finished 4 years of high school, and Lester Bemis is living with them.  Lester is incorrectly listed as his father-in-law, and I will explain this in more detail on November 25.  Samuel and Edeine went on to have seven children, four of which grew to maturity.  On November 6, 1955, Samuel succumbed to throat cancer, leaving behind a wife and four children.  He is buried in the Edwardsport Town Cemetery.

I don’t know a whole lot more about my grandfather.  My dad was only twelve when he died and no one really talked about him by the time my siblings and cousins were around.  I know that he was a farmer and that his neighbors pitched in to help get that last year’s crop in.  Oddly enough, while visiting my college roommate’s grandparents one afternoon, I discovered her grandfather had been one of those kind enough to help the family in their time of need.

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Taylor Township is in Greene County, IN between Odon and Bloomfield.  The junction of I-69 and US 231 is in Taylor Township.