| Notes |
- !NOTES:Marty Grant's 10th Great Grand Parent.;
!REFERENCE:“This Old Monmouth of Ours” by William Hornor, 1932, pp. 93-96. The full book is on FamilySearch.org;
THOMAS COX, NATIVE OF HERTFORDSHIRE,
ENGLAND; FIRST SETTLED ON LONG
ISLAND, LATER CAME TO
MIDDLETOWN, 1667.
Thomas Cox and His Descendants
This Is an old. old name, and an old, old family, going back for its origin to a period so remote that the great Celtic race had not yet divided itself into its two distinct branches, of Erse and Cymry. So it Is that we find Cox used as a name among both the British and the Irish, and, as well, among the people of Brittany. in France; for it descends to all from the old Celtic root-word, "coch", meaning red. It thus carries with it no implication of blood relationship nor of national origin, although it does show the primitive—or root-stock of all its bearers to have been Celtic.
As red hair was too frequent among the early Celts to have served as a distinguishing and name-giving characteristic, and as red noses had not yet become fashionable, it Is probable that it was first applied, as in the case of King William Rufus, of England, to individuals notable for floridness of complexion,
The use of distinguishing family names (or surnames) among the British, although In occasional use among the Tribes from a time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, did not begin to become at all customary until the time of Edward the Confessor, and was in infrequent use even at the time of the compiling of Domesday Book, some half a century later.
Yet, in that venerable tome is found the name we are now considering, in the person of Aluun Coc, bedellus; and, again, as "Cocus", in Rot. Obl. et Fin, of the time of King John. The word "bedellus", used above as an official designation is not a Latin word, but the Latinized form of the British "beadle", or bedle, and Indicates an inferior officer of one of the courts, or an officer of the Parish.
Cornwall seems to have been the chief seat of the Coxes in England.
There were several contemporary families of Coxes early settled in the Jersies, but we are here concerned with but one of these, that of Thomas Cox, one of the first settlers at Middletown, who was the founder of the fine old family that later became centered in Upper Freehold.
THOMAS COX (1), concerning whose antecedents the present writer has no information beyond the fact that he was born in Hertfordshire, one of the western counties of England, and, after coming to this country, settled first on Newton Creek, Long Island. From that place he removed to Middletown, New Jersey, where he was among the earliest settlers and where he died in 1681. Before coming to Monmouth County he had married, on the 24th of April (or of June), 1665, Elizabeth Blashford, of whom we have no information except her name. On the death of Thomas Cox, she married secondly, Sept. 9, 1591, Thomas Ingham, or Ingram, who died in 1690.
To Thomas Cox was assigned, in 1687, Lot No. 8, in Middletown village. He subsequently acquired other properties. From early records he would seem to have taken an active part in all the movements of his day and to have stood well In the estimation of the people with whom he had cast his lot. He was a Baptist.
Some have thought that Thomas Cox had a brother who settled in the lower portion of the State, but the writer has met with no confirmation of this assumption.
Thomas and Elizabeth (Blashford) Cox had six children living at the time of his death in 1881, two of whom were of very tender years. They were: an unnamed eon (2); Thomas (3); John (4); James (5); Joseph (6), and an unnamed daughter (7), who married Nathaniel Robins (son of Daniel, of Cross-wicks), and died before 1714, leaving two daughters, Sarah and Meribah Robins. -there is more-
!PROBATE:16 Aug 1681 Thomas Coxe/Cox of Middletown.
Inventory of estate by Peter Tilton, constable, Tho. Snawsell and Robert Hamilton.
26 Feb 1687/8 account by Thomas Ingham executor who has married the widow Elizabeth Coxe, a mother of
six children two of them very small;
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- 1681
