Surname Saturday ~ COX of Boston, Massachusetts

Boston, 1835

COX / COCKES / COCKE

My 8^th great grandfather, Robert Cox, is a mystery.  I don’t know if he was an immigrant from England, or born in New England.  The first record that mentions him was when he became a freeman in 1666 in Boston, Massachusetts.  He was married around 1670 to a woman known only as Martha (no maiden name has been discovered).  Robert Cox was an innholder and mariner, and lived in the area that is now called Boston’s North End.  Between 1668 and 1679 he was approved to “keep a house of entertainment and sell liquors”. 

The book Old Boston Taverns and Tavern Clubs, by Samuel Adams Drake, 1917 names Robert Cox’s inn as the Mitre.   “MITRE, east side of North Street, at the head of Hancock Wharf (Lewis Wharf) between Sun Court and Fleet Street.  The lot of Samuel cole in the Book of Possessions , which he conveys to George Halsey in 1645; Halsey to Nathaniel Patten in 1654, Patten to Robert Cox in 1681, Cox to John Kind, 1683-84; Jane Kind to Thomas Clarke (pewterer), 1705-6; Clarke to John Jefferies, 1730.  His nephew David Jeffries inherits in 1778, from whom it went to Joseph Eckley and wife Sarah (Jeffries).  In 1782 heirs of John Jeffries owned house “formerly the Mitre Tavern”.  In 1798 the house had been taken down.” 

There are many deeds naming property around the North End that Robert Cox leased, mortgaged, and sold.  Some of these deeds name his wife Martha, too.  She was still alive for a transaction on 23 June 1681, but probably died soon after this because by 8 February 1683 he was remarried to a Hester or “Esther”.   You can read a long list of these property transactions in the Inhabitants and Estates of the Town of Boston, 1630 – 1822 (The Thwing Collection) see Cox, Robert Reference Code 17149. 

Robert Cox “the boatman” died 11 November 1684 intestate and named his wife Esther as the adminstrix, but she refused.  William Coleman was appointed administrator of his estate by the court.  The order for distribution of the estate names his three daughters Martha, Mary and Elizabeth as “the only surviving children of the deceased”.  The son John must have died before the estate was settled on 3 October 1690, and Boston records name a John Cox who died 3 July 1690. 

For more information on the COX family see the resources listed above, and also:

The New England Cox Families, by John Hosmer Cox, pages 39 – 40.

New England Marriages to 1700, Volume 1, page 388

My Cox genealogy:

Generation 1:  Robert Cox, died on 11 November 1684 in Boston, Massachusetts; married about 1670 to Martha Unknown, mother of his four children; married before 8 February 1683 to Esther Unknown.

Generation 2:   Mary Cox, born about July 1676 in Boston or Malden, Massachusetts; died 1 April 1723 in Abington, Massachusetts; married on 26 May 1699 in Boston to Benjamin Staples, son of John Staples and Sarah Atkins.  He was born November 1677 in Braintree, Massachusetts and died between 1711 and 1712 in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.  Eight children.

Generation 3:  Silence Staples m. John Everson

Generation 4:  Hannah Everson m. Nathan Weston

Generation 5:  Zadoc Weston m. Mary Clements

Generation 6:  Matilda Weston m. Joseph Edwin Healy

Generation 7:  Mary Etta Healey m. Peter Hoogerzeil

Generation 8:  Florence Etta Hoogerzeil m. Arthur Treadwell Hitchings

Generation 9:  Gertrude Matilda Hitchings m. Stanley Elmer Allen (my grandparents)

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, “Surname Saturday ~ COX of Boston, Massachusetts”, Nutfield Genealogy, posted October 20, 2018, (https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/10/surname-saturday-cox-of-boston.html: accessed [access date]).