David Cox (abt. 1749 - abt. 1780)

Born about 1749 in New Jersey [uncertain]

Descendants

Died about 1780 at about age 31 in Canajoharie, Montgomery, New York

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Biography

David probably was the brother of Ebenezer Cox who died of his wounds received at the Battle of Oriskany. The Find A Grave memorial 94899177 for Ebenezer Cox claims that he was born 5 June 1741. The source for this date was an old family Bible where the birth dates of the children of Thomas and Rebeckah Cox were recorded. The image of the page was posted on Ancestry.com but the whereabouts of the Bible is unknown. David's birthdate was recorded, "David Cox their Son was born on Saturday about 12 o clock a.m. February the 10th A. D. 1749/50."

David probably married Margaret Frey in December 1775 but the only record of a marriage for David Cox shows her name as Catherine Fry.^[1] Since David resigned from the Committee of Safety in 1775, he probably was planning to marry Margaret Frey at the time. See Hendrick Frey for the possible reasons why David resigned from the Committee of Safety.

Samuel Chollot Frey's descendant chart in his book, A Concise Record of Our Family, included the name of Margaret Frey's husband, Edward Cox. However, in the body of the text, he referred to him not by name, but as the son-in-law of Henry Frey and the father of Henry Frey Cox. Samuel Chollot Frey, Margaret's nephew, was born in 1799. He could not have personally known David Cox but he surely knew his aunt's name. He could not recall her husband's name. Presumably he asked someone who thought it was Edward.^[2]

Circumstantial evidence leads to the conclusion that Margaret Frey's husband was David Cox, not Edward Cox.

First, David Cox was the name mentioned in Thummel family stories. Rev. E. C. Harris, pastor of St. John's Lutheran Church, Sterling, who wrote, "They (Christian B. Thummel and his family) came west in 1845 first to Racine, Wisconsin, where Dr. Thummel's first wife's parents lived, Mr. and Mrs. David Cox, whom they visited for several weeks." ^[3]

This statement contained at least one error. Dr. Thummel's first wife was the daughter of Henry Frey Cox, but the fact that the name, David Cox, came down in the family suggests that the name was in the family lineage. Rev. Harris, who wrote the historical sketch after Rev. Thummel's death, apparently interviewed two of Thummel's children, Mrs. Elizabeth Miller and Anson E. Thummel. Elizabeth, who was born in New York in 1835, undoubtedly remembered the journey from New York to Racine, Wisconsin, and the visit with her maternal grandparents. She was ten years old. Unfortunately her memory failed when she confused the name of her grandfather, Henry Frey Cox, with the name of her great-grandfather, David Cox.

Further evidence suggests that his name was David Cox who was mentioned in historical records of Tyron County, New York; records closely connected to Hendrick Frey, David Cox's father-in-law. The name, Edward Cox, did not appear in any record associated with Hendrick Frey of Canajoharie, New York.

During the American Revolution, after the final session of the New York Colonial Assembly on April 3, 1775, the Tyron County Committee of Safety was established to assume authority over the civil and military affairs of the county. This authority was maintained until February 6, 1778, when the First State Legislature established jurisdiction of the government in New York. David Cox represented the Canajoharie District on the Tyron County Committee of Safety from May 24, 1775 until September 13, 1775, when he was granted his discharge from the committee. ^[4]

During this time, David had married Margaret Frey, daughter of Hendrick Frey.

On August 25, 1777, following the Battle of Oriskany, the Tryon County Committee of Safety ordered that David Cox's wife along with Mrs. Ten Brouck, Fredk. Young's wife, John Young's wife, Mrs. Butler, Mrs. Clements, Mrs. Bone, Mrs. Toice, Mrs. Wall, Mrs. McDonald, and her daughter were to be immediately confined under guard at the Gilbert Tice home in Johnstown until further orders from the committee. At the same meeting, it was "Resolved that Col. Henry Frey be sent to Kingston in Esopus and delivered with his Crime to Governor Clinton... having been a long time since a Prisoner of State at Albany,"^[5]

David was not mentioned in the Minutes of the Committee of Safety at this time or at any later time. His presumed brother, Ebenezer Cox, was killed in the Battle of Oriskany, and his wife's maternal grandfather, General Herkimer died of his wounds received in the Battle of Oriskany. Families were divided during the American Revolution.

When his father-in-law was arrested and imprisoned, David Cox was left in charge of the family's business affairs. He was killed in resisting the depredations of some of his Whig neighbors who came to plunder the mill.^[6]

Samuel Ludlow Frey described his death without naming him, only referring to him as the father of "The Colonel's little grandson." Colonel Hendrick Frey had one son, Phillip, but he lived until 1836. Hendrick Frey had only one other child, his daughter Margaret. She and her husband, David Cox, had to have been the parents of "The Colonel's little grandson."

The account of his death appears in "The Colonel and the Major," a narrative of the Revolutionary events in the Mohawk Valley:

It was early one summer morning soon after the Colonel's arrest that the quiet place of Freyburg was broken by a loud shouting from the hills to the south and from the cliffs along the stream and moving figures could be seen among the trees.

The Colonel's little grandson was playing among the flowers in the yard: looking up at the shouting, he dropped his play things, and running across to the mill, called to his father to come and see the men on the hill.

The miller had not heard the calling, for the noise of the grinding and the swish of the great water wheel had drowned the voices.

Coming quickly to the door he realized the danger and prepared single handed to repel the attack which he saw was to be made on the place.

"Come out of that you son of a rebel," shouted a voice from the point of a high rock.

"We will serve you worse than the old Duke," called another, 'so you better keep quiet for we are coming down.' and the miller could see quite a number of men - and women too, filing out from the trees and clambering down the steep hill.

Filled with alarm and having no time to call to the inmates of the house, he at once closed the heavy doors of the mill and running to a bin of wheat, he drew out several loaded guns that were hidden there in case of an emergency.

But he never had a chance to use them for, showing himself at an open window with a gun in his hands, a shot rang out from the hill and he fell backward pierced through the head and died without a groan.

The little boy wild with fear, opened the door and ran towards the house, shouting, 'OH they have killed my dear father, they have killed them the bad, wicked men have killed my dear father'."^[7]

While Samuel Ludlow Frey used literary license in the above description, he likely heard the story from persons who heard it first hand from members of the family. Samuel Ludlow Frey (born 1833) lived in Palatine Bridge directly across the Mohawk River from Canajoharie where Davis Cox's son, Henry Frey Cox lived. ^[8]

Sources

1. ↑ Names of Persons for whom Marriage License were issued by the Secretary of the Province of New York previous to 1860. (Albany: Weed, Parsons and Co., 1860), 89: "1775. Dec. 11. Cox, David and Catherine Fry. Marriage Bonds XXIII, p. 47." The actual marriage bonds no longer exist so it is impossible to learn if the bride's name was in error.
2. ↑ Samuel Chollot Frey, A Concise Record of Our Family - from sixteen hundred and eighty-eight to the present time (Leavenworth, Kansas, 1870,
3. ↑ Rev. E. C. Harris, A historical sketch of the founding of the Northern Illinois Synod and the life of Rev. C. B. Thummel, one the founders, p. 9.
4. ↑ Maryly B. Penrose, Mohawk Valley in the Revolution.
5. ↑ Penrose, 127.
6. ↑ Samuel Chollot Frey, "A Concise Record of Our Family."
7. ↑ Samuel Ludlow Frey, "The Colonel and the Major, a narrative of the Revolutionary events in the Mohawk Valley," unpublished manuscript; copy available at Montgomery County Department of History and Archives, Fonda, New York. The "Major" in this narrative was John Frey and the "Colonel" was his brother, Hendrick Frey.
8. ↑ Jeptha R. Simms, The Frontiersmen of New York, Albany,1882, 99.