CoxUSA

by Evelyn Leinbach

This is a rough outline of events which were recorded in various papers associated with Elizabeth’s litigation against her estranged husband, David. I don’t pretend to understand the ins and outs of the rulings or if I really have comprehended what’s contained in these papers.

August, 1815

Elizabeth Almond had moved out of David Almond’s Fredericksburg house and was living with her son, William, in Orange County. One afternoon, Almond arrived at William’s house in a carriage to take possession of three negro boys, the sons of the slave Nell. Nell had been given to Elizabeth by her brother, according to affidavits and complaints. William warned his step-father away from the house. Almond could ignore William because he had two pistols on him, one of which was cocked and in his hand. William picked up a spade, but there was nothing he could do. Almond entered the house, brought out the boys, put them in his carriage, and left. In parting, Almond stated that Nell could stay with Elizabeth. This encounter was witnessed by Madison County residents Claiborne Eddins and Willis Bush who had stopped by William’s house on their way home.

On his way back to Fredericksburg after this incident, Almond stopped at Tandy Collins’ tavern “calling for a glass of toddy”. He stated that he had been on some “very disagreeable business.” Almond said in front of Collins and Henry Clark that he had taken three negro boys, who were in his carriage, and left their mother with his wife. The men were led to understand that Elizabeth was given “free liberty to dispose of the said woman in any manner she thought proper.”

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by Evelyn Leinbach
After Fredericksburg, the next area where Edward and William can be placed is in Albemarle County in 1809, 1810, 1811, and 1813 when they appeared on the personal property tax lists. Edward is shown on the 1814 and 1815 tax lists, and he would have been serving as an officer in the War of 1812 for part of those years. For each entry for either Edward or William on the tax lists, there is a notation after their names of either “Shadwell” or “Jefferson Mill.”

According to Jefferson’s Memorandum Books, there are no recorded transactions of any nature between Thomas Jefferson and Edward and William Cox. The theory is that Edward and William were employed as coopers by Jonathan Shoemaker, the lessee of Thomas Jefferson’s Shadwell merchant mill from 1807 to 1811. According to the Albemarle County personal property tax lists, Edward was still associated with Shadwell in 1813, 1814, and 1815 and may have then been employed by Jefferson’s son-in-law, Thomas Randolph. The Randolph family papers may shed light on this some day. William was living in Orange County by 1815.

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by Dale Alan Cox

Even for brothers, Edward and William Cox, were very close throughout their lives. As Evelyn detailed previously, the Boys moved from Baltimore following the death of their father, Edward, to Fredericksburg, upon the remarriage of their mother, Elizabeth Traver Cox, to David Almond. In Fredericksburg The Boys took part in “Patroles” together and both apparently learned the cooperage trade from Almond.

Edward and William both worked in Jefferson’s mills at Shadwell in Albemarle County, VA, where, according to John Nowland’s sketch of, E. T. Cox, Edward was an “entrusted” agent of Thomas Jefferson managing “important business.” Edward was also according to Nowland, a lieutenant in the War of 1812.

In 1818, William dissolved his partnership with his brother-in-law, Morgan Sweeney, and in turn entered the milling business with his brother Edward at Bratoft in Orange County, Virginia.  At Raccoon Ford, Edward and William  protected their mother from Almond’s frequent alcoholic rage. Following the Panic of 1819, in debt together, with creditors hounding them, Edward’s wife, Martha Oglesby Cox, mother of Edward’s eight children, died at Raccoon Ford in 1824.

In the fall of 1824, according to Nowland, Edward and William Cox escaped the sadness of Martha’s death and the burden of their failing mill on the Rapidan River in Raccoon Ford, Virginia to follow Robert Owen and William Maclure to the “New Moral World” of New Harmony, Indiana.

Nowland writes of Edward’s decision to join Owen and Maclure.

“Finding himself left with a large family of small children which it was necessary to educate, he was struck with the many advantages Robert Owen presented to the members of his community for education, since it was to form its keystone; the mottoes on his banner were: “Ignorance is the fruitful cause of human misery,” “If we can not reconcile all opinions, let us endeavor to unite all hearts.”  He also attended one of Mr. Owen’s lectures at Richmond, and soon after resolved upon moving to New Harmony.”

Nowland states futher that the Coxes came to New Harmony with other families. In the Workingmen’s Institute, a file cards  the Cox family came to New Harmony in 1826 with the Fauntleroy family, also from Virginia, however, other than the this mentioned, we find no documentation of this fact.

Oliver Evans, Jr., son of the great milling machine inventor, lived in New Harmony for several years.   Edward and William would have likely had some contact with Evans, as neighbors, former mill owners, and as coopers.  One could speculate that Edward and William may have had some business dealing with Maclure, who had business in Richmond.  Perhaps they had contact with Robert Owen through their business dealings with Thomas Jefferson, whom Owen visited.

Nowland states the Coxes departed for New Harmony by flat-boat from Wheeling down the Ohio River. They wintered Cincinnati, where their older brother, Matthew, was living. Their journey mirrored that of the illustrious “Philanthropist,” but a year earlier.   While the note cards in the Workingmen’s Institute state the Coxes arrived in New Harmony in the spring of 1826, Nowland states that the Coxes arrived earlier:

“All arrived safely at Mount Vernon, on the Ohio river, the present seat of Posey, and fifteen miles from New Harmony. From this place the journey was finished in wagons. It was on the 28^th day of May, 1825, that the subject of this sketch [E. T. Cox] first beheld the town of New Harmony, which was to be his future home, and child though he was, the impression which the scene made upon him will never fade from his memory. The orchards were all in bloom and the entire valley which burst upon view of the emigrant, from the top of the hill just before descending to the town, looked like one vast flower garden.”

Edward and William Cox made their living as coopers in New Harmony. There is a receipt in the community account book of William Cox making a butter churn for Charles Lesueur. Mary Lou Fleming, author of an unpublished biography of E. T. Cox, had documentation of them winning awards for their cooperage in the 1840’s at the Posey County Fair. William Cox was the postmaster of New Harmony for many years. Edward’s children were educated in the New Harmony community schools. Edward’s sons played in the New Harmony Orchestra. Edward’s son, Thomas, was said to be a fine Shakespearean actor. Edward Travers Cox, as well noted, became the protege of David Dale Owen and the first Indiana State Geologist.

On March 21, 1830, at age 38, William married Eliza Robb, the 21 year old daughter of John Thomas Robb, an early Indiana pioneer for whom Robb Township in Posey County is named. The marriage officiated by Rev. John Shrader, the Methodist circuit rider, could have been quite large, with Eliza’s mother, Lydia, her many siblings and William’s brother, Edward, perhaps their mother, Elizabeth, and Edward’s
seven children.

In 1836, William Cox purchased from the Owen family, Lot #45, in New Harmony.

Besides their progeny, perhaps Edward’s and William’s most enduring contribution to the New Harmony community was their involvement in the founding and overseeing of the New Harmony Workingmen’s Institute. Edward Cox was the second signer, behind the carpenter John Beal, of the 48 original signers of the “Laws of the Workingmen’s Institute.” William Cox was the eighth signer.  Edward and William were two of the four signers behind John Beal and James Sampson, on the Letter of the Working Men’s Institute to William Maclure on April 23, 1838. Edward Cox one of the five names in the incorporation of the Workingmen’s Institute and was addressed directly by Maclure in his April 15, 1839 letter to the Workingmen’s Institute. William Cox held the office more than any other individual in the history of the WMI.

In 1845, William was elected president of the New Harmony Free Land Association.

Edward, according to Nowland, died in 1850.

by Evelyn Leinbach
I have a theory on how The Boys wound up in New Harmony.

After the huge financial reversal Edward and William suffered as a result of their merchant mill ownership, the men may have decided to join their older brother, Matthew, in Cincinnati. They probably could have found work easily as coopers and would have gotten themselves and their mother far away from their step-father. The idea of moving to New Harmony could have taken root while they were in Virginia, but it’s possible that they heard about New Harmony during time they spent in Cincinnati.

My (Dale’s not Evelyn’s) theory is that they came to New Harmony because they were swept up in the ideals of Owen and Maclure, as were their contemporaries, like Oliver Evans Jr. (whom they might have had a connection through their milling interests).   They were Owenites by the happenstance of their financial failures that occurred coincidental to the Owenite movement their exodus, like many others, to New Harmony.

Edward’s and William’s milling business at Racoon Ford likely failed as a result of the on-going depression compounded by a drought.  However, there is evidence that the depression was the result of the moneyed capitalists forcing cheap labor on the market.   A contemporary, in time, place, and industry, James Cox of Baltimore, whom they may have been related to, was a original member of the Ancient and Honorable Mechanical Company of Baltimore, an early version of a labor union, which was formed to battle the money men,  their sweatshops, and cheap labor.  Edward and William, as coopers and skilled workers, might have been sympathetic to those very ideals.   Regardless of being related to James  (though I suspect James was Edward’s and William’s uncle), they were, like James Cox, tradesmen undergoing the same forces.

It was likely that Edward and William would have had knowledge of Robert Owen and his celebrated deeds at New Lanark.  Robert Owen was frequently discussed in pro-labor world.  Mills and milling were central to Owen and Edward and William, as was the idea of labor and the working man.  Edward and William were orginal signers of the Working Men’s Institute.

William Cox remained radical long after the collapse of the New Harmony experiment being one of the instigators of the Free Land Association of New Harmony.