Daniel Coxe

For the tennis player, see Daniel Cox.

Dr. Daniel Coxe (1640 – 19 January 1730) was a governor of West Jersey from 1687-1688 and 1689-1692.

Biography

The Coxe family traced their lineage to a Daniel Coxe who lived in Somersetshire, England in the 13th century and obtained a doctor of medicine degree from Salerno University. Daniel Coxe's father was also called Daniel Coxe. He was from Stoke Newington, London and died in 1686. His son Dr. Daniel Coxe was born in London the oldest of thirteen children and was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge where he became a doctor of medicine in 1669.^[1] He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Royal College of Physicians (Coxe is the Society member referred to by Samuel Pepys in his diary entry of 3 May 1665 when he poisons a cat with tobacco oil at Gresham College). Coxe was appointed a physician to the court of King Charles II of England and later to that of Queen Anne. He married Rebecca Coldham (only surviving child and heiress of John Coldham, Esquire of Tooting Graveney, Alderman of London and Rebecca Dethick, a daughter of the Lord Mayor of London) on 12 May 1671 and had a son Colonel Daniel Coxe and a daughter Mary Coxe who became a Maid of Honour to Queen Caroline, the wife of King George I and later married John Montgomery (died 1733) in 1732 and had a son Alexander, who were both M.P.'s for County Monaghan in Ireland. After Col.John Montgomery's death she married William Clement LL.D. Vice Provost of Trinity College, Dublin and M.P. both for the College and the City of Dublin. She died at Beaulieu, Co. Louth in 1790 aged 97 years.

Dr.Coxe received an immense grant of land in the lower Mississippi valley from Charles II but he never actually went to the North American continent; instead, his son Colonel Daniel Coxe, Jr.(1673–1739), and an agent, John Tatham, went in place of him. Colonel Daniel Coxe, Jr. lived in the American colonies from 1702 to 1716 and after returning to England he published an account in 1722 of his travels and a description of the area encompassed by his father's claim, entitled A Description of the English Province of Carolana, by the Spaniards called Florida, And by the French La Louisiane. Although Dr. Coxe never left England, he served nominally as Governor of New Jersey by purchase of land, and bought other large tracts of land throughout America. He attempted to settle a colony of Huguenots in Virginia, but failed. Dr.Coxe purchased a grant of land in 1698 known as the "Carolina" from the heirs of the Heath family. The "Carolina" holding remained with the Coxe family until 1769 when it was exchanged for land in the Mohawk valley of what is now New York state

Coxe opened the earliest commercial-scale pottery in New Jersey.^[2]

Dr. Coxe's son, Colonel Daniel Coxe was appointed by the Duke of Norfolk as Provincial Grand Master of Freemasons for the provinces of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but died before he had chartered any lodges.

In 1691, Dr. Coxe purportedly sold a vast 30,000-acre (120 km²) tract in western New Jersey to a new group of Proprietors called the West Jersey Society, who heavily promoted it to settlers in Long Island and New England. But in 1731, Dr. Coxe's son Col. Daniel Coxe suddenly showed up, claiming that he possessed superior title via a superseding deed that his father had recorded years earlier. To the dismay of the settlers, the courts agreed with Col. Coxe's claim. Hundreds of families were forced to repurchase their own property from Col. Coxe or be forcibly evicted. The ensuing scandal was one of many injustices that inflamed American anger against the British during the years leading up the Revolutionary War. There were lawsuits; there were riots; Col. Coxe was burned in efigy; but to no avail. As a result, many Hopewell residents left New Jersey, either unable to pay Col. Coxe or disgusted with the colony's rampant political corruption. One group of Hopewell expatriates settled on the Yadkin River in what was then Rowan County, NC. This community, the Jersey Settlement, continued to attract new settlers from the Hopewell area for several decades.

At the request of Queene Anne he relinquished the governorship of Jersey but retained the other proprietary rights.

Coxe died in 1730, and was buried in London, England. His portrait is held by the Royal College of Physicians in London.

Sources

• New Jersey

References

1. ^ Coxe, Daniel in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
2. ^ Ceramics - Daniel Coxe, Burlington, Art & Architecture of New Jersey. URL accessed on 7 March 2006.

External Links

• The Weld Coxe Collection, including correspondence, pamphlets, maps and other materials documenting the Coxe family in America, is available for research use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Government offices
Preceded by Edward Byllynge	Governor of West Jersey 1687 – 1688	Succeeded by Edmund Andros

See also

• List of Governors of New Jersey
• Alexander Montgomery (died 1785)

Persondata
Name	Coxe, Daniel
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1640
Place of birth
Date of death	19 January 1730
Place of death