John Cox

From the Hyten family archive; subject is John Cox (1650–1696), a 10× great-grandfather of the compiler on the paternal-grandfather (PP) line. This entry covers his birth in colonial Maryland, his parentage, his marriage to Mary Ann Hix, his daughter Mary Martha Cox, and the era context of 17th-century Chesapeake settlement. Notable: among the earliest American-born ancestors documented in the Hyten line.

John Cox (1650–1696) was born in St. Mary's, St. Mary's County, in the Province of Maryland, and departed this life on the sixth day of April, 1696, in Charles County of the same colony. He was the son of John Scott Lynn Cox (1625–1700) and Angelina Wilson (1630–1710), and stands among the earliest American-born forebears recorded in the Hyten archive.

The Maryland of John's birth was a young colony, scarcely a generation removed from its founding under the Calvert proprietors in 1634. St. Mary's City, the original capital, served as both the political seat and the principal port of the southern Chesapeake during the years of his boyhood. The surrounding tidewater country was a landscape of tobacco plantations, modest wooden dwellings, and broad navigable rivers along which colonial life was organized. By the latter years of John's life, the capital had been removed to Annapolis, and the Anglican establishment had taken firmer hold across the province.

John married Mary Ann Hix, and of their union the archive preserves the record of one daughter, Mary Martha Cox, born in 1671 and surviving until 1748. Through this daughter the Cox line was carried forward into the generations that would, in the fullness of time, contribute to the paternal-grandfather branch of the compiler's ancestry.

John's removal from St. Mary's County to Charles County, where his death occurred, was a migration of no great distance, as the two counties lay adjacent along the lower western shore of the Chesapeake. Such movements were commonplace among 17th-century Maryland families as patents were taken up and land cleared along the tributaries of the Potomac.

He died at the age of forty-six, leaving behind a daughter through whom his line would endure across more than three centuries to the present compiler. John Cox was the compiler's 10× great-grandfather on the paternal-grandfather (PP) line.