Daniel Coxe - Colonial Landowner

Colonial Landowner

Coxe never left England, he served nominally as Governor of New Jersey by purchase of land. He then bought other land in the Mississippi Valley. He attempted to settle a colony of Huguenots in Virginia, but failed.

Initially Coxe purchased land in West Jersey in the mid-1680s. He bought out the heirs of Edward Byllynge there in 1687. Coxe opened the earliest commercial-scale pottery in New Jersey. He sold out most of his land there to the West New Jersey Society of London, in 1692.

Later in the 1690s Coxe acquired a grant of land in 1698 known as "Carolana" which had been given by Charles I to Sir Robert Heath; this he purchased from Sir James Shaen, or his son Arthur; Shaen had acquired the rights from Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk. The Carolana 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.