Daniel Coxe - Family

Family

Coxe 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. They had a son Colonel Daniel Coxe and a daughter Mary.

Daniel Coxe, Jr.(1673–1739), with an agent John Tatham, went to his father's North American lands. He lived in the American colonies from 1702 to 1716 and after returning to England 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. He 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 1731, he claimed that he possessed superior title to that of the West Jersey Society, via a superseding deed that his father had recorded years earlier; the courts upheld 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 effigy; 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.

Mary became a Maid of Honour to Queen Caroline, the wife of King George II 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.