JAMES W. COX

Sacramento County

Biographies

JAMES W. COX

JAMES W. COX.--Prominent among the energetic men of affairs whose past record for usefulness to their day and generation invariably entitles them to the good will of their fellows, in later years, and the best wishes of everybody for their ultimate prosperity and comfort, may well be placed James W. Cox, now retired and residing at 1810 E Street, Sacramento, in which city he was born, on November 9, 1857. His father, J. C. Cox, came from Ohio in 1848, settled in Sacramento, and was among the first who made for the mines when gold was discovered. Later, he ran a pack train from Sacramento to Virginia City; and after that he had an auctioneering stable on Seventh Street. Then he went to Lake Valley, and built a saw-mill; and the frame of the mill is still standing there. There Mrs. Cox, who was Miss Lurinda Crumb before her marriage, breathed her last, mourned by those who had been privileged to know her; and then Mr. Cox went to Idaho for a number of years, but returned to California, and settled in Mendocino, where he died in 1889, also highly esteemed.

James W. Cox received his education in the public schools, and then lived with his grandparents, while his father was in Idaho; and he went north to Oregon, and to Spokane, Wash., when there were only three houses there. He then went to Colfax and took up some land; but after twelve years on it, he came back to California and Sacramento, and tried teaming, which he continued for forty years; and at one time he did all the teaming for the buildings going up in Sacramento. He employed a large force of help, worked hard, did well by others, and made some money; and he was able, in 1920, to retire.

Mr. Cox married first Miss Lydia C. Deel, of Oregon, and they had several children to gladden their domestic life. Maud is Mrs. H. Bishop; Myrtle has become Mrs. Elmer Cox; and Maggie is Mrs. A. W. Norris. There are also six grandchildren. Mr. Cox has lived in the same location since 1888. The second Mrs. Cox was also born here, and in the same year as her husband, in 1857. Her parents came over the plains; and her mother was a sturdy pioneer who had ridden a horse across the prairies, and carried her baby at the same time. Her father, William B. Denison, who had married Miss Cynthia Bruener in Illinois, and who had the first pottery in Sacramento, left the Prairie State with his wife, four children, and oxen, and she was given a horse by the family she had worked for, and this was the steed she rode over the plains. They settled on Thirtieth Street, in Sacramento, and there he built the first pottery shop. Then, in 1859, he moved to Sonoma, and died there, in 1896, at the age of seventy-six. Her brother, E. H. Denison, who came with his parents, passed away in Stockton in 1921. Mr. Cox has been an Odd Fellow for twenty-seven years, and belongs to the El Dorado Lodge and the Occidental Encampment and Canton No. 1.

Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.

Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 949-950. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.