General Notes

He was born probably about 1670; died in the autumn of 1729 ; little is known of him beyond the fact that he figured somewhat prominently in the riots which broke out in Monmouth County in 1701.

Despairing of obtaining relief by peaceful methods, from the arbitrary exactions of the government, he became identified with the movement to secure, by force, the justice which could not be wrung from the authorities, through petition or remonstrance.

At a Court of Sessions held at Middletown, March 6, i/oi, he and other citizens were fined ten shillings each, for contempt and misbehavior before the Court. A few days later, the Governor and Justices were seized by the excited populace and held as prisoners from the 25th to the 2gth of March. There was as little doubt of the contempt in which the authorities were held by the people as there was of the utter disregard of popular rights on the part of the authorities.

John Cox was no advocate of the doctrine of passive resistance. He was openly aggressive, and, in character and spirit not unlike the men of his blood who, in after years, at the battle of Monmouth, continued the fight which their fathers had begun, in a small way, at Middletown, at the beginning of the century.

His part in the riots does not appear to have affected his standing in the Baptist Church of which he continued to be a member until the end of his life.

He died at his home in Upper Freehold, leaving a widow and eight children to mourn his loss and a comfortable estate to cheer them in their affliction.

The names of the children occur frequently in the early annals of the neighborhood, but in the absence of family records, and the multiplicity of identical names, at the same time, in other branches of the family, it has not been found possible to identify them all with any degree of certainty.

Children : i. John, ii. Joseph, iii. Samuel, iv. Elisabeth, v. Rachel, vi. Mary, vii. Alice, viii. Mercy. (The order in which their names are mentioned in his will).