Henry Hamilton Cox was born about 1769 in Ireland, son of Joshua and Mary (Cox) Hamilton. He took the name of Cox in 1784 as a condition of inheriting the estate of Dunmanway, County Cork, according to the will of Sir Richard Cox, the second Baronet of that name.
Cox served in the British army in India. About 1799 he came to America, leaving his Irish estate in the care of a faithful steward until the income should cancel the encumbrances upon it. After settling first near York, Pennsylvania, he removed in 1813 to Chester County, near London Grove, where he leased a large farm. He became a member of the Society of Friends and was active in both York and London Grove meetings. He sometimes preached, but not with enough success to be recorded a minister. It is said that he spoke ably in business meetings but at times forgot himself and addressed the assembled Friends as “My Lords. ”
When Cox first came to America he gave to the Library Company of Philadelphia five volumes of seventeenth-century manuscripts consisting chiefly of official documents relating to affairs in Ireland. These “Irish State Papers” probably came rightfully into Cox’s hands but they were gracefully returned to the British government in 1867 by the Library Company to fill an unfortunate gap in a series. Cox’s literary efforts resulted in Metrical Sketches. By a Citizen of the World (18x7). In this little collection his “Pennsylvania Georgies” was the most important poem.
Upon hearing that his Irish estate had been cleared of debt, Cox returned to it in 1817, taking with him a Minute of London Grove Meeting of Friends addressed to Dublin Meeting, Ireland. On shipboard he apparently thought better of his Quakerism, and in Ireland he returned to the Anglican fold. His religious exploits were later capitalized by Bayard Taylor in “The Strange Friend. ” Cox appears as Henry Donnelly in this story, and liberal embellishments of fiction are added to the facts of history.
Cox was a member of the Society of Friends.
Cox was respected by his neighbors and was described by a contemporary as a man of superior ability, with an air of authority and the manners of a gentleman.
Cox married Letitia Elinor, daughter of David Wilson Hutcheson of Dublin. He had a large family of children.
