THE COX FAMILY
Isaac Cox, born ca. 1805, settled in the Little River area of Cherokee County, Georgia, in 1846. He arrived with all seven of his children by his first wife Amy, who apparently died around this period. Their seven children were:
James L., born ca. 1830
Samuel, born ca. 1834
William, born ca. 1837
Abraham, born ca. 1842
Franklin, born ca. 1843
Elizabeth, born ca. 1844
Mary, born ca. 1846
Isaac Cox married his second wife, Amanda Adams, in Cherokee County in 1848, and they had a son named Edley later that year. Amanda died a few years later. Isaac married for a third time to Elizabeth Morris. They had four children:
Isaac Wesley, born February 29, 1854
Sarah Serilda, born ca. 1857
Levi Hanse, born October 17, 1858
Martha Jenny, born ca. 1861
Isaac died sometime after 1880. The place of burial is not known, although his third wife and some of his children are buried at Union Baptist Church on Cox Road, now part of Fulton County.
Isaac Cox came to Cherokee County from Greenville County, South Carolina. His father Abraham (born ca. 1783) had come to Greenville County as a child with his father, also named Isaac, and his grandfather, William (born ca. 1730), from Orange County, North Carolina. The earliest record of William Cox is a tax list for Orange County dated 1755, in which he appears. (Note: There was a set of Quaker Coxes in this same area, but they are no relation, we are pretty sure.)
The Cox family sold their North Carolina land in 1787 and moved to Greenville County, South Carolina, later that year, along with a number of other families such as the Lees, Brashiers, Longs and Blacks. They all settled around what is now Simpsonville, South Carolina. The history and minutes of Standing Springs Church (located in the Simpsonville area) are full of the Coxes and above families.
The Isaac Cox family who came to Cherokee County, Georgia, in 1846 seems to have come alone. He did have a distant cousin, Mary Ann Cox, of Greenville County, South Carolina, who married William Wise of Cherokee County, Georgia, at around the same time period. It is not certain if this had any influence on his move or not.
Isaac’s son, Samuel (born ca. 1834), bought land near Waleska in the Harbins district in the 1850s. Samuel married Rachel Land, and they had two children: James Isaac and Mary Rebecca. Samuel served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War in Company A, 43rd Regiment, the Cherokee Van Guards. He died of typhoid fever on June 13, 1862, in an Atlanta hospital and is buried there in Oakland Cemetery.
Samuel and Rachel’s son, James Isaac, was born January 7, 1854, and married Martha Emiline Cline, daughter of Michael Cline and Caroline Pittman Cline. Their children were: Samuel Marion (born in 1877) and John Mitchell (born in 1891). James Isaac died March 12, 1931, and is buried at Briar Patch Church in Cherokee County.
Samuel Marion ("Sam") was born September 23, 1877. On March 20, 1898, he married Mary Isa Cline (born August 3, 1880), daughter of James Erwin Cline and Cora Artemisia Matthews Reinhardt Cline of the Waleska area. Sam bought a house at the turn of the century near Sardis Baptist Church near Waleska. The house is still in the Cox family. Sam lived to be 96 years old, dying on December 28, 1973. Mary Isa died on June 22, 1968, at the age of 87. They are buried at Briar Patch Church.
Their children were Clinton, who married Eleanor Ward; James, who married Winnie Brown; Lela, who married Hoyle Denman; Odessa, who married Belmont Alderman; Theodore (“Ted”) who married Ella Chastain; Glenn, who married Clemmie Wheeler; Juanita, who married Clinton Wheeler; Cora Lou, who married LeRol Bishop; Stella; and Catherine, who married Raymond Horton.
Glenn Cox was born July 20, 1911. He attended Reinhardt College in Waleska. He married Clemmie Louise Wheeler, daughter of James Dora Wheeler and Annie Little Wheeler. Clemmie worked at the Canton Drug on Main Street and later Northside Pharmacy. Glenn was a teacher in Cherokee County and principal of Macedonia School. In 1950, he began working for Lockheed as a payroll accountant. Glenn and Clemmie lived in the Sardis community for a number of years, and then moved to Canton in 1959. They were both active members of Sardis Baptist Church where Glenn was a deacon. He died in 1986 and is buried at Sardis Church, where Clemmie was also buried in 2001.
The original version of this text appeared in "The Heritage of Cherokee County, Georgia, 1831-1998," in an entry written by the creator of this web site.