1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cox, Samuel Hanson

21594431911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 7 — Cox, Samuel Hanson

COX, SAMUEL HANSON (1793–1880), American Presbyterian divine, was born at Rahway, N.J., on the 25th of August 1793, of Quaker stock. He was pastor of the Presbyterian church at Mendham, N.J., in 1817–1821, and of two churches in New York from 1821 to 1834. He helped to found the University of the City of New York, and from 1834 to 1837 was professor of pastoral theology at Auburn. The next seventeen years were passed in active ministry at Brooklyn, whence in 1854, owing to a throat affection, he removed to Owego, N.Y. He died at Bronxville, N.Y., on the 2nd of October 1880. Cox was a fine orator, and a speech made in Exeter Hall in 1833, in which he put the responsibility for slavery in America on the British government, made a great impression. It was he who described the appellation D.D. as a couple of “semi-lunar fardels.”

His son, Arthur Cleveland Coxe (1818–1896), who changed the spelling of the family name, graduated at the University of the City of New York in 1838 and at the General Theological Seminary in 1841. He was rector of St John’s Church, Hartford, in 1843–1854, of Grace Church, Baltimore, in 1854–1863, and of Calvary Church, New York City, in 1863. In 1863 he became assistant bishop and in 1865 bishop of western New York. He was strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement. Bishop Coxe wrote spirited defences of Anglican orders and published several volumes of verse, notably Christian Ballads (1845).