California Biographies Mendocino and Lake Counties, California Transcribed by Peggy Hooper This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm Source: History of Mendocino and Lake Counties, California With Biographical Sketches History by Aurelius O. Carpenter And Percy H. Millberry Illustrated, Complete In One Volume Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1914 THOMAS WESLEY COX.� The tide of western migration carried in its flood a young man of Ohioan birth. Jjy name John Cox, who made his first stop on a farm in Missouri, but during the era of western gold excitement sailed around the Horn for San Francisco, arriving in that town during the memorable year of 1849. Like many of the emigrants of that period he tried his luck in the mines. After an experience of alternate discouragements and successes in the mines at Bidwell's Bar on the Feather river he returned to Missouri, where in 1851 he married Miss Mary Neil, a native of that state. Their second child, Thomas Wesley, was born September 1, 1856, and in 1857 the family left Missouri for California, crossing the plains with ox teams and wagons with a party of home-seekers. Chance led them to Mendocino county. With a yoke of oxen and a "prairie schooner" they crossed the mountains from Cloverdale. The journey entailed considerable difficulty, for there were no roads, no trails and no fences. When they arrived in the valley near Ukiah they found that very few American families had preceded them to this then frontier and isolated spot. Two business places had been established, one a general store and the other a blacksmith shop conducted by Mr. Funning. .Ml supplies for the house and farm were brought from Healdsburg and four or five days were consumed in traveling to that point with ox-teams. Not only were automobiles undreamed of in that far-distant past, but even draft horses and mules were seldom to be seen, and it was customary to use oxen for all purposes of travel or hauling freight. Churches were widely separated and several families would attend services together, hitching their oxen tn the wagon that, destitute of spring seats, offered scanty comfort to the pious church-goers. Grist-mills were uncommon and it was customary to grind in coffee-mills the wheat necessary for daily use as a substitute for coffee parched barley was popular and inexpensive. Remote as was the valley from the center of civilization, exciting political meetings were often held, and dur- ing the period of the Civil war the strong pro or anti-slavery feeling frequently precipitated shooting affrays. Securing from a Spaniard a desirable claim on Robinson creek in exchange for a cow, John Cox thus established his first home on a hillside mountain range offering excellent opportunities for the raising of cattle. Later he bought and sold other farms and always, until his death in 1908, he made farming his only occupation. For years he was a local leader in the lodges of Odd Fellows and Workmen. Of the two sons who survive him, Thomas W. and William M., the elder, on arriving at man's estate, rented a part of the old homestead, but later bought and operated fifty acres at Talmage. On selling the fifty he bought a tract of one hundred and nineteen acres, which he placed under cultivation to grain and hay. When this land was sold he bought his present ranch in the valley seven miles south of Ukiah, where he owns a splendid farm of six hundred and forty-two acres, and in January, 1914, he purchased the adjoining farm of nine hundred acres, thus increasing his hold- ings to some fifteen hundred acres of land all in one body. A portion of the acreage is hillside land, which is well adapted to the raising of stock, and he is making a specialty of fine mules. At the head of his herd he has a fine American Jack brought from Nebraska. About fifty acres of the valley land is under profitable cultivation to hops, to care for which he has three hop houses ; about thirty acres is seeded to alfalfa and twenty-five acres is in grapes, a large portion of the ranch being used to raise grain and hay. Every modern equipment has been provided and the owner of the farm is considered one of the most capable and prosperous farmers in the whole valley. By his marriage to Sarah O'Dell. a native of Sonoma county, Cal., he had a family of eight children, namely: Mrs. Allie Moore, deceased; Clarence J., a rising young rancher of the valley : Mrs. Nellie McGimsey ; Mrs. Minnie McCracken ; Elbert, who is aiding on the home ranch ; Frances M. ; Wesley and Rose. Of the men who were living when Thomas W. Cox first came to the valley very few remain, and he is today one of the oldest settlers in the valley. All these years he has devoted to improving lands and building up the country, one of the pioneers to whom Mendocino county owes its present state of development.