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KANAWHA COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA - BIOS: COX, William Redford
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
SSpradling@aol.com
September 19, 1999
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History of Kanawha County
George W. Atkinson
1876
p. 307-308
WILLIAM REDFORD COX.
William R. Cox was born in Amherst county, Virginia, March 5, 1788. When he
was but three years of age his father died, and ten years later his mother
likewise passed away. William was the youngest of a large family, and the
estate which his father had left to his family was almost absorbed by the
elder brothers, under the excuse that they had to care for the younger
members of the fainily, and should therefore be entitled to the lions share
of the property. Such conduct was not satisfactory to William, and he
resolved that he would leave home and care for himself. This he did when
quite young. He went to Richmond, and engaged as a laborer on the line of
keel-boats running on the James river between Richmond and Lynchburg. After
laboring for about a year as a boatman, and having laid by a considerable sum
of money, one afternoon, while his boat was lying at the Richmond wharf, two
negro boys were being sold by an auctioneer-one of them was lame, and the
other had but one eye. The price at which they were going was so low that Mr.
Cox became their purchaser, at remarkably small figures. He took them with
him on a keel boat, and very shortly found that he had made a good investment
of his money. A year or two later he came west, bringing his two negro boys
with him; and in 1815 he arrived in Kanawha. Here he found an excellent field
in which to labor; and from the first his business undertakings proved
lucrative. For a time he worked as a laborer at a salt furnace in the
Salines; but the proprietors, the Steele brothers, seeing the energy and
enterprise displayed by young Cox, gave him the position of overseer of their
furnace. He continued in the Capacity of manager for the Messrs. Steele for
several years, until he had accumulated, from his own labor and that of his
two slaves, a considerable sum of money. He had, by this time, become pretty
well schooled in business, and therefore determined to start out for himself.
He bought property in Charleston, and each year made it a point to add
something to it, so that by the time he had reached the meridian of life, he
had accumulated a comfortable and handsome estate.
He was a man of limited education, but of good sense and extraordinarily good
judgment. He was honorable and upright in all of his dealings; and among
business men his word was as good as his bond. He had a pleasant disposition,
and was revered and respected by all of his associates. He died September 8,
1843, and his remains are enclosed by a stone vault on the brow of the high
hill which bears his name, in the rear of Charleston, and over them stands a
neat stone monument, which can be seen at the distance of several miles from
every direction. No more beautiful spot for the repose of the dead could
have been selected.
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