Martin L. Cox
Isaac Cox, the paternal grandfather of our subject, was a native of the State of Maryland and came from that State to Adams County in 1801, settling on the farm now occupied by the subject of this sketch. He married a lady by the name of Austin, by whom he had two sons, William and Thomas, the latter father of our subject. Thomas married first a Miss McKnight who bore him two sons, one dying in youth, and the other, Mr. John Cox, who now resides at Washington C. H. He, after the death of his first wife, married Miss Deborah Odell, daughter of the Rev. Thomas Odell, a pioneer Methodist minister of Adams County. Thomas Cox was a soldier of the War of 1812, and served at Sandusky. His second wife, Deborah Odell, bore him nine children, all boys: Isaac N., who died in Missouri; Lewis E., once Clerk of the Court of Adams County; Frank and Greenleaf, now in Nebraska; George W., of Manchester; Jasper, deceased; Robert M., of Kansas; and our subject, Martin L., who was born in Liberty Township, Adams County, April 25, 1841. He now resides on the old farm and occupies the old stone house built by Henry Young in 1829. It is remarkable that there has never been a death in this house. At the time it was built. Judge Needham Perry resided on the creek just above the Cox residence and the Meharry family, mentioned elsewhere, just below Abraham Washburn joined on the south and William Mahaffey northeast on the Jacob Rissinger farm. At that time there were sixteen stillhouses within a radius of two miles, one at every good spring. Then the old log church was standing at Briar Ridge where the present M. E. and C. LT. Churches stand.
From History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900