Samuel Hanson Cox
Samuel Hanson Cox (August 25, 1793 – October 2, 1880) was an American
Presbyterian minister and a leading abolitionist
.
Cox was born in
University of the City of New York, now New York University
, in 1832, teaching classes in theology and contributing the college's motto, Perstare et praestare ("To persevere and to excel").
Due to his
Anti-abolitionist riots of 1834, and he was burned in effigy by another mob in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1835. After the riots, he moved out of the city. In 1834, Cox invited abolitionist Photius Fisk to Auburn on a free scholarship. Photius traveled with Cox and his family.[3] Cox was professor of pastoral theology in Auburn, New York, and he stayed in this position from 1834 to 1837.[4]
Cox was known beyond the church for his skills as an orator, despite or perhaps because he was described as "eccentric" and would sometimes lapse from English into Latin. One speech he made in
Theodore Ledyard Cuyler described Cox as "one of the most famous celebrities in the Presbyterian Church... famous for his linguistic attainments, for his wit and occasional eccentricities, and very famous for his bursts of eloquence on great occasions."[5] When awarded the appellation of Doctor of Divinity by the College of New Jersey, which would later become Princeton University
, he famously derided it as a couple of "semi-lunar fardels".
Cox's next seventeen years were passed as pastor of the
Union Theological Seminary, and as a leader of the "New School" Presbyterians. In 1854, owing to a throat infection and loss of his voice, he removed to Owego, New York. He died at Bronxville, New York
, on October 2, 1880.
His son,
Alfred Conkling Coxe
would become a noted federal judge in New York.
Works
- Quakerism not Christianity (1833)
- Interviews, Memorable and Useful (1853)
References
Notes
- ^ Gilman, Daniel Coit; Peck, Harry Thurston; and Colby, Frank Moore (eds.) (1902) The New International Encyclopaedia pg. 391
- ^ Darrin Lythgoe (2001-2022) Rev. John Frederick Augustus Sykes Fayette
- ^ Hodge, Lyman F. (1891). Photius Fisk A Biography. Boston, Mass: Lyman F. Hodge. p. 46.
- CiteSeerX 10.1.1.674.8388.
- Cuyler, Theodore Ledyard (1902) Recollections of a Long Life
Bibliography
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cox, Samuel Hanson". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 353–354.
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