Randolph  County,  Indiana

Joshua  Cox

             Joshua Cox, (familiarly known in the early neighborhood as "Lying" Joshua). Joshua Cox was born in Penna around 1790 or a little earlier. His wife was named Mariah McGee. His parents moved to Wayne County around 1820 where Joshua, the father, died in 1821. The mother later moved to Randolph and settled in S29 RI5E, as shown in Fig. 1. In 1822 Joshua Cox took land in 530, just north of the present Jericho Meeting-house, where he lived till his death in 1869. Joshua and Mariah had seven children, five of whom died in Randolph County.
            (There is a picture of him in the 1958, 1983 reprint of the Jericho Friends Meeting and It's Community Book Set, available at the Meeting)
            Fig. 2. Joshua Cox, (commonly known as Lyin Joshua) a resident of Jericho from 1822 to 1869.
            The stories which won for him the name of 'Lyin' Joshua were of the harmless variety. It is stated (Charley Hinshaw) that he never told a story in his life that was harmful to any neighbor. Rather, he was of that group of frontier raconteurs who delighted to embellish their stories from imagination in order to make them interesting. Many frontier communities had such men. Entertainment in early days was done much more by story tellers than later. These Pennsylvania Coxes were distant relatives of those from North Carolina, the Carolina Coxes having previously come from Pennsylvania.
Jericho Friends Meeting And Its Community, Randolph County, Indiana, 1864, page 11.
Submitted by Lora Addison Radiches

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