Richard Smith Cox (1825-1889) was the great-grandson of Henry Threlkeld, who built the first house named Berlieth in 1753. His father was Mayor John Cox, who lived at The Cedars, the present site of Duke Ellington School. From his father Richard Cox inherited Burleith, 55 acres north of New Cut Road (now Reservoir Road), of which approximately 45 acres lay in Washington County, and about ten in Georgetown. Just west of The Cedars, where the Washington International School is today, Cox built his own two-story brick house. In 1849 he married Elizabeth (Missie) Williams, who died after about a year. In 1851 he married Mary Lewis Berkeley, daughter of a wealthy Loudon County farmer.

As a young man Cox had contemplated a naval career; leading citizens of the District wrote on his behalf to the president, asking that he be appointed midshipman, but nothing came of it. Instead, Cox became a clerk in the Paymaster-General’s Office of the War Department. Cox supplemented his government income in various ways. According to one local historian, he produced wine at Burleith, and kept eighteen hogs.

Richard Cox was also a colonel of the District of Columbia militia, and on March 4, 1861 his regiment was part of the president’s escort as Abraham Lincoln rode to his inauguration in an open carriage. Security was heavy, and the Star lamented that the escort performed its duty so well that it was impossible to get a view of the president-elect––which was, of course, the point.

Fort Sumter surrendered on April 13. Two days later, Lincoln called to arms the militia of every state, and of the District of Columbia. Cox did not report, and shortly thereafter the Star carried the announcement: “Department News: Appointed – Lorenzo Thomas, Jr., Va. 2nd class clerk, in place of Richard S. Cox, resigned.” In Richmond Cox received a commission as paymaster, with the rank of major in the Confederate Army: he had “gone South”.

Carlton Fletcher

(The information in this article originally appeared in the Glover Park Gazette in December, 2004. All rights reserved.)

(Threlkeld and Cox files, 1785 Assessments: Peabody Room, Georgetown Branch Library; Abstract of Title to “BURLEITH” in Frederic W. Huidekoper, 1887: MS. 127, Historical Society of Washington; R.S.Cox Papers, in the possession of the Cox Family; 1855 Washington County Assessments; Star, April 24, 1861; Edgar Farr Russell, A Short History of Burleith, 1955;; Ann Lange, “A Brief History of Burleith”, Burleith Newsletter, 1985, September-October 1998; www.burleith.org/history; Washington, City and Capital, 1937, pp.369, 745-6; Margaret Leech, Reveille in Washington, 1941; Mary Mitchell, Divided Town, 1968;; Green, Washington: A History of the Capital, 1800-1950, Vol.1, pp.259, 294: Green is in error when she says “Richard Coxe, a former mayor of Georgetown”.)