Ross Cox (1793–1853) was an Irish clerk in the

Pacific Fur Company The Pacific Fur Company (PFC) was an American fur trade venture wholly owned and funded by John Jacob Astor that functioned from 1810 to 1813. It was based in the Pacific Northwest, an area contested over the decades between the United Kingdom o ...

and the North West Company, later writing of his experiences.

Life

Ross Cox was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, in 1793, the son of Samuel Cox and Margaret Thorpe. He emigrated to America in 1811, becoming a clerk in the

. He arrived in

Fort Astoria Fort Astoria (also named Fort George) was the primary fur trading post of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company (PFC). A maritime contingent of PFC staff was sent on board the ''Tonquin (1807 ship), Tonquin'', while another party traveled overl ...

in 1812, the primary station of the PFC. Due to the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...

the company was liquidated and sold to the North West Company in 1813. He then became a clerk with the North West Company, but he retired 1817 and returned to Ireland. He became the Irish correspondent for the '' London Morning Herald'' as well as a clerk in the Dublin police office. He was married to Hannah Cumming in 1819, and had several children. He died in Dublin in 1853.

Legacy

Cox's ''Adventures on the Columbia River'' (London, 1831) is one of the most important documents relating to the later history of the North West Company. Several geographic features in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, including Ross Cox Creek and Mount Ross Cox are named after him.

External links

The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Adventures on the Columbia River
Ross Cox. New York: 1832.
Biography at the ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''

References

Irish explorers of North America Explorers of Oregon North West Company people Writers from Dublin (city) Irish emigrants to the United States (before 1923) 1793 births 1853 deaths {{Ireland-writer-stub