Peter Larsson COCK ²

  General Notes:

Peter Larsson Cock (later Cox) was a forefather of the New Sweden Colony in America. He and his family are the subject of a forefather family profile by Dr. Peter Stebbins Craig, the historian of the Swedish Colonial Society, entitled Peter Larsson Cock (Cox), which was originally published in Swedish Colonial News, Volume I, Number 1 (Spring 1990) and which now can be viewed online at http://www.colonialswedes.org/Forefathers/Cox.html.

Dr. Craig's profile in his book on the 1693 census of the Swedes on the Delaware contains some additional facts about Peter:

"After becoming a freeman, Peter Cock settled on an island at the mouth of the Schuylkill River. In July 1651 he witnessed two Indian affidavits confirming that the Swedes were owners of the land on which Stuyvesant had built Fort Casimir, his name being erroneously copied as Peter Bock (instead of Kock). Governor Printz accused him of illegally trading guns with the Indians and, after Cock had been exonerated by the jury, sentenced him anyway, to three months of hard labor. This incident was one of the grievances in the freeman's 1653 complaint against Printz, which Peter Cock signed. Under Govenor Rising, Cock served as a judge on the court, a position that he retained under Dutch and English rule until succeeded by his eldest son Lars in 1680. Frequently called upon to handle negotiations with the Indians, Peter Cock also won favor with the English by capturing Marcus Jacobsson, the instigator of the so-called Long Finn Rebellion of 1669. Peter Cock died at his island, which he called 'Kipha,' 10 Nov. 1687."

It appears that many of the vital statistics found in Dr. Craig's profiles were found in a letter written 31 May 1693 in Swedish by Peter's oldest son, Lars (aka Lasse) Cock, which was one of four letters sent to Sweden with the 1693 census of the Swedes on the Delaware. The letter, which reveals a high degree of literacy, was written in an attempt to reconnect with his father's family in Bångsta, it having been nearly 52 years since his father had left Sweden. It was addressed to his uncle Mouns Larsson, if he was still living, otherwise to any of his father's five brothers and three sisters or their children. It provided family news of the Cock family in what had been New Sweden and sought the same from those who had remained in the fatherland. In a P.S., Lars explained that Peter had adopted Cock as the family surname "so that we and others could be distinguished from one another." (It's interesting that the patronymic naming system was discontinued in America nearly two centuries before it was discontinued in Sweden.) A translation of this letter, the original of which is in an archive in Stockholm, is reproduced in the Appendix to Dr. Craig's book on the 1693 census of the Swedes on the Delaware. (Query whether this letter ever reached its intended recipients.)

I have chosen to list only my direct ancestor, Gabriel Cock, as a child of Peter Larsson Cock and Margaret Lom. Please refer to Dr. Craig's family profiles for the other children and their families. Another valuable source of information about the descendants of Peter can be found at the website created by the late Lewis S. McCloud: http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/m/c/c/Lewis--S-Mccloud/GENE17-0001.html. ^{2 3 4}

  Research Notes:

Several descendants of Peter (all by way of son Gabriel as of 2006) have participated in the Cox DNA Study, the website for which is http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Cox%20DNA%20Study/, where they appear in Group 7. Some of the participants are proven descendants, while others rely on circumstantial evidence to some degree or the other. (The evidence regarding my direct line is discussed at the webpage for Ephraim Cox.) Regardless of the quality of the paper trail in individual cases, Y-DNA testing shows they all shared a common ancestor and that Peter Larsson Cock was almost certainly the shared immigrant ancestor. (The presentation of results at the above-referenced website makes comparisons somewhat difficult. I maintain an Excel spreadsheet that shows all the participants and their results, with the differences highlighted. I have also written a memorandum analyzing the results. Unfortunately, my genealogy program cannot handle the format of these files, so I cannot include them here. I will be happy to e-mail copies to anyone who is interested in further detail.)

Those knowledgeable about the use of Y-DNA testing for genealogy purposes know that one of the more vexing problems is that even though participants match, it is difficult, without a paper trail, to determine whether a particular person is a common ancestor or whether the common ancestor was much further back in time. That problem is for all practical purposes mooted in the case of Peter Larsson Cock, because Cock/Cox was his adopted surname. Thus, in terms of the surname Cock/Cox, Peter is the "Adam" of his line, which means those Coxes who share his Y-DNA share him as the immigrant ancestor. There simply were no Cocks/Coxes before him with his Y-DNA. (I choose to ignore, because it seems so remote, the theoretical possibility that descendants of a more distant ancestor independently adopted the Cock/Cox surname. Also, while there were other Cock/Cox families in New Sweden, namely Otto Ernest Cock, believed to be German, and John Anderson Cock, son of Anders Anderson the Finn, who inexplicably started using the Cock surname later in life, they were not related to Peter Larsson Cock. Also, it can be inferred from Lars Cock's 1693 letter to his uncle in Sweden that no one from Peter's immediate family followed him to America.)

Peter married Margaret LOM, daughter of Måns Svensson LOM and Anna, in 1743 in New Sweden Colony.^{1 2} (Margaret LOM was born in 1626 in Roslagen, Sweden ^{1 2} and was buried on 13 Feb 1704 in Gloria Dei (Old Swede's) Church, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania ^{1 2}.)