Daniel C. Wilcox (1832- ) &
Martha Hicks (Hix?) (1843-1903)
of Elk Park, North Carolina

A photograph from ca. 1890, said to have been taken at the residence of Walt Shore [probably Walter W. Shores, listed in the 1930 census] in Elk Park, North Carolina, includes four children seated left to right: Joe, Minnie, Rhoda, and Jacob (Jake). In the second row left to right are Mary, John, Jim, Betty, mother Martha Hicks (or Hix) Wilcox, father Daniel C. Wilcox, and Malinda (Linda). David, away in military service, is not pictured. (Click on the picture for a larger image.)

Daniel C. Wilcox ("Little Dan"), born March 1832 (1850 Wilkes Co., NC census), a circuit rider Baptist preacher, fine furniture maker, large land owner and farmer, was a Private in Company A, McRae's Battalion, North Carolina Cavalry. He was captured in Cooke County, Tennessee, 14 January 1864 and confined at Rock Island, Illinois, where he remained until transferred for exchange 15 February 1865. (See Louis H. Manarin's NORTH CAROLINA TROOPS 1861-1865: A ROSTER, including Volume 3, page 224.) "Little Dan" ("David" on marriage certificate) married Martha Hicks (or Hix) Wilcox (b. Jan. 1843 (Mitchell Co., NC), d. 22 Apr 1903) on 18 Jul 1863.
After Martha's death, Daniel married Sarah Anne Rayfield (b. Elk Park). Their son Daniel Lafayette (b. 14 Nov 1904, d. 25 Oct 1973, Banner Elk), a farmer, married Celia Twiggs and they had three daughters.
Little Dan's parents were Elijah Wilcox (b. 1804 in Ashe County, North Carolina) and Ann Yates. Elijah's father was Samuel Wilcox and Samuel's father may have been William Wilcox. (William was a prisoner on the Forbay Prison Ship, 18 May 1781, as a result of the battle of Camden in August of the preceding year.) In 1778 Samuel Wilcox acquired Cub Creek, Montgomery Ford, 3 miles above Old Fields at lower end called Adams Bottom and along big branch of Cub Creek. The locality is uncertain.

Samuel Wilcox (b. 1785, Rowen Co. NC; d. 1875, KY) married Mary Patsy [unknown] and children were David, Ralph and Elijah.
Elijah Wilcox (b. 1810; d. 1865) married Annie Yates and children were Jesse, Daniel (b. 1831), John (b. 1833) and Caleb.
Caleb Wilcox (b. 1835; d. 1885/7, Cades Cove, Blount Co. TN) married October 26, 1857 in Carter Co. TN Carolina Elizabeth Shell (b. 1835 TN; d. 1905 Graham Co. NC) and children were Caleb Jr., George Washington, Eliza Jane, Jordan, Isaac, Abraham, Jacob and Arminta.
In the 1860 census, Caleb is shown to be married to Elizabeth (as she was known) and had two young children, Catharine, 2, and John 6/12. They were in Carter Co, TN. Caleb went to Illinois. There the first five or six of his children were born. In the early 1870s he returned to Tennessee to the Cades Cove area where the last of his children were born.
Caleb appears in the 1880 census in Cades Cove as "Calip" with wife Elizabeth, and children: Calip, Jorden, Aberham, Isaac, Jacob, and Armenta. George (my g-grandfather) told family (again according to family lore) when he returned to the Cove, he stayed behind in Illinois and made his own way,
Caleb, Sr (as I call him) is buried in the Primitive Baptist Church cemetery in Cades Cove. Caleb Jr is buried in Miller's Cove cemetery. Caleb Jr's wife, 2nd wife, Mary Ann Burchfield, is buried in Primitive Baptist Church cemetery. Caleb Jr was married twice - his first wife died in childbirth and the child survived until age 3.
George Washington Wilcox (b. Jan. 11, 1860 IL) had child George Russell, whose child was Norma Louis Wilcox. Norma married Charles Ray Williams whose child was Rita Louise.
Courtesy Rita Louise Williams Holtz, November 2005.

Elijah Wilcox's brother Caleb is buried in Cades Cove (the remains were moved to a Methodist graveyard near Peter Caleb's mill). In A. Randolph Shields, The Cades Cove Story (Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Great Smoky Mountains Association, 1981, p. 41) a Wilcox Cemetery is mentioned. Shields (pp. 107-109) lists four Wilcoxes in Appendix B, Land Sales Report, citing transfers of Cades Cove property from resident owners for the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park:

Report No. Age Acres Paid

47 Paul Wilcox 9.1 $1,000.00

145 John Wilcox 5.0 $185.00

323 Caleb Wilcox 22.0 $800.00

547 Jordan Wilcox 20.0 $899.00

The 1850 Wilkes County census (entry 690, 691) lists Elijah as a 46-year-old mechanic with wife Ann (age 42) and the following children:

Children of
First House Age Children of
Second House Age

Lettitia 12 Micajah (b. Ashe County) 21

Jesse 10 Violet 18

Matilda 8 Daniel 18

David 6

Isabel 4

Sally 1

The 1860 Wilkes County census (entry 561, p. 76) lists Elijah as a 56-year-old silversmith and wife Anna (a spinster, age 52), with children:

Children Age

Charlotte (Lettitia?) 23

David (farm laborer) 16

Sealy 17

Isabel 12

Sally 10

John 8

Martha's parents were David Hicks and Eveline Holtsclaw. Martha's siblings and their ages, according to June 1870 census, were:

Siblings Age

David 55

Nancy E. 20

Elizabeth 18

Mary 16

Louisa 14

Fannie 11

Daniel and Martha's children are:

James [C.? or O(scar?)] (Jim) (b. 1863, d. Jun 1924?) was an optometrist who owned drugstores in Whitesburg and Lewisburg, Kentucky. In World War I he dealt with airplane instrument panels. He married six times, twice to one wife. Children (from his first marriage?) are:
Zorah married Furman and they had three children:
Dorothy Ruth.

James, killed in WW II.

a young son who was institutionalized.

Tom had six children including:
Thomas P. Jr., an optician in Kentucky.

Jack, a musician.

Ruth, an actress, married playwright-producer Edgar Selwyn (previously married to Margaret Mayo), who adopted Ruth's son Rusty from a previous marriage to Snyder.

Robert Paul, an optometrist (d. 3 Apr 1957 Pikeville, Kentucky) first married Thelma Anita Ireson (b. ca. 1903, d. 2000) (she later married Jacobs and their daughter was Dawn) and their children included:

June Criswell married James (d. 16 Apr 1989), who served in the military, and their children are:
James.

Anita Green.

Jewel.

Robert.

Pansy married Nicholas Schenck, head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Loew's. Pansy is referred to in Nick's obituary in Variety as "widow, the former showgirl and his second wife Pansy Wilcox". Their daughters are:
Nicola Dantine, wife of actor Helmut Dantine (films dating from 1941 to 1959 include "Casablanca").

Joanne Brandt, previously of Southern Pines, North Carolina, had two children (pictured with Pansy and Nicholas on one of their year-end cards):

Leslie.

Kevin Frank.

Marti Stevens, supper-club and theater singer.

Fred McLeod (b. 1906 Tazewell, Virginia, d. September 1964 Beverly Hills) was Hollywood director. His son was Ron.
Jim adopted his 15-year-old niece Mary (Malinda's daughter) after her mother's death in 1913.

Minnie and Betty Wilcox.

Elizabeth (Betty or Bettie?) (b. 1867) married Henry P. Holtsclaw. We note land deeded to H. P. Holtsclaw and Betty in 1906. The 1930 census for Cranberry Township says that Betty, 59, born in NC, and Henry, 64, born in TN, were 18 and 23 years old respectively when married. Betty's life was shortened by a hip injury while milking a cow. Children are:

Tory

Dewey
(b. ?, d. 23 Jan 1973).
James Edward (Ed) (b. 3 Sep 1913, d. 17 Feb 1973 Jonesborough, TN) married twice; his second wife was Carrie L. Phillips (b. 12 Sep 1925, d. March 1994). The first marraige produced a daughter and a son; the second marriage produced 2 daughters and a son. The children are:
James (at least in 1973 was Sergeant in U.S. Army)

Lloyd

Vickie

Sylvia (married Ferguson)

Joyce (married Holtsclaw)

Nora (b. 28 Aug 1894, d. 9 May 1976) (married Ode Fair and later Dallas Brown, b. 15 Jul 1913, d. 13 Dec 1989). (Both Nora and Dallas are listed in social security records as from Darkridge, Elk Park, Flat Springs, Heaton and Whaley--all in Avery Co., NC.) [There was a signficant difference in their ages.]

Malinda (b. 1871, d. 1913) married George Markland on 14 April 1901 and four children are:

one son (name unknown) died in a Kentucky mine about age 15.

Mary Belle (adopted at age 15 by her uncle Jim) married Will Guinn (she later married Wilson Wagoner) and they had 2 children:

James (married Arlene ? and they had 2 children, Freddy and Janice.

Weaver married Bernice Clawson and they had 4 children:

Joe has 1 child Johnny (Johnny's children are Wesley and Shoun).

Virginia has 2 children, Nikki and Dusty Bradley.

Brenda has 2 children, Bryan and Joseph.

Jan.

Verse.

Georgia (Georgie).
[A copy of Burrowes' Piano-Forte Primer is signed "Miss Linda Wilcox / Elk Park N. Car. / July 10th 1891".]
Another child of Malinda's was Mamie Ursary Campbell. We haven't determined the name of Mamie's father (Joe?), perhaps a marriage previous to Markland. Mamie lived in Elizabethton, Tennessee and is buried at nearby Milligan College. Her children are:
Hazel Hart (deceased).

Ruth Sparks (b. ca. 1926).

Joe Howard taught school.

Malinda died leaving Georgi to raise all four children. Mary went to live with her uncle Jim Wilcox, who adopted her at the age of 15 (adoption records recorded at Jonesborough, Tennessee courthouse).

David Rosencranz (b. 6 Oct 1872, d. 3 Feb 1933) married Clara Leah Harris when she was 22 and when he, having travelled around the world five times, was 40. David was a major in U.S. Army and overseer of the National Cemetery in Greeneville, Tennessee, where he and Clara are buried. Children are:

Mary Evelyn (b. Atlanta, Georgia) married Roy Levi Cox (b. 27 Apr 1915) on 26 Apr 1941 and their children are:
David (b. 8 Aug 1942) (married Judy Maelen Sampson on 12 Nov 1965).

Leah (married Alan Wallace).

Marheta married Dan Waugh and later E. W. Weaver.

Vera married Arnold Warren and later Jack Oliver (d. Nov 1997). Children are Rockwell and Vanessa.

David R. Wilcox

Roy Cox, Evelyn Cox and David Cox (rear row), Minnie Wilcox McManus and Clara Wilcox (middle row) and Leah Cox (front row), 1956.

John S. Wilcox.

John Snodgrass [J.S.] (b. 9 Nov 1875, d. 2 Feb 1946) joined the military, as did David. He served in Co. G, 22nd U.S. Infantry (with James White, who would marry John's sister Minnie); lived in Elizabethton, Tennessee and owned a theatre and restaurant, which burned. He was a Deputy Sheriff of McDowell County, West Virginia, and owner of several theaters and saloons there. He married Hattie Ellen Danner (b. 25 Jun 1879 Elk Park, NC, d. 15 Nov 1958 Worth, WV) in Johnson City, Tennessee on 18 Dec 1897 and their children, listed in order of oldest to youngest, are:

Josie May (b. 1 May 1899, d. 13 Apr 1983) married twice: (1) to Harry Giles and their child is Thelma Louise Giles (b. 14 Aug 1917, d. 21 Jan 1979 Johnson City, TN, buried Holston Conference Emory & Henry Cemetery, Emory, VA); (2) to John Rose and their child is Jerry Dean. Josie May lived in Worth, West Virginia.

James Roscoe (b. 18 Jan 1901, d. 1936) married Pearl and was a lineman (who died of electrocution); buried in Huntington, West Virginia.

Joseph Oscar (b. 1903, d. 1924-5) married May Charles and child is Jack.

David Ernest (Moxie) (b. 20 Mar 1906 McDowell Co WV, d. 6 Sep 1991) married Evelyn Margaret Thorn and child is David Larry.

Mattie Lenore (b. 10 Mar 1908, d. 13 Sep 1991) married Edbart Red O'Kane. She changed first name to Peggy; lived in Bluefield, West Virginia; is buried Roselawn Cemetery, Princeton, West Virginia.

Harry Herbert (Jack) (b. 25 Jan 1910 McDowell Co, WV, d. 8 Jan 1983) was a movie projector operator who married five times: (1) to Marie Head; (2) to Estel; (3) to Louise Hamm; (4) to Margaret Johnson; (5) to Betty Church (daughter of Roby Church and Gladys Simpson) and child is Peggy Darlene (Candy) Wilcox McKinney. Jack lived in Natchez, Mississippi and in Worth, West Virginia.

Beulah Marie (Dolly) (b. 28 Jan 1912, d. 1978-9) married Glen Ratliff and child is Carol Richard. She lived in Spring Hill, Florida; according to one report d. about Christmastime 1979 in West Virginia.
John and Hattie are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bluewell, West Virginia.

Hattie Wilcox.

Josie May Wilcox.

Joseph Oscar Wilcox.

David Ernest Wilcox.

Mattie Peggy Wilcox.

Harry Herbert (Jack) Wilcox.

Beulah Marie (Dolly) Wilcox.

Jacob Nathaniel (Jake) (b. 25 Oct 1880, d. 24 Aug 1964) married Mary Potter (her father was Larkin Maxwell who died in 1855; Mary later married Lineback, who owned a big general store in Elk Park, NC; the 1930 census for Avery County, NC, lists William W. Lineback, age 52, and wife Mary, age 45) and daughter is Mollye (b. 5 Feb 1904, d. May 1990), who was educated at Berea College in Kentucky and taught high school English in Jacksonville, Florida.
From a marriage with Olivia Jane Moore (b. 2 April 1899, d. 30 July 1969), Jake's children are:

Joseph Nathanial (b. 11 Mar 1928, d. 7 Jan 1943)
Doris Irene Wilcox Underwood (b. 8 Jan 1921; was a Washington, D.C. area school teacher according to one source; a Reading Specialist in Eden, North Carolina, according to Mollye Wilcox in 1981). She married Coey Underwood and had son Coey M. Martin, Sr. (16 October 1912, d. 26 August 2005), whose son, Coey M. Underwood, Jr. d. 22 November 1944.
Judith Fern Wilcox Harris (b. ? Jan 1924, d. approx. 1995?). DID FERN HAVE SON STEVE FROM FIRST MARRIAGE?

Coy Carlton (13 Mar 1931, d. 1 Jun 1987; buried Woodyard Rd, Eden, North Carolina) married ?, and there were no children. He married Catherine (-1987; a son by her prior marriage is Michael Schmidl Jr) and children are:

Kat
Leslie Jo Wilcox Tally
Mark (retired US Navy)
Coy subsequently married Betty Mills (now Blaylock) and children are:

Coy Carlton Jr (CJ) (b. 16 April 1985, Clinton, Maryland)
Amanda Lea Anderson
Olivia Jane
Jake lived and is buried in Draper (now Eden), North Carolina.

Minnie and Jake Wilcox, 1956.

Mollye Wilcox.

Olivia (Livie), Fern, Irene, Coy Carlton Wilcox, 1956.

Mary J. (b. 1876) married Gwyn (he remarried after Mary's death). A son Robert Gwyn (more recently of Scotia, NY and Bradenton, FL) left home at an early age, married Ruth, and they had two daughters.

Rhoda E. (b. 1877, d. 6 Jun 1907).
Rhoda presumably married a Holtsclaw since land was deeded to Rhoda Holtsclaw in 1899 by Daniel and Martha J. Wilcox. (Rhoda's brother-in-law H. P. Holsclaw sent a telegram to Minnie informing her of her mother Martha's death. Note that Martha's mother was a Holtsclaw.)

Minnie Wilcox's daughter Margaret Riley and her son James White holding Margaret's son Bobby, David Wilcox's wife Clara, Malinda Wilcox's daughter Georgia (Lea or Lee) Markland. Photo taken top of Pine Mountain, Letcher Co., KY, 20 Aug 1932.

Minnie (b. 18 Feb 1882, d. 14 May 1964) married James J. White (b. 1839, d. 22 May 1923) in April 1897. Children are:

Margaret (b. 26 Jun 1899, d. 26 Aug 1992) married Peter Joseph Riley (b. 27 Aug 1892, d. 13 Jan 1954) and children are:

Jack (b. 8 Jun 1924-d. 27 Jan 2007) married Elsie Yates (b. Jul 1932) and children are:

Linda Jane married Bill Bonsor, and children are:
Kimberly Anne married Jeff Goodman and children are:
Alexis Brianna.

Ryan Taylor.

Kevin Michael married Lisa Schmieden 24 Jun 2000.

Kristie Michelle.

Jackie.

Danny.

James Edward (b. 3 May 1927, d. 31 Dec 1990) married Alma (d. 1991) and his child is Martha Ann.

Robert H. married Janelle Poe.

James Joseph Jr. (b. 1 Mar 1906 Johnson City, TN, d. 24 Apr 1977) married Evelyn Powell (b. 12 Feb 1916, Johnson City, TN, d. 15 Oct 1962) and children are:

James J. III (b. 6 May 1941) of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Brenda Anne (b. 11 Aug 1942) of Nokesville, Virginia.

James J. White, Jr., son of James J. White (1839-1923)
About 1964, after Evelyn's death, James Jr. married Belle Cunningham, daughter of Mary Smith (older sister of Peter Riley, mentioned above).
After her husband's death, Minnie married Edward Mitchell Lewis (b. 1861, Viriginia; d. 24 May 1929, buried in Virginia), a brickmason, on 7 January 1925. After the death of Lewis, she married Hugh J. McManus (b. 18 Nov 1861, d. 3 Mar 1942).

Joe (b. ca. 1886, d. 5 Nov 1923). [A copy of Holmes' First Reader (1891) is signed "Joseph Wilcox / 8th Decr 1896 Elk Park, N.C."]

In their later years Mary, David and John became blind.

Of the several Wilcox houses, this one in Elk Park, NC.

Thanks for reading about the Wilcoxes! New information will be received with much appreciation. Thanks to Evelyn Cox, David T. Cox, Janice S. Gentry, Virginia Bradley, Leslie Wilcox, Candy McKinney, June Criswell, Rita Holtz, and other family members for contributing information. More information is available at Candy McKinney's Appalachian Ancestors.

Return to the Wilcox, White, Riley, Powell Home Page.

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© May 1997