Page 878-879
COX, Jerome F., present Circuit Clerk and recorder of Ogle County, and a resident of Oregon, was born on a farm in Oregon Township August 14, 1866 and is a son of Hiram S. and Amanda (Wilson) Cox, the former of whom was born in Washington County. Md., October 25, 1836, and the latter in Northumberland County, Pa., November 11, 1839. When a small boy Hiram S. Cox came to Ogle County with his parents, John and Catherine (Eakle) Cox, settling first in Grand Detour, and later moving to Pine Creek, where John Cox, who was a cooper by trade, continued to manufacture barrels and
cultivate his small farm for the remainder of his life. Hiram receive average training in his youth, profited by the public schools and learned to be a model farmer. At the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted in Company G, Seventy fourth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, from Ogle County, for three years, and at the expiration of his term veteranized in Company F, Second Reserve Corps, where he continued until the declaration of peace. Returning to Ogle County, he purchased a farm in Oregon Township, improved the same, and later added to it until he owned in all 320 acres. In 1892 he left the farm and since retired in Oregon, where he owns a pleasant home, and among other interesting diversions, makes frequent trips to his fruit farm in the San Joaquin Valley, Cal. He is a man of strong character and great determination, and his success has been entirely of his own making. The education of Jerome F. Cox was acquired in the Oregon public schools, in Well's Training School, Oregon, and at Eureka College, Eureka, Ill. His high training has been the result of his ability to make his own way in the world for he taught in the rural schools of the county from 1887 until 1892, thus earning his tuition and living expenses. From 1893 until 1906, he engaged in general farming near Grand Detour, discontinuing the same upon his election to the offices of Circuit Clerk and Recorder of Ogle County in November 1904. His political service has been eminently satisfactory to both parties, being characterized by painstaking care and devotion to the best interests of the people. Mr. Cox is social in his tendencies, and is identified with the Masons, Modern Woodmen and Knights of the Globe. With his family he finds religious home in the Christian Church. August 27, 1889, Mr. Cox was united in marriage to Bertha O. Johnson, daughter of Charles W. and Savilla (Bovey) Johnson, the former of whom is mentions at length elsewhere in this work. Mr. and Mrs. Cox are the parents of a daughter Jessie M. Cox.

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