Anderson Cox is descended from the Cox and Buchanan families of Virginia. After the American Revolution, groups of those families moved first to Tennessee and then settled in the Gasper River area in Logan and Warren counties in Kentucky.
At the turn of the century, Gasper River area became an active part of the Great Revival, out of which grew the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. As settlers spread westward, ministers of the Gospel were very much in demand.
Around 1818, some family members began coming to Arkansas Territory. The Cox family arrived in 1820 and stayed a few years in Franklin County, which is where Anderson Cox was born in 1821. In 1828 after the remaining Cherokees were moved westward, the family settled in what is now Washington County, Arkansas.
The community of Cane Hill was established in Washington County and the Cox family were charter members of the Cane Hill Congregation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Members of the community soon established Cane Hill College for the education of their youth, and it became the first degree-granting institution on the state.
Anderson Cox was educated at Cane Hill College and, along with three of his brothers, became a Cumberland Presbyterian minister.
A comprehensive story of his life is told in the following eulogy, which was published in the Herald Journal at Clarksville, Arkansas, June 23, 1892.
"A Tribute to a Noble Old Minister of the Gospel by Rev. Dr. Samuel Harris Buchanan
"Rev. Anderson Cox passed away from earth to his home in the Heavenly Father's house June 4, 1892, at 12:30 a.m. He was regarded as in rather better condition for a day or two before he died than he had previously been. He died in his sleep. Mrs. Cox was awake and noticed the respite in his breathing when it occurred, but was unable to arouse him. Death under such circumstances, as if he passed away unaware of the time, may not be preferable, but to a good man, as was Father Cox, it seems not to have been needful to get the dying testimony, for all of his life had been full of the riches of our Lord Jesus Christ. We buried him at Salem church, in Johnson County, amid the showers of Sunday June 5, 1892, with a large crowd of friends standing around his grave. The Masonic lodges gave their last impressive tokens to a dying brother, and we buried him. We wept around his grave feeling like the Hebrew King felt when bending over the dying Elisha, he said: 'My Father! My Father! The Chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof.' Those who knew him well remember his interest in the song beginning 'How firm a foundation ye saints of the Lord.' His religion and his theology was bound up in the words of this hymn, and when led by Rev. Mr. Wilkinson this hymn was sung around his grave, hundreds of men, women and children broke down with convulsive weeping. It was the song of his life, his hope, his faith. He asked that it be sung by his wife and children in the home; he called for it in the sanctuary. It was to him as was the hymn, 'What wondrous love is this, oh, my soul?' to Rev. Gilford Pyland.
"His children and friends wish his remains brought to Clarksville as the central spot of the ministry of his life. Uncle Seth Howell says, 'I want him here, Sam. I want to help put up a monument at his grave that will tell the world what a good man he was.' When winter comes it is the purpose to move him to his place.
"He was born October 24, 1821, in Franklin County, in this State, near the Sebastian County line. A colony of people from Kentucky and Tennessee settled there about that time, among them were the Cox family and Buchanan family. His father, a young man, was there married to a Miss Buchanan, the sister of Rev. Andrew Buchanan, who has a precious place in the memory of the old pioneer settlers of this State, as a great and good man equal to the emergencies of a leader in the interregnum of the settlement of territorial lines, which took place after the colony mentioned above had made their settlement in the State. His grandfather Buchanan, on his mother's side, was buried at the settlement in Franklin County. We are burying the third generation of his people in this State -- indeed most of them are gone except three of his brothers. I know not any his generation left behind him on his mother's side. Rev. Burwell Cox, of Texas, Rev. Sam Cox and Andrew Cox, of Washington County, make up the list. I do not know the family of the father so well as I do of his mother.
"The family moved, with their colony, from this place in the valley of the Arkansas river to Cane Hill, in Washington County, in the year 1824. James Buchanan, a brother of his mother, was in the colony on Cane Hill. He had no children, and he and his wife became passionately fond of young Anderson in his boyhood. After his mother's death, which took place when he was quite a small boy, he made his home at their house. This venerable old man was made an elder in the first Cumberland Presbyterian Church ever organized in Northwest Arkansas. In his house was held the first communion service of his church ever held in the State, and in his house was organized the first Sunday School ever organized in the State. This colony of men made up a rare community. They were courtly men in their manners; were never slangy in conversation, and were never off duty as to good English and elegant deportment socially. They never addressed each other as Jim, Bill, Tom or Sam, but always as Mr. Cox, Mr. Carnahan, Mr. Bean, Mr. Buchanan or Mr. Wright. They were the fit elements for the founding of a great commonwealth. They maintained school teachers of good grade of scholarship, back to the beginning of the colony.
"Such were the surroundings of his boyhood. He made a profession of religion at about 12 years of age, and was an exemplary young man, warm-hearted and very attractive to children. When at my father's one day he made me my first pawpaw whistle, and my first recollection of him was with my wondering at how he laughed at me blowing the whistle.
"In 1844 he was licensed to preach and sent to the field of labor that was blessed with his whole life work. He came in company with a young man in the ministry, a Rev. Mr. Oliver, who was to be his associate in traveling a circuit composed of Johnson and Pope counties, and sometimes reaching into both Conway and Franklin counties. He preached his first sermon at White Oak church, in the Bourland community, of Franklin County. His associate, Rev. Mr. Oliver, died with consumption in 1846, and a great work was left in his hands alone.
"Hunting the deer was a big factor in his life and influence among men. It seems strange that it should be so, yet the fellowship of the hunt in pioneer life was strong. In outlying communities an invitation to come and take a hunt was often accepted. The hunt was taken. He was the rarest of hunters; a glance at the hills and valleys and he would know where was the hiding place of the deer, and where he would pass when pursued by the hounds. The deer when chased would nearly always come by his stand and rarely escape a shot from his gun. He was the most skillful of shooters, and when those in the other stands were looking every minute for the deer, he seeing that it was not coming his way as soon as the chase began would intercept the deer before it reached those at other stands. The hunt for the week would hardly be under way until preaching was proposed at night in the community. The week ended with a number of deer killed, ten or fifteen conversions, a church organized and a Sunday School started. Taking dinner one day with one of his young converts, the man wanted Brother Cox to ask a blessing at the table, the wife not thinking about it began serving coffee. The good man was soon master of the situation. He said: ¡°Hold, Peggy©¤Go it, Cox¡± and bowed his head for a blessing.
"In 1847 he was married to Miss Eliza Jane May, of Carroll County, Tennessee. The May family was among the early settlers in this county and had a large connection of people in this country. The representatives of this name are among the best citizens of the county today. Mrs. Cox filled well her place in presiding over the home of a man given without any division of interest to the work of the gospel ministry. They have nine living children, all filling honorable positions in the communities in which they live, and most of them in this County.
"He died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Harris Johnson, in this county, at one of the old churches of his early ministry. In my observation on the lives of old men who have given a whole life to the gospel ministry I find they usually on retiring from active work spend their last years in the custodial care of their daughters. Might it not be that to this end of providing for a home for his old age Christ said to the daughter of the ruler of the Synagogue, who lay dead at twelve years of age, 'Talitha cumi.' I fancy I see the old white bearded Rabbi at the end of a long life dying in the arms of the daughter that heard the words 'Talitha cumi, and come back from death to take custodial care of a good man at the last of his life. Mr. Johnson and his wife filled a trust for this good man that brings the whole community under obligations to them.
"Anderson Cox was a man of one work. He spent his life in the gospel ministry with but little division of energy. His wife said of him, 'His life was spent in the ministry.' He said, 'I could make money, but that is not my business. That is not my calling. Like my Master, I must be about my Father's business.'
"For a number of years he preached on the third Sabbath of each month at the Seminary, and on the second at Salem, near Hagarville. He had been disabled for about five years before he died from the regular work of the ministry and preached his last sermon two years ago. He was one of the most genial and warm-hearted of friends. His life never seemed to break sympathy with the young people. His face had the appearance of one looking on those around him with the kindest of feelings and ready for, or rather as if in expectancy of, some burst of wit and pleasantry from those about him. With that expression of good will he passed among men. He was like his uncle, Rev. Andrew Buchanan, in that respect, who was always exceedingly popular with young people.
"As a preacher, he excelled in gentle, persuasive eloquence; his face was the index of his heart. When sympathy with men, as lost, began to stir his heart as he discoursed of the Savior's love, and the tears began to flow from his eyes, and his manly erect form more that six feet high and of heavy weight, seemed convulsed with emotion; and his tongue, undisturbed by the impulsiveness that flowed in his face and action, with tenderness and pathos spoke of the love of Christ to a sinful world, men were moved all around. He swayed his audiences with a masterly power, of gentle pleading, entreating eloquence in the pulpit the exhibit of sympathy for men never left him. His preaching was that of overwhelming tenderness, the exhibit of which came with cumulative force as he advanced in his discourse.
"Men, women and children loved him with an undisguised tenderness all over the county, and he has left to the world a profound impression for good. The whole land abounds with stories of incidents in his life and ministry, which show how profoundly he impressed his generation.
"The ratio of membership of his church with population in the county, is larger in the field of his labors than anywhere in the State. His ministry was largely successful in laying the basis on which the Arkansas Cumberland College was founded. He was loved by men of all churches. In the canvass made for the location of the College, I kept before the people the purpose of a school with Bible teaching in it. On this subject his words, quoted from the lips of his wife, were: 'Bible study in the College is the very life of the school.'
"During twenty years of his ministry he rode a white mule. He weighed, in the best of his life, over three hundred pounds, and it took a rare animal to carry him. Jack, the white mule, was a little over medium size, finely gaited, clear-footed and a prodigy in power of endurance. Twenty years of service to one preaching the gospel over a mountainous country won for Jack a share of the good will that filled the whole land for his rider.
"At Lamar one day, while a drenching rain was pouring down, and Father Cox was passing on the back of the white mule, a photographer halted him in front of his tent. He got down and, standing in the rain with bridle in hand by the side of Jack, a picture was taken ¡ª a fit souvenir of a toiling, sacrificing life. Father Cox has made the most profound impression upon the people of this county of any man who ever lived in it. He has passed away after a ministry of forth-eight years without a trace of the shadows of ill will or wrong upon his life, and his sayings and hunts among the pioneers have become household matters. Old men do not talk of him long until they tell of some deer drive.
"A lady, long years under his ministry, said to me one day: 'Brother Buchanan, there is a great deal of hound in me in my religion. You cannot blow the gospel trumpet much until I begin to want to howl.' It took me back to the Saturday afternoon hunt inevitable with his two dogs, meetings of long ago. I fancy I see him now, on Friday morning, leaving home on the white mule, with saddle-bags and shotgun, going to his appointments. Oh, how the old settlers of the hunting days loved him! His sermons were well prepared and rendered in the most chaste and elegant of English, and always full of fresh thought. No hall or church, near the end of his life, when his ability to preach was too fitful and irregular for him to have regular work, could hold the audiences that came to hear him.
"When we buried him a good and beloved man had passed away."