Coxs Corner, also known as Cox's Corner or Wrightsville, is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

located within Upper Freehold Township, in Monmouth County, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. Named for congressman and brigadier general James Cox (1753–1810), who had lived here at the family home of "Box Grove", it is at the juncture of County Route 524 and County Route 43.

The Upper Freehold Historic Farmland Byway passes through the area.

History

The Cox family had lived in Upper Freehold, New Jersey since the 1600s. In the Upper Freehold area, farmsteads had been created by 1731 at key crossroads, one of these later being named Wrightsville just east of Cox's Corner.
Cox's Corner road junction existed in colonial times and one house, Merino Hill, was built for Samuel G. Wright (1781 – 1845) who was born in Wrightsville. Like Cox, he also was elected to Congress but he died before taking office. Merino Hill is on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

. The

Department of Environmental Protection This article lists subnational environmental agencies in the United States, by state. Agencies with a variety of titles and responsibilities are included, e.g. Department of Environment, Department of Environmental Conservation, Department of E ...

and the

Monmouth County Historical Association The Monmouth County Historical Association was established in 1898 by a group of county residents headed by professional educator Caroline Gallup Reed. They soon incorporated in order “to discover, procure, preserve and perpetuate whatever relates ...

have declared that this house together with six neighboring houses at Cox's Corner are suitable for historic village status. A monument was erected in 1920 to commemorate the Cox family over five generations by recording that "Thomas and Elizabeth Blashford Cox were among the first settlers of the Province of East Jersey." The first appearance of Cox's Corner on a New Jersey map was in 1917. In 1987, the then-owner of Merino Hill wrote that Wrightsville had been the name of the settlement a short distance east. However, that name fell into disuse – and that entity no longer exists – but the name was then resurrected on modern maps to erroneously name the corner itself.

References

Upper Freehold Township, New Jersey Unincorporated communities in Monmouth County, New Jersey Unincorporated communities in New Jersey {{MonmouthCountyNJ-geo-stub