BIOGRAPHY: Joseph Hoxie; New York co., NY surname: Hoxie submitted by Elizabeth Burns (burns at asu.edu) ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.org/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.org/ny/nyfiles.htm Submitted Date: June 3,2005 This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/nyfiles/ File size: 6.0 Kb ************************************************ Author: Walter Barrett Joseph Hoxie Page 114 Old Merchants, Walter Barrett, Thomas R. Knox, 1885 Mr. Joseph Hoxie came here as a school teacher about 1818. He taught school in the Fourth Ward where he is kindly remembered by many of his old pupils still. When he first began to meddle in politics, it was as an active partisan of Tammany Hall; but I believe he left the shade of the Wigwam about the time when Moses H. Grinnell and others, now prominent Republicans, left it. Mr. Hoxie kept school as late as 1829, when he went into the mercantile business, having determined to follow the example of A.T. Stewart, and widen the sphere of his activity and usefulness. He taught many years at 208 Williams Street. It was at the old church that stood on the corner, where the Globe Hotel now stands, of William and Frankfort Streets. He began in business about 1829 at 83 William Street and in 1834 removed to 101 Maiden Lane, which locality at that period, was regarded as the most favorable for the business in which he was engaged-clothing. Wilson G. Hunt was also in that neighborhood for a long time and made money there. He had formerly been in the retail dry goods business in Pearl, near Chatham, where he was unfortunate and was obliged to compromise with his creditors; after which he commenced in the cloth business under the auspices of his brother Thomas, at the corner of Pearl and Chatham Streets. This new business to Hunt was successful and he coined money. Here I must stop to narrate a most honorable transaction of Wilson G. Hunt. Although he had settled with his creditors for a certain sum on the dollar and had received a full release from all his indebtedness, yet on a certain New Year's Day he invited all of his creditors to dine with him; and judge of their surprise, when they had taken the seats allotted to them, they each found under their plates a check for the full amount of the balance of their original claims, with interest to that date. No wonder that Peter Cooper selected such a man for one of his trustees. I now return to Joseph Roxie. His genial disposition did not qualify him for the details of mercantile life. Profit and loss was an account he could not rightly understand. Although popular with the clothing trade and exceeding industrious, yet the disasters of 1836 and 1837 forced him to quit merchandising. He had become a prominent politician in the Whig ranks previous to that period. In 1837 he was elected Alderman of the Seventh Ward. The next year he was elected County Clerk for a three year term. He came up again for nomination at the expiration of his term, but was defeated by the nomination of Revo. C. Hence, who was defeated by the democratic candidate at the election. Shortly after he was elected Judge of the Fourth Judicial District for four years. He did not like the difficulties of others being constantly brought before him, and when his term expired he sought employment another way. He is truly a friend of Henry Clay and openly acknowledged as much by the great Kentuckian for many years of his life. While on a visit to Ashland, after the expiration of his Justiceship, he formed such an acquaintance with leading Western men as to secure to him the agency of two or three Western Fire Insurance Companies. He then opened his office as an underwriter agent at the corner of Wall and Pearl Streets. Some years after, when fire insurance companies stock became a very profitable investment and under the new insurance laws, permitting the formation of insurance companies, he with Hugh Maxwell, Moses Taylor and the late J. Hobart Haws and others, associated themselves together and formed the present Commonwealth Fire Insurance Company, of which Mr. Hoxie is the President. Mr. Hoxie is one of the most venerable looking men in the city. He is a popular speaker, for he never speaks long so as to weary his audience and his speeches are always interspersed with such anecdotes to bring down the house. This also applies to his social life. He is one of those great friends of humanity who do kindness by making men laugh. He is an honest man. He is opposed to corruption both at Albany and at Washington and denounces them whenever he gets a chance. A friend once met him in Wall Street and asked Mr. Hoxie where he was born. Hoxie cocked his eye in a very peculiar way and replied, "There was once a man residing in the southwestern part of this country who prided himself upon his judgment of human nature and that he could tell the State in which a person was born if he heard him speak a few words. Being seated in a tavern in Kentucky, on a turnpike road, frequently resorted to by travelers from all sections; he amused himself by his discriminating observation upon men who entered as to the whereabouts of their birthplaces. On a certain day, a traveler on horseback approached the tavern. After alighting, he asked the landlord,' Have you any oats?''Yes', replied thee landlord. 'Give my horse two quarts.' 'That man', said the observer, 'is from Connecticut..' A second traveler arrived and asked for four quarts. 'That man', said the observer' is from Massachusetts.' Presently a third traveler arrived and asked "give my horse as many oats as he can eat.' 'That man, said the observer 'is from Rhode Island.' 'Now,' replied Mr. Hoxie, 'I come from the state where they give their horse all the oats they can eat.'