James Cock

Father of Mary (Cock) Frost: the second James Cock of Matinecock, son of James and Sarah Cock. He married Hannah Feke, granddaughter of Lieut. Robert Feake and Elizabeth Fones, at Matinecock in December 1698. "The noted minister Thomas Chalkley, who signed this certificate as a witness, writes in his journal at this time, 'We had a meeting at a place called Matinicock, where I met with some of the people called Ranters, who disturbed our meeting. I may say as the apostle Paul (only altering Ephesus to Matinicock, I fought with beasts there'" (source, p. 17). The certificate stayed in the family and was owned in 1912 by George W. Cocks, one of the compilers.

His father's will of 1699 left him "all my land lying on ye South side of Musketa Cove path," about two hundred acres bought from the Indians in 1684/5, later called the Piping Rock Farm, and "my meadows I had of John Tompson" (source, pp. 11-12, 17). He lived there until he bought the Samuel Birdsall homestead on the west side of the road to Matinecock, where he died in 1728. In December 1723 he was one of the three men Oyster Bay chose to walk the bounds with Hempstead, re-marking "ye old marked trees from ye East sid of hempstead harboure" with "three Chops on the South west & North east sides of sd trees" (p. 17).

His children with Hannah Feke (p. 17): Sarah (1700); Samuel (1702), who married Martha Alling; Joshua (1704); Elizabeth (1706); Josiah (1709), who married Rebecca Frost, Isaac's sister; Jacob (c. 1710); Hannah (c. 1712); Martha (c. 1714), who married Joseph Frost, son of Wright Frost; Robert (c. 1718); and Mary, born the 5th of the 6th month 1722, who married Isaac Frost. Three of his children married Frosts.

Research: The Long Island Quaker families of the Frost line.