Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 10.

In 1787, Ezekiel Decosta of Boston married Rebecca Hickling, the youngest sister of Lemuel Cox's wife. Their son, Ezekiel Carver Decosta, was the father of William Hickling DeCosta, editor of the Charlestown Advertiser for twenty-six years, and of Rev. Benjamin F. DeCosta of New York, an Episcopal clergyman.

John and Mary DeCosta were also living in Charlestown in 1797.

Of one of these families was, probably, Timothy Decosta, with whom Lemuel Cox boarded at the time of his death. An item of $489.13 for board was brought against the estate of Lemuel Cox, but it was contested, and a suit brought against the executor.

Other claims against the estate not allowed were one each of $6,000 by William McKean, tobacconist, on Ship street, and his wife, and John Callender, a lawyer.

The executor of the estate, Captain Samuel Swan, was born in Charlestown in 1750. He was a mariner, and neighbor of Lemuel Cox at Mill Village, selling his house in 1803 to the Middlesex Canal proprietors and moving to Medford.

He was a soldier of the Revolution under General Lincoln, who appointed him quartermaster-general with rank of major during Shay's Rebellion. He was also a deputy collector of revenue under General Brooks.

When Cox's estate was pronounced insolvent, Laomi Baldwin and Asa Peabody were the commissioners appointed, but Baldwin soon resigned to go to Europe.

Bought by his daughter, Betsey Dadley, in 1803, after the sale of his mill property to the Middlesex Canal proprietors, Cox had a house on Main street near the Charlestown Bridge, now Charlestown Square. It adjoined the house in which Ammi Ruhamah Tufts lived, and was between that house and a new brick house built by the Hon. Thomas Russell, great-grandfather of the late Dr. John Langdon Sullivan of Malden, which stood on Water street, between Charlestown and Warren Bridges.