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History of Wilcox Names Obtained from Newberry Library, Chicago by:	Miss	Alice	Wilcox,	of Woodstock, Illinois
The name is of Saxon derivation. Early ancestors were buried in St. Edmunds, County of Suffolk, England, before the Norman Conquest. Earliest traces of the name are found in Cornwall and Wales. The family was prominent in Northington and Southington, England, as peers before migrating to America.
They had a coat of arms and were Dukes and Earls.
Surnames did not become hereditary until the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, the custom being gradually adopted during that period. The name has been spelled at least 19 different ways, some families still clinging to the suffix "son", meaning "son of". William was the commonest name in Great Britain. Ox, or Ock, is the diminutive. The name might have meant "son of Little Will".
A story has been handed down that a "cocky" young man was greeted as "Well, Old Cock, how are you?" until the name stuck, spelled Willcock. With the	dropping	of a syllable or	letter
down through the centuries,	the	name	was	worn down to	its present spelling by nearly all	the	families	in America.
There is a tradition that,	with	the	Puritan wave	of Immi-
gration from England to this country, there were 6 different Wilcoxes, no relation that they knew of, but we find the given names of but three, Edward, William Wilcoxin of Stratford, Connecticut, and our John Wilcocks of Hartford.
John Wilcocks, the immigrant, was a descendant of Captain John Wilcox, who commanded 1000 lances	at the Battle	of	Hastings
in 1066 against William the	Conqueror.	In the reign	of.	Edward
the Third, Sir John Wilcox was entrusted with several important commands against the French.
John Wilcocks, the immigrant ancestor, came to America with his family. He was one of the original proprietors of Hartford, Connecticut, and was probably one of the company of Reverend Thomas Hooker, who moved from Newton (now Cambridge), Massachussetts, in 1636. He accumulated a large amount of land here and there, which was, no doubt, easy to buy from the Indians at that time. His name and	location of house lot is	in	the original
plan of Hartford as of 1642	by surveys	from original	records of
distribution of 1639. He is buried in the Center Church Burying Ground, in Hartford. His name is on the monument with the names of other first proprietors. He served as selectman in 1640 and was surveyor in 1643, 44 and 45.