Gabriel, son of Samuel P. and Mary Cox, was born in Gallatin, July 13; 1852, and there grew to manhood. He received his primary education in the common schools of Gallatin, and completed it with a course at the Christian University, of Canton, Missouri, and in 1870 and 1871, at the Gem City Commercial College, of Quincy, Illinois. Returning to Gallatin be was employed, by Gilliam & Simpson as a clerk, and continued in their employ until 1874, when he became the successor of Mr. Simpson, and a short time after sold his interest to Mr. Gilham. Leaving Gallatin he went to Centerville, Iowa, and engaged in the grocery, grain and provision business, with William M. Flint, under the firm name of Flint & Cox, and remained there until the fall of of 1874; again returning home, he accepted a clerkship in his father’s store, continued until his father sold out in February, 1876, and then engaged in farming until the fall of the same year. In the summer of 1877 he was employed by the wholesale hat and cap house of Bird & Hawkins, of Kansas City, as a traveling salesman, but abandoned the business in January, 1878, on account of ill health, and in July of the same. year, accompanied his father to Colorado, taking fifteen mule teams, and was employed by Fitzgerald, Mallory & Co. to grade and haul on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, beginning at Iron Spring and grading to Otero, on Pea River, in New Mexico. They also took a large contract for street grading in the City of Trinidad, Colorado. In 1879, his father becoming ill, they sold out and returned to Gallatin, where he was again employed in his father’s store, and remained with him up to the time he closed out, in October, 1881.
On the 19th of October, 1874, Mr. Cox was united in marriage to Miss N. S. Stone, daughter of Wiley Stone, of this county. Their union has been blessed with three children, two living, whose names are Juniata J. and Winona May. Mary J. died at the age of three years: Mrs. Cox is a zealous member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.