Lemuel Cox's neighbor on the west, on Batterymarch street, was Robert Hallowell, who was Comptroller of the Customs under the king and who left Boston on the evacuation of 17 March, 1776. After the war Hallowell returned to America, and resided in the next house to Cox's till he removed to Gardiner, Maine, in 1816, where he died in 1818. Hallowell, Maine, was named for him.
Cox did not live on Batterymarch street, in his house, after the Revolution. It was a wooden house of two stories, with fourteen windows, and covered six hundred and eighty square feet. The land contained 2,786 square feet, and the whole was valued at $1,800 in 1798, and occupied by Dr. John Frederic Enslin, a physician. Cox sold his property on Batterymarch street in 1801 to Edw. Bartlett, Jr.
In June, 1788, the selectmen gave Lemuel Cox a license to sell liquors at his shop, near Charles River Bridge, and in 1789 we find Lemuel Cox, millwright, living on Prince street.
The census of the next year shows his family consisted of three white males over sixteen years, two white females over sixteen, and four white females under sixteen.
Cox severed his connection with the Essex Bridge Corporation in July, 1788. Between that date and June, 1789, he visited Ireland. It was probable his fame as a bridge builder had reached the Emerald Isle, and a desire for a bridge at Londonderry carried him to that town, probably in the spring of 1789, and he estimated the cost of a bridge there at £ 10,000. Receiving encouragement he returned to New England, and from Sheepscott, Maine, shipped a load of oak piles and twenty skilled workmen to complete the project.
His connection with the Cabots and others, directors of the Bridge Company, made him familiar with another enterprise some of the directors were also interested in. I refer to the cotton factory, established at Beverly,