About the Cemetery
The Cox-Majors Cemetery (also called George Cox Cemetery or Cox’s Cemetery) is a small cemetery located on George Cox Road in Athol, Maryland, a few miles outside the town of Mardela Springs. It dates to the mid-19th century.
Like many rural cemeteries on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the Cox-Majors Cemetery was a burial site for an extended family. The first person to be buried there was Robert Russell (1804-1866), a farmer who owned the land where the cemetery was built. Robert and his wife Hester “Hetty” Ellen (1803-1871) had four daughters, all of whom married into other local families and are also buried in the cemetery.
Eliza, wife of Ichabod Decatur Evans
Sarah Ann, wife of William Henry Cox
Hester Ellen, wife of William Granville Majors
Susanna, wife of William T. Majors
An 1877 map of the Barren Creek district of Wicomico County shows members of the Cox, Majors and Evans families all living in the area near the cemetery.
In the 20th century the cemetery became associated with nearby farm of George Cox, son of Sarah Ann Russell and William Henry Cox. The road closest to the cemetery and the former site of the farm are named for him, and the Cox farmhouse is listed with the Maryland Historical Trust as a site of architectural significance.
The cemetery has connections to the nearby Athol Baptist Church, also listed with the Maryland Historical Trust. The church was built in 1905 and many of the family names found in the Cox-Majors Cemetery can also be seen in the adjacent Athol Baptist Church Cemetery. George Cox's daughter, Zenophine, and her husband, Howard Hatton, were the first couple to be married in the church.
The cemetery today is located on private land and cannot be entered without permission.