Trivial Pursuits?

The following e-mail exchange has been edited only to exclude the identity of the remote questioner --

Submitted on Dec 27 2008 - 5:37pm
Submitted by anonymous user: [141.158.48.148]

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Email: reelsrus@______________________________
Subject: Tracing a York employee
Message:
Hello, and Happy New Year!
A friend and I are researching the life of a Los Angeles fishing reel manufacturer who made equipment for Zane Grey. Joseph Augustus Coxe (usually "J.A. Coxe") arrived in L.A. in time to have been included there in the 1910 census. He and his wife, Bertha, had an 8-yr-old son who had been born in Nebraska (ca. 1902). We have learned that, in 1902, J.A. Coxe was the manager of something called the Magniscope Rifle Sight Co. in York.

We would like to learn when Coxe arrived in York (probably from Illinois) and when he left for Los Angeles. Would it be possible to search some city directories that might help determine those dates? We also would be interested in learning anything we could about the Magniscope shop, e.g., where was it and who owned it? Perhaps they advertised in city directories or newspapers.

May we ask for your help? We live in California and Pennsylvania, so visiting the library would be difficult for either of us.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Sincerely,
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Havertown, Pa.
reelsrus@____________________________________

Reply



11:27 AM (3 hours ago)
Stan Schulz
to XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


Mr. XXXXXXXXXX,
York does not have much in the way of documentation for such things. There was a 1902/1903 City directory which was locally produced. J.A. Cox / Bertha is listed as a salesman in that directory. There is no listing for a business called Magniscope. The next preceding directory was 1891/92 ; the next following directory was 1906/07.
Mr. Cox(e) is not listed in either of them. York had a couple of competing weekly newspapers at the time; there is no index or other finding aids for whatever might be buried in those microfilm reels.

Sorry we could not shed more light on the Coxe family's time in York.
Regards, Stan Schulz, Library Director

show details 12:39 PM (2 hours ago)


Reply


Mr. Schulz,
Thank you for your efforts. Learning that Coxe probably arrived later than 1891-2 and left York by 1906-7 is very helpful.

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Some times these kinds of quirky questions open up forgotten snippets of community history. Some times they result in dead ends. The current product that turns up when one searches for web hits on "Magniscope" sheds no light on what if anything the term meant over a century ago.
But Coxe Reels still is meaningful to lots of folks.