By BARBARA SOUTHWORTH
Siblings Archie Cox Jr. and Sarah Cox were on hand to welcome the public to a tour of the former home of their parents, Archibald Cox and Phyllis Ames Cox, to benefit the Brooksville Library. Thunder, lightning and deluges on the morning of Sunday, August 3, gave way to gleaming meadows and sparkling flowers by tour time.
Visitors were free to enjoy lawns, paths and newly and brightly painted rooms. In the large barn, a display of pictures and papers blended family and national history.
Included was a copy of President Richard Nixon’s October 20, 1973, letter from the White House directing Robert Bork to assume the position of acting attorney general in the wake of resignations by Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus. Richardson and Ruckelshaus had refused to fire Cox, who was special prosecutor at the time, charged with investigating break-ins at the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate Hotel prior to the 1973 presidential election. When knowledge of White House tapes with incriminating conversations came to light, Cox had pressed Nixon to release them.
Bork’s letter to Archibald Cox, also dated October 20, 1973, discharged Cox from his duties as the special prosecutor. The two resignations and the firing of Cox were dubbed the “Saturday Night Massacre.” A helicopter perches on the lawn in one photograph, as Dan Rather interviews Archibald Cox in front of the farm house.
Archibald Cox issued a one-sentence statement in response to his firing: “Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people.” On August 8, 1974, Nixon became the first and only American president to resign.
Cox died at the age of 92 in Brooksville on May 29, 2004. He had been a Harvard law professor and speechwriter for then-Senator Kennedy. He became attorney general under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and pursued civil rights cases before the supreme court. After his firing, he became chairman of Common Cause.
Phyllis Ames Cox died in Brooksville on February 6, 2007, at 93. Daughter-in-law Judy Cox, wife of Archie Cox Jr., described Phyllis Ames Cox as funny, quick-witted, charming and well-read. A champion rider of Morgan horses who judged horse shows for 45 years in Maine, she was said to have ridden her horse from Bucksport’s steamboat landing to the family farm in Castine as a girl. Her grandson, Archie III, is a noted equestrian trainer and judge. Phyllis Ames Cox grew and preserved all the family’s vegetables and awakened before anyone else to fill the house with the scent of her delectable baking. A picture shows her still at the helm of the family’s boat at the age of 92.
Judy Cox, formerly style editor for NBC’s Today show, had a hand in changes that took place at the farmhouse over the last year. She credits husband Archie Jr. with the suggestion to paint the rooms with various colors instead of white. Half of the house’s furnishings were replaced or reupholstered, while the home’s books, gardens and essential character were retained. Sharing Cox family stories with visitors, Judy Cox related that her husband and his sisters, Phyllis and Sarah, were only excused from the table to look up something in the atlas or dictionary.
Daughter Phyllis now lives abroad, returning to Maine when she can. Sarah’s Eric Chase-designed home overlooks Brooksville and the sea. Archie Jr. and Judy Cox completed their low-slung, waterfront home, designed by Bill McHenry to preserve the view from the yellow farmhouse, in time for Thanksgiving 2006. The open house was a fitting tribute to the Coxes’ shared love of books and Brooksville.
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