I have been doing a little research lately on the Hoxie Family, and one of its most famous ancestors, Jack Hoxie, the 1920s silent film star. Jack appeared in literally hundreds of films from 1910 to 1933, but is best remembered for the thirty-six he made for Universal Studios between 1923 and 1927. These films were immensely popular with the public and made Jack one of the top cowboy box office attractions along with such other notables a Tom Mix, Ken Maynard and Hoot Gibson.

So far I have been able to find little information about Jack or his father Bart in the seminal book on the family, The Hoxie Family, Three Centuries in America, by Leslie R. Hoxie, published in 1950. This is not surprising since the family tree is extensive covering three-hundred years and scores of branches ranging from Massachusetts to California. There is little doubt, however, that Jack Hoxie is descended from the same common ancestor of all Hoxies (including the various spellings of the name, e.g. Hoxsey, Hoxsie) Lodowick Hoxie. Lodowick arrived, it is believed from Scotland, at the Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts sometime around 1650. Leslie Hoxie traces all of his decedents through the various branches of the family from Lodowick’s nine children (seven males).

Jack Hoxie’s father Bart was a veterinarian originally from the east cost. He went west like many other Hoxies and settled in Oklahoma, where Jack was born. Jack’s father died when he was young, less than 12, and his mother remarried a man named Stone. The Stone family lived on a ranch in Idaho which Jack left, due to a dispute with his stepfather, when he was about 18 years old. He became a real cowboy working on ranches herding cattle and eventually went to Hollywood and became a stuntman. Jack’s real life reads like a movie as he apparently lived for a time with the Nez Perce Indians in Idaho and was known as Red Elk.