Thomas Riggs Cox

Thomas Riggs Cox III, of Farmington, Connecticut died May 9, 2015. He was 71. He was born on December 1, 1943 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Thomas Riggs Cox, Jr. and Elizabeth Mitchell Cox. He was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania where he was a member of the renowned Mask & Wig troupe and of the St. Elmo Club. In 1966, after graduation, he volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army. He was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California in 1967 where he became proficient in Chinese Mandarin. He served in Intelligence in the Army Security Agency seconded to the Special Forces (""Green Berets"") in Laos and Thailand, where helicopters in which he was riding were shot down twice by North Vietnamese troops. He also learned Laotian and Thai, and started his extensive collection of Asian art and artifacts. After a career at White Weld, then Morgan Stanley in New York City, he moved to Greenwich, Connecticut and co-founded R.V.I. Guaranty Co., Ltd., a Bermuda insurance company, and R.V.I. America Insurance Company in Connecticut, which earned coveted ""A"" ratings from Moody's and Standard & Poor's. He retired in 2007. Mr. Cox has been nominated as a Knight of Grace in the U.S. Priory of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem under its Sovereign Head, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. He served on the Order's U.S. Priory governing board and was National Membership Chair. He was a member of the Jamestowne Society, Society of Colonial Wars, the Military Order of Foreign Wars and the St. Nicholas Society. He had previously belonged to the New York Yacht Club, and logged over 35,000 ocean racing miles as an owner of Scaramouche of Warwick. He was the long-time treasurer and a Life Director of the Big Apple Circus in New York City, and a director of the East Haddam Fishing & Game Club. In recent years, Mr. Cox took great pleasure in his role as a licensed Lay Reader in the Episcopal Church. An avid fly fisherman, hunter, sailor and scuba diver, he enjoyed traveling with his wife all over the world. He leaves his wife, Kathryn Spotswood Lines Cox, two children, Amanda Cox Frantzen, and Samuel Riggs Cox, two step-children, John Delaplaine Britton and Samuel Spotswood Britton, two grandsons, Arlo and Owen Frantzen, and four step-grandchildren, Elliot and Henry Britton and Amelia and Charles Britton. A funeral will be held at St. John's Episcopal Church, 679 Farmington Avenue, West Hartford, Connecticut on Wednesday, May 13 at 11 o'clock. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Order of St. John, 1850 M Street, N.W., Suite 1070, Washington, D.C., 20036-5856. Burial will be at Christ Church Frederica, St. Simons Island, Georgia.