Two hundred years ago, a person living in Bermuda might go their whole life without visiting St George’s or Somerset, or even venturing outside their own parish.There were few wheeled vehicles, and most people had to roll their groceries home from the dock in large barrels.John Cox has shed light on old Bermuda in his latest book ‘At Home in Early Bermuda’. This book weaves together letters, diaries and long-told family stories.“I have always been fascinated by the past,” Mr Cox said. “Back in the 1970s, I had to come home from college, because I was convalescing from mononucleosis. I was here alone. All my friends were away at college.“The people I hung around with were old people. They imparted so much to me. They imparted the facts and dates, but also a lot about people’s lifestyles and their values.“In the old days, people appreciated the smallest things. We take things for granted today.”The elderly people that Mr Cox hung out with told him stories from their youth, and also stories that had been told to them by their own grandparents.They acted as a bridge to the past, talking about people they had known who had lived in the 19th century.“I learned a lot about Victorian life in Bermuda,” said Mr Cox. “For a time I worked in Bermuda National museums such as Verdmont, and I got interested in the 18th century, because these museums feature a lot of 18th century artefacts and decorative arts.“I also became interested in the 17th century. I was fascinated with the way that people lived, which was constantly evolving.”He said there are a few Bermuda diaries from the Victorian period, although they get more scarce, the further back in time you go.For information about life before the Victorian period in Bermuda, he had to rely more on letters, and they were also scarce.One of the figures he focused on in ‘At Home in Early Bermuda’ was Mary Ann Dill Cox who was born in Bermuda two years before the American Revolution, in 1773.“I tried to follow her life,” said Mr Cox. “It was a very insular life. When she was a child and a young adult, St George was still the capital of Bermuda.“Hamilton wasn’t even heard of when she was a very small child. She ends up going to St George only three times in her life. Each time, she went by boat.”Before getting married, Mrs Cox lived in an old house above Devonshire Dock.On one of the rare occasions when she got to see the Eastern end of the Island, it was right after the hurricane of 1780.“She told her grandchildren that St George had taken on a denuded air,” said Mr Cox. “It was very bleak. There were hardly any trees standing.“In St George’s there was a ships’ chandlery (a shop that supplies equipment for ships). There were basic shops. It was not a big community at all.”Miss Dill travelled by boat because it was easier than going by road. Until 1820, few people in Bermuda had carriages and roads were rough going. Transportation was either on foot, by boat or on horseback.“That is why we talk about the upper parishes and the lower parishes,” said Mr Cox. “In the upper parishes the prevailing wind came from the West, so it came from Somerset.“If you were sailing downwind you were sailing down to St George and if you were sailing upwind you were sailing up to Somerset. Life centred around church. She went to church every Sunday. The church really acted as a community centre. It was where everything happened and everyone congregated.”Mrs Cox married William Cox, a sea captain. When he died, he left her cedar trees on their property as a kind of life insurance policy. She could sustain herself by having the trees cut down and sold.“They had to be very sufficient in those days,” said Mr Cox. “I wanted to pull her life out and hold it up as an example of how so many people were living at the time. Her life spanned from the 18th century right into the 19th century.”He found information about her from his own family archives.Other material from the book comes from letters he found at the Bermuda Archives. Some of these letters are about the family of Captain Henry Hilgrove Hollis and his wife Louisa of Bailey’s Bay, Hamilton.“The Hollis letters are fascinating,” said Mr Cox. “They lived in a house called Hilgrove that was demolished in 1990.“That is a sad thing, a lot of the houses I talk about in the book are gone. Very few of the houses have survived.“These letters are amazing. He is at sea and she is pregnant with her first child and not only that but she is having a difficult pregnancy.“She is lonely and desperate for her husband to come home and be with her.”Mrs Hollis develops an illness that kills her 18-year-old sister, Kate. Luckily, both Mrs Hollis and her baby survive, despite her illness.“The letters just lay it all out, the trials of life are laid so bare in these letters,” said Mr Cox. “He finally comes home. He had been sailing in the West Indies.“We have his letters too which are interesting. The letters were written in 1863.“Unlike Mary Ann Dill Cox, she ends up going to sea with her husband. She kept telling him that she didn’t want to stay in Bermuda without him.“The Hollis letters which are really something. I think they are the highlight of the book.”Mr Cox said he loves to write, and is looking forward to turning some of his old family stories into works of fiction.He plans to release another book in the spring called ‘Bermuda Hauntings’ which will have more folklore, fiction, some historical non-fiction and ghost stories.He remains humble about his abilities.“The more I read, particularly good writers, I think ‘God, what am I doing?’ But you just have to do it, if you have the urge,” he said. “Years ago, I did something for the Heritage magazine. Reggie Ming was such a Bermuda character.“He was the co-ordinator of the Heritage magazine. The piece came out and they had a reception for the contributors. He called me over and he said he wanted me to meet his Excellency the Governor.“My ego was feeling pretty big at that point, because it was my first published material. He said ‘Your Excellency, I want you to meet John Cox who has contributed to the Heritage magazine. You know he is a good little writer’.“So that pulled me down a bit. It was a backhanded compliment, but I thought ‘that is what I have to remember, I am a good little writer’. It is better than not being a writer at all.”‘At Home in Early Bermuda’ sells locally for $25. Mr Cox will also be signing copies Friday night from 6.30pm to 8.30pm at Tucker Museum on Water Street, as part of the Bermuda National Walkabout. Those copies will sell for $20.