Thomas Box and His Ancestors
In the early 18th century, there were several Box families in Georgia and South Carolina, including (1) James and Phillip, who arrived in Savannah with their parents in 1733 (2) John, who died in Charleston in 1734, leaving children Isaac and Joseph and (3) numerous Boxes, presumably related, who lived in what is now Laurens County. Thomas is almost certainly not connected to the Savannah Boxes, and there is nothing known to connect him with either of the other two groups.
It is more likely that Thomas, who first appears in South Carolina records in the late 1760's, acquiring land in Berkeley and Colleton Counties, is the same Thomas who had land in Lenoir County North Carolina, and is recorded to have left for South Carolina sometime before 1771. This Thomas, or his father Thomas, arrived in North Carolina, near Lake Mattamuskeet, no later than 1718, perhaps with a brother, or son, Samuel. A history of Lenoir County NC states that the earlier Thomas came from Virginia; the evidence for this is unknown but most settlers in the Mattamuskeet area came from there. The South Carolina Thomas had two sons Lewis, who owned a bridge over the Edisto River in 1805, and Thomas, father of Richard Randolph Box.
The Laurens County Boxes are the descendants of Robert Box of Isle of Wight County VA and his wife Mary Allen, daughter of Arthur and Alice Allen and sister of Joan Allen Williamson. Given the geography of the Virginia/North Carolina border region, it is plausible that Thomas also came from Isle of Wight County and is part of the same Box family, but there is no documentation of this.