The lands of Joseph M. Fox extended five miles down the Allegheny, to the north bank of the Clarion River. He built a home a mile back of the Allegheny and endeavored to have the county-seat established at the junction of the two streams. The village of Foxburg, which bears the family-name and is four miles below Emlenton, had no existence until long after his death. Contrary to the accepted opinion, he was not a Quaker, nor do his descendants belong to the Society of Friends or any religious denomination in particular.
The prudence and wisdom of his father’s policy left the estate in excellent shape when its management devolved largely upon W. L. Fox. Progressive and far-seeing, the young man possessed in eminent degree the business-qualities needed to handle vast interests successfully. His honored mother and his younger brother aided him in building up and constantly improving the rich heritage. Oil-operations upon and around it added enormously to the value of the property. Hundreds of prolific wells yielded bounteously and the town of Foxburg blossomed into the prettiest spot on the banks of the Allegheny. The Foxes erected a spacious school and hotel, graded the streets, put up dainty residences and fostered the growing community most generously. A bank was established, stores and dwellings multiplied, the best people found the surroundings congenial and the lawless element had no place in the attractive settlement. The master-hand of William Logan Fox was visible everywhere. With him to plan was to execute. He constructed the railroad that connected Foxburg with St. Petersburg, Edenburg and Clarion. The slow hacks gave way to the swift iron-horse that brought the interior towns into close communication with each other and the world outside. It would be impossible to estimate the advantage of this enterprise to the producers and the citizens of the adjacent country.
RAILROAD BRIDGE NEAR CLARION.
The narrow-gauge railroad from Foxburg to Clarion was an engineering novelty. It zig-zagged to overcome the big hill at the start, twisted around ravines and crossed gorges on dizzy trestles. Near Clarion was the highest and longest bridge, a wooden structure on stilts, curved and single-tracked. One dark night a drummer employed by a Pittsburg house was drawn over it safely in a buggy. The horse left the wagon-road, got on the railroad-track, walked across the bridge—the ties supporting the rails were a foot apart—and fetched up at his stable about midnight. The drummer, who had imbibed too freely and was fast asleep in the vehicle, knew nothing of the drive, which the marks of the wheels on the approaches and the ties revealed next morning. The horse kept closely to the center of the track, while the wheels on the right were outside the rails. Had the faithful animal veered a foot to the right, the buggy would have tumbled over the trestle and there would have been a vacant chair in commercial ranks and a new voice in the celestial choir. That the horse did not step between the ties and stick fast was a wonder. The trip was as perilous as the Mohammedan passage to Paradise over a slack-wire or Blondin’s tight-rope trip across Niagara.
Mr. Fox’s busy brain conceived even greater things for the benefit of the neighborhood. Millions of capital enabled him to carry out the ideas of his resourceful mind. He created opportunities to invest his wealth in ways that meant the greatest good to the greatest number. The family heartily seconded his efforts to advance the general welfare. He built and operated the only extensive individual pipe-line in the oil-regions. To extend the trade and influence of Foxburg he devised new lines of railway, which would traverse a section abounding in coal, timber and agricultural products. He outlined the plan of an immense refinery, designed to employ a host of skilled workmen and utilize the crude-oil derived from the wells within several miles of his home. In the midst of these and other useful projects, in the very heyday of vigorous manhood, just as the full fruition of his highest hopes seemed about to be grandly realized, the end of his bright career came suddenly. His death, met in the discharge of duty, was almost tragic in its manner and results.
WILLIAM LOGAN FOX.
In February of 1880 Conductor W. W. Gaither, of the Foxburg-Clarion Railroad, ejected a peddler named John Clancy from his train, near King’s Mills, for refusing to pay his fare. Clancy shot Gaither, who died in a few days from the wound. W. L. Fox was the president of the road and a warm personal friend of the murdered conductor. He took charge of the pistol and became active in bringing Clancy to punishment. Clancy was placed on trial at Clarion. President Fox was to produce the pistol in court. Leaving home on the early train for Clarion, he had proceeded some distance from Foxburg when he discovered he had forgotten the pistol. He stopped the train and ran back to get the weapon. When he returned he was almost exhausted. W. J. McConnell, beside whom he was sitting, attempted to revive him, but he sank into unconsciousness and expired in the car near the spot where his friend Gaither was shot. Clancy was convicted of murder in the second degree and sentenced to eight years in the penitentiary. His wife and twelve-year-old son were left destitute. The boy went to work for a farmer near St. Petersburg. A week later, it is said, he was crossing a field in which a vicious bull was feeding. The bull attacked him, ripped his side open, tossed him from the field into the road and the boy died in a short time. Besides these fatalities resulting from Clancy’s crime, the business of Foxburg was seriously crippled. The village depended mainly upon the oil-business of the Fox estate, of which Mr. Fox, although only twenty-nine years old, was manager. Its three-thousand acres of oil-territory, but partially developed, yielded forty-five-thousand barrels of crude a month. The refinery was never built, the pipe-line was sold and extensive development of the property practically ceased. The pathetic death of William Logan Fox took the distribution of a million dollars a year from the region about Foxburg. The stricken family erected a splendid church to his memory, but it is seldom used. Much of its trade and population has sought other fields and the pretty town is merely a shadow of the past.
“The massive gates of circumstance