The American Fox Tales Book Series
I think we all want to know where we came from. I was lucky enough to have loving parents and a father I idolized and parables about previous generations of Fox men offered many life-lessons. As I aged, I wondered how my paternal ancestors had each affected their sons, to eventually provide me with such men as my father and grandfather.
In 2010 I began to research my Fox family tree and found it was pretty easy to trace back to Nicholas Fox, born in 1796, but beyond him his father was only half-suspected to be named Benjamin. Which colonial Fox family they came from was a mystery for years and I chased down many rabbit holes until I became convinced the shadowy figure only whispered in some circles, was in fact, Benjamin Kendrick Fox, the son of William and Mary (Kendrick), of the well-known Virginia Fox’s. Satisfied with my results, in 2017 I submitted to DNA tests from both Ancestry.com and Familytreedna and that’s when everything I had learned thus far, was turned on its head.
Shockingly, the results virtually denied I was the son of a Fox. It was a surreal experience considering my family lives on a farm that has been in the Fox family for 100 years. These were the earliest results of DNA testing that claimed Benjamin Kendrick Fox was not the biological son of William and Mary, but shared a common father with Ambrose Cobbs, The Planter, who had originally settled in the colonies before the Fox family had. Further, another man named Martin was assumed to be related to me over 1000 years ago. Using this information, I found a connection between the Cobbs and Fox families that lasted many decades. This relationship lent credence to the clues DNA was providing at the time.
Within a few years as YDNA testing became more refined results were refined; Benjamin was not the son of a Cobb, he fathered one (or Nicholas his eldest son did, as YDNA only proves the men share a common father). And the man named Martin, was not related 1000 or more years ago, he too was fathered by Benjamin (or Nicholas). The relationship between the Fox and Cobbs families that had been established required scrutiny through fresh eyes, but it yet made sense. It was in researching the out-of-wedlock birth of Henry Franklin Martin in 1832 that clues to Benjamin’s biological parentage began to surface. Martin family ancestors proved expert in every facet of genealogical research, regarding our shared mystery.
History holds few documents that cite the name of Benjamin Fox, despite the fact he was assumed to be a member of the well documented Virginia Fox family. Only through the light of DNA could this story be possible by revealing peripheral facts that would not have otherwise been connected. The bibliography of The Secrets of Benjamin Fox is unequaled. Both classical sources and the most recent DNA developments are combined to give a rich history of this antebellum family, the life of Benjamin Fox and the little-known Fox family that he sired.
The Secrets of Benjamin Fox
Ephraim Fox on the Oregon Trail, 1852
One might say Ephraim Fox is the father of the Oregon branch of the Virginia Fox family tree.
His motivation was probably directly related to the Secrets of Benjamin Fox, his grandfather. In any event, it seems clear that Ephraim was seeking a new, better world to raise his family when he left Missouri in 1852.
After over a decade of digging into the past, Ephraim’s third great grandson, James Royal Fox, Jr., relates his grandfather’s untold story of crossing the plains, from Missouri to Linn County, Oregon, in the second book about the Oregon Fox family that came from the Virginia Fox’s. Breathtaking detail captures the trail as Ephraim leads his family to Oregon. Disassociated and forgotten clues compile to accurately locate the people and the trail just as it was when Ephraim Fox crossed it.
This is a story Ephraim would have wanted told.
That said, had he known the price he would have to pay to reach Oregon, he might have remained in Macon County, Missouri.
Ephraim Fox, An Oregon Pioneer Story
The American Fox Tales book series began as a trilogy, and Ephraim Fox an Oregon Pioneer Story is the third and final book originally planned.
Ephraim Fox was 30 years old when he arrived in Oregon in 1852, and he lived until 1899.
Hostilities were increasing between settlers and Natives and almost immediately the Fox family was drawn in.
From serving with Captain Jonathon Keeney in Southern Oregon, to homesteading near Harrisburg, then Crawfordsville, Oregon, this is the untold story of Ephraim’s life.
Living in Oregon during the Civil War, he reached the territory before the telegraph and avoided the destruction of his family. But barb wire, the telegraph, railroads and industrialazation combined with the conquering of the West, would have far-reaching effects on the future of his family.
Toward the end of his life, he faced events that saw two sons in state newspapers, threatening to erase any good he had ever done.
These are the life and times of Ephraim Fox, that time forgot, but his 3rd great grandson recovered.
The person who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The person who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been before.
Albert Einstein
Ephraim Fox, An Oregon Pioneer Story
Available March 14, 2023 at Booklocker.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com, and many, many other of your favorite online bookstores!
To reach the west, tens of thousands of pioneers crossed the Great American Desert, mountain range after mountain range, untamed roaring rivers, encountering numerous bands of Native tribes, some hostile some not, not to mention sickness and injury. They heard Oregon was like Eden. They said a man could make something new of himself; opportunity abounded.
As Ephraim Fox worked his way through the vast, last great frontier on the continent in the summer of 1852, he certainly couldn’t have guessed at how many life changing tribulations yet lied in his future in the Linn county plains of the Willamette Valley in the Oregon country ahead.
As a pioneer of 1852 and the head of his family, it was up to Ephraim Fox to establish the family in the frontier of the Willamette Valley in Linn County.
Third written in the series, Ephraim Fox, An Oregon Pioneer Story details the lives of the Fox family in the Oregon Territory and follows their lives as Oregon becomes a state. The more recent time frame in which this book takes place allows a much deeper investigation into the lives of those involved.
Ephraim served with one brother and two brothers-in-law in the Rogue River Indian War, with the Oregon Mounted Volunteers under Capt. Jonathon Keeney’s Company C, 2nd Regiment at the height of the conflict. When his wife died some years later, Ephraim remarried and grew an additional crop of children.
This book is an amazing roller coaster ride of victory, defeat and emotional redemption in the lives of people who were never famous, but contributed both to the establishment of the state of Oregon and the name Fox in the Oregon Country.
As Ephraim nears the end of his life, the events that transpire in this book will shock you. They certainly did me.