Heritage Trails: Charles Wilson Fox

We have an exciting ancestral literary connection with the Brontës!

Charles Fox was born in Derbyshire, England, and lived in the village of Hathersage at the same time and place where 29 year old Charlotte Brontë stayed while writing Jane Eyre in 1845; he was 22 then, perhaps they met? If not he certainly must have known her local vicar friend where she stayed.

Charles back at the Hathersage churchyard, 2023

With his brother Isaac’s family, Charles was excited to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and emigrate to Utah. He was baptized by Elder Lorenzo Hill Hatch (whose son L.L. later married his stepdaughter Annie). 

Charles sailed on the William Tapscott, and crossed the plains with the John W. Berry Company in 1858 (the birth year in the company record is off by 8 years). After joining his brother’s family in Lehi, Utah, Charles built a spacious three-room adobe house and worked as a mason, gaining a reputation as a well-to-do bachelor. There he took in boarders, and renewed an acquaintance with a British friend, Elizabeth Brook Scarborough. She had left her husband behind in England and crossed the plains with her two children Joseph and Annie. 

Charles and Elizabeth were married in 1862, and in the fall of 1863, Brigham Young asked them to build up the settlement of Franklin, Idaho, with (now bishop) Lorenzo Hill Hatch. They arrived in November, first living in the communal fort, but the following spring each family was allotted a town lot and ten acres of land on the east bench. Charles built a one room log house on his lot, and they raised a few sheep and other animals; he was also known for his excellent vegetable garden. One day while prospecting in the hills, Charles discovered some white rock up Maple Creek which he dug and hauled down to his lot. He built a rock room as an addition to the log room, which was the first rock home in Franklin. Later in 1872, he built a beautiful two-story, six room stone house.

In 1868, the Foxes were asked to go look after the railroad camp in Idaho, where they worked for a summer. The family enjoyed home dramatics (perhaps telling stories from the Brontës?) and singing in the choir, and Charles was a good stepfather to Joseph and Annie (he never had children of his own). He supported Elizabeth in her extensive church responsibilities and travels and was a faithful church member. After a New Years’ dinner at their son Joseph’s home when Charles was just 57 years old, he began to cough and broke a blood vessel; he died three weeks later from a hemorrhage.