Jesse W. Fox ~ Index
Jesse Williams Fox, Sr. was born March 31th, 1819, at Adams Center, Jefferson County, New York, the son of Samuel Fox, a well-to-do farmer and Lucy Williams. He was engaged in teaching school when he became a convert to the L.D.S. Church and decided to cast his lot with the Saints at Nauvoo, where he arrived in June, 1844, immediately after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. He resumed his occupation of teaching at Nauvoo and had for a student Eliza Gibbs, whom he subsequently married at Council Bluffs in 1849.
The work of Jesse W. Fox, Sr. as a surveyor in Utah began immediately after his arrival in the Salt Lake Valley in 1849, when he assisted William M. Lemon in the survey of city lots and adjacent farming lands. This activity was interrupted by a call to accompany Isaac Morley and his selected party of colonists to establish the first settlement in the Sanpete Valley. He taught the first school at Manti and had among his pupils an Indian youth, who as Chief Black Hawk fifteen years later waged a costly war on the white settlers in Central and Southern Utah. The kindly disposition for which Jesse W. Fox was noted left a lasting impression on the Indian boy and when his old teacher was captured by one of Black Hawk's foray parties he was warmly greeted by the Chief and given safe conduct to his destination.
The plans of Mr. Fox to settle at Manti were set aside by President Brigham Young who requested that he remain in Salt Lake City and give his attention to surveying. It may be that Governor Young had in mind the advancement of the young surveyor to the office of surveyor general as soon as circumstances were favorable. The office had been created in 1849 when the provisional government of the State of Deseret was established and W.W. Phelps was its first occupant. He was succeeded by Henry G. Sherwood who was elected by the legislative assembly in accordance with an act approved March 2nd, 1850. Under the terms of the act the surveyor general was to serve for a term of two years and was to "have general superintendence and supervision of all surveys of land made within the State." He was to "keep a record of all surveys made by himself or reported to him by other surveyors in a book suitable for the purpose." This book and others like it have disappeared and with them much valuable information of historic importance. The act further provided that "in all new surveys certificates approved by authorized surveyors shall be considered title of possession to the holding of the same for the amount of land therein described." Sherwood moved to San Bernardino in the summer of 1852 and Fox succeeded to the office and was continuously re-elected until the office was abolished by legislative act in 1884. As surveyor general Jesse W. Fox issued hundreds of land certificates that became the basic evidence of title. The surveyor general received compensation from the Territory (the amount is not known) and the established fees for making private surveys. A schedule of fees was fixed by law in 1852 in an act providing for surveyors in every county, running from $2.00 for surveying twenty acres to $8.50 for surveying six hundred and forty acres, with ten cents a mile for travel expenses.
Evidently the office of surveyor general did not require full time, for Jesse W. Fox, following the organization of the municipal government of Great Salt Lake City (1851) was elected by the council to the office of city surveyor and served until 1876 when he was succeeded by his son, Jesse W. Fox, Jr. In this office his remuneration in 1860 was four dollars per day for actual days employed.
Meanwhile his well-recognized abilities and sound judgment led to his appointment to many public responsibilities, both for his Church and for the Territory. The territorial legislature having approved a recommendation of Governor Young to locate the capital near the geographic center of the territory, Mr. Fox was appointed a member of a commission, of which the other members were Orson Pratt, Albert Carrington, and William C. Staines, to choose an appropriate site.
Accompanied by Governor Young and other notables the commission selected the present site of Fillmore, October, 1851, and Mr. Fox ran the lines for the future city. In 1852 by appointment of the Great Salt Lake Court, Mr. Fox was associated with Orson Spencer, and Albert Carrington in determining the qualifications of school teachers and granting certification.
In 1853 (February 14th) Jesse W. Fox in the presence of assembled citizens and Church authorities surveyed the site for the Salt Lake Temple, the starting point having been designated by President Young.
The following is quoted from the message of Governor Young, December 11th, 1855: "The northern line of Utah has also been established, during the present season, by Professors Orson Pratt and Albert Carrington, and the Territorial Surveyor-General, Jesse W. Fox, where it crosses the Malad, and by Professor Pratt and Surveyor-General Fox, where it crosses Green River and the emigrant road east of the last named stream. There was no accompanying party from Oregon in either of the above cases, as the information was mainly desirable for determining the jurisdiction of this Territory, at points where Oregon had no settlements within hundreds of miles."
In the spring of 1857 Mr. Fox was one of three engineers accompanying President Young and party to the Salmon River Mission at Fort Lincoln. Distances and directions were carefully made under the supervision of Mr. Fox using two brass Odometers. In a determined distance of 378.94 miles there was a variance of only one-half mile in the two measurements. In 1861 Mr. Fox headed a party that opened a road into the Uintah Country and made observations for use in directing colonization in that area.
With the completion of the Pacific railroads in 1869, Brigham Young and other Utah capitalists constructed the Utah Central Railroad to connect Salt Lake City with those lines. Jesse W. Fox, Sr. was employed as engineer in this enterprise. Mr. Fox is mentioned as a stockholder in the Utah Southern Railroad running from Salt Lake City through Provo to Juab, which he also served as Chief Engineer; in like capacity he was employed in the construction of the Utah Southern Extension Railroad to Frisco. In 1881 all three lines were consolidated and Mr. Fox became chief engineer of the system.
A word about the character of Jesse W. Fox, Sr. He was one of the most unselfish of men. With unusual opportunities to amass wealth through speculation in lands, he had no inclination to do so. A stepson, Mathiss F. Cowley, says: "I have heard my respected stepfather, Jesse W. Fox, say that he surveyed many of the cities and much of the land between Logan and St. George, a distance of over four-hundred miles, and the desire to select a town lot or a farm lot in any of the places for speculative purposes never entered his heart; and if anyone asked him to select one for him, he promptly refused, saying that those who owned the land should be the builders on it and that no one by his assistance should ever speculate at the expense of the poor Saints coming to the Valley to serve God and keep His commandments." His son, Jesse W. Fox, Jr., relates the following circumstance: "Father once became possessed of forty acres of land just west of the present town of Bountiful which cost him $15.00. My mother's uncle desired to purchase it and offered a cow valued at $30.00. Father said, You can have the land. It cost me but $15.00 and that is all I will charge you. He took the cow and paid Uncle Daniel Carter $15.00 to boot. The land for many years past has been worth $500.00 an acre."
A contemporary, Apostle Franklin D. Richards, one of the speakers at the funeral services of Jesse W. Fox, Sr. paid the following tribute: "I wish to remind my hearers that he was not only acquainted in Salt Lake City, but his profession as a surveyor, as the Surveyor General made him to be acquainted with every part of this Territory. I had occasion with others to call his services to our aid in locating the towns and cities in the north with which I was associated in a judicial capacity. He was a man who was careful of every brother's rights, and his compass was adjusted as nearly accurate as any man's as we have been able to find. I can not help but feel that if Brother Fox should still be a surveyor again, and should have to do with running off some of the stakes and boundaries and metes of the inheritances of the righteous, I would as leave he would run the chain and set the stakes for my inheritance as any man I know of."
Obituary
Jesse W. Fox, one of the Territory's pioneer citizens, passed peacefully from mortality at Bountiful Sunday morning, April 1st at 7:15, while on a brief visit to that place. Elder Fox was seventy-five years of age on Saturday last and in the afternoon of that day be went to Bountiful, and was at the house of his wife Sarah Elizabeth Foss, and their daughter Charlotte J. Fox. They did all In their power to relieve him of his sufferings, and realizing that he was in a very dangerous condition Sister Fox obtained his consent to send for his daughter Mrs. Georgiana and her husband Hyrum S. Young, and his son, Jesse W. Fox, Jr., who arrived in time for him to recognize and talk with them each. He passed away as if going to sleep, giving his son a farewell clasp of the hand as his spirit took its departure. His illness was very brief and the immediate cause of death was neuralgia of the heart. His body was brought to Salt Lake Sunday.
Jesse Williams Fox, son of Samuel and Lucy Williams Fox, was born on March 31st, 1819, near Adams Centre, Jefferson County, Now York. He was a tenth child of a family of ten sons and three daughters. He had an academic education and taught school in Jefferson County, New York, and at other places. He was the companion of James Keep in their boyhood. The latter being bound out, was oppressed, when young Fox's sympathies led him to aid him to go to Canada, which was the stepping stone to the renowned Keep's financial power.
He embraced the Gospel early In the forties and reached Nauvoo, Illinois, only in time to see the remains of the martyred Prophet and Patriarch, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, they having previously closed their eyes in death. From this time on he followed his favorite occupation, school teaching, with his co-religionist of the Church, be left Nauvoo and came to Winter Quarters, remaining there until the spring of 1847, when be was sent by President Young to his old home in New York on a mission in hope that the change of climate and scenes would recruit his health. It is not to be wondered that Brother Fox's health had failed, when we realize the scenes of want and suffering through which the people of the Church passed from the hour of the martyrdom to the spring of '47—when we realize the strong sympathies of Brother Fox. The facts are, although possessed of ample means for his own comfort and support, he shared with the afflicted people every thing he possessed and would have died had not the Lord prompted his servant to send him on a mission to New York. As it was, he did a good work, and baptized a number of his kindred and other prominent people into the Church.
In the spring of 1849 he again joined the Saints, journeying westward, at Council Bluffs, where on the 2nd of June of that year be was married to Eliza J. Gibbs by the late Apostle George A. Smith. He was organized in the company of Captain Gully's hundred and William Miller's fifty. When the train reached the Loup Fork they were attacked by the terrible scourge of cholera, which followed in the wake of the California gold seekers, many of whom died on the boats on the Missouri river and on the plains. A number of the Saints became victims of the scourge, among the rest Captain Gully, and were buried on the east side of the river. The company was delayed several days at this point on account of high water, and was only delivered from their peril by the hand of a kind Providence. They had no means of ferrying, while the dread disease was decimating their ranks; they accordingly gave themselves to fasting and prayer, when, to use Brother Fox's own language, the power of God was as manifest in their deliverance as was that wherein ancient Israel was led with safety through their perils in the Red Sea, for a roadway was thrown up during the night, formed of the shifting sands, which gave them safe passage on their way. It was remarkable how the cholera was stayed in its ravages in answer to their prayers.
On reaching the valley Brother Fox aided in the surveys of the city and surrounding settlements, and located for one year at Manti, Sanpete county, where he taught school. Returning to this city he resumed his occupation of surveyor and it was he who surveyed the site and set the stakes for the Salt Lake Temple, as well as for others, afterwards built. He enrolled in the Utah militia and became captain of a company of infantry, minute men; being promoted, obtained several commissions, the last being a position on the staff of the late Lieutenant General Daniel H. Wells. He was elected by the Legislative Assembly Territorial surveyor general of Utah, which office he held for many years until it was discontinued and he distributed the papers to the several counties. He located and surveyed the principal canals of this county and Territory and was appointed chief engineer of the Utah Central and Southern railroads.
He has been an active member in the Church and of late years filled the station of High Councilor of the Salt Lake Stake and possessed the love of his acquaintances. The unfortunate who knew him always found sympathy, and the distressed obtained relief if it was in his power to relieve them. Among those whom he taught in the school room he was looked upon with the most sincere affection. As an illustration, the terrible Black Hawk chief who made war upon our settlements in the southeast part of our Territory in the sixties— Brother Fox, in his travels, had occupation to pass through his camp and was recognized by the chief, who had been a pupil of his when a lad in Manti. Instead of destroying him, (as he was in the habit of killing every white man that ventured within his lines), he ordered that his old teacher be not only permitted to continue his journey unharmed, but gave him escort to a point of safety.
In the death of Elder Jesse Williams Fox our people have sustained a serious loss, and the poor and the afflicted of our community or of any other class will feel the loss in his absence as keenly as his nearest kindred. He is to be congratulated upon his release from a life of continued toil amid scenes, of want and suffering—he having been accustomed to searching out and relieving the needy and afflicted—in that he has now been permitted to enter into the paradise of God and rejoin his loved wife Eliza and their children and friends who have gone before, assured, if any one is to be favored on account of a well-spent life, he will be one that will partake of God's eternal favor.1
Notes…
Jesse W. Fox laid out the original first nine blocks in Mendon, shown above, also the fort plat. This was in 1859 and Robert Sweeten and Isaac Sorensen were among the young men who assisted him.
- The Deseret Weekly, Volume 48, page 490.