FOX, Charles William - Putnam

The three children of the late Charles William Fox living in this city and the son who is in Chicago, sometimes talk of the property and money that should have come into their family, because of their Cherokee Indian great grandmother, Jennie Hale, who died at the age of 120 years back in Virginia. Members of her tribe, who were and are, among the aristocrats of the aboriginal inhabits of North America had the southeast area of NA as their habitat, from the Atlantic coast up into the Blue Ridge mountains and down into the everglades of Florida but they were finally moved by the government to Oklahoma and settled on a reservation out on the plains. The land owned by some of them developed into a great oil field, and the Indians owning those tracts became immensely wealthy. By reason of their full-blooded Cherokee great grandmother, the Fox family, then residents of Putnam County were assured they were entitled to an allocation of lands and money from the government’s division of land, in the southwest. They filed a claim for their share, which they told, should be $32,000 in cash and 1,1000 (sic) – 1,000?  11,000?) acres of Oklahoma land, possibly in the oil region, but the matter was handled by a man who as it developed, knew nothing about the correct procedure and the government finally put a time-limit on such claims – 1907 which stopped the prosecution of the claim of the Fox family.  However, two of the chiefs of the Cherokees at the time the claim was on file, John R. Ross and John Gouro, told the Fox family they remembered their great grandmother back in Virginia and could swear to their right to the land and money. Jennie Hale, the Cherokee, was overlooked, in some manner when the federal troops escorted the tribe out of eastern US to Oklahoma, and she found herself, then a young woman, without a relative or Indian friend. She finally married a colored man, but the influence of her racial characteristics, in a physical way, are quite observable in the great grandchildren, who live here. These three Greencastle descendants are Gertrude and Carrie Fox, and Mrs. Lucy Howard. Their brother, John lives in Chicago.  Their father, Charles William Fox, and their mother were married in Virginia after the Civil war, under the auspices of the Freedmen’s Bureau of the US government, although they had been married before. The government required the remarriage of all who had been in slavery. That couple after the birth of their three sons in Virginia, came to Putnam County and Miss Carrie Fox this morning recalled that the first resident of this community with whom their parents became acquainted was Dr. EB Evans. They lived in town part of the time and for some time occupied an old brick house on the former Hammond farm west of the city before acquiring their own farm.  Mr. Fox was an industrious man. He died May 31, 1921, his wife having passed away prior to that date. Some of the Fox children attended the former Black school house west of town during the 80s and they are among the most loyal of the alumni of that school, being active in the reunions of the alumni.