(Source: “As Time Goes By”, Odebolt, Iowa 1877-1977,
printed by The Odebolt Chronicle May, 1977)
Marshall Fox bought his land located east of
Odebolt in Section 29, Clinton Township, in 1874 for five dollars and
fifty-cents an acre.
Marshall D. Fox, son of Samuel S., and Dorothy (Bullock) Fox was born May 7, 1842 in a log house in Trumbull County, Ohio. He was baptized in the Mississippi River. In 1857 he and his parents moved to Clinton County, Iowa. Marshall served nine months in the Civil War. He was a member of the army that conducted the siege and capture of Atlanta and also fought at Jonesboro, Georgia.
After the war he returned to Clinton County, Iowa and in 1867 he married Lydia F. Bennet.
Many Clinton County people were talking of the newer and cheaper lands to be had in Sac County and it was only natural that a number should become permanent settlers in Sac County. Marshall D. Fox was among the first to settle in Clinton Township, Sac County. He arrived March 27, 1874, preceding his wife, who joined him the following May, after he had finished erecting a one and one-half storied house, sixteen by twenty-four feet in size. On October 3, 1874 a fire burned the house and all their belongings. A lumber man of Clinton County, who was a good friend of Marshall's, furnished him with lumber to rebuild and by November 3rd of the same year the new home and other buildings were completed. The lumber for this second house was hauled by horse and wagon from Vail, Iowa, a distance of twenty miles, the nearest railway station.
History records that Marshall Fox built the third house in Clinton Township and took a prominent part in the organization and naming of the Township. In 1875 he and N.B. Umbarger went to Sac City and presented a petition to the county officers praying for a separate Township organization. This was granted and the county auditor suggested the older settler of the two give the township its name. Whereupon Mr. Fox bestowed the name "Clinton" in memory of his old home county.
Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Fox were parents of six children: Flora (Mrs. Thomas); Chauncey B.; Jessie (Mrs. Carpenter); Fannie (Mrs. Quirk); Harry and Howard.
Harry B. Fox was born 1878 and married Lydie C. Buehler in 1900. They were parents of Eugene Marshall, Paul George, and Elinor Elaine.
Paul George Fox was born Dec 1907. He married Ferne Bappe in 1934. [Information on more recent generations has been removed.]
Mr. and Mrs. Paul Fox are [1977] living on and are owners of the farm which his grandfather first purchased over one hundred years ago.
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(Click above photos for enlargements)
(Transcribed by Kim Tholl, Dec.2002. Photos scanned by B. Horak)
