The Webmaster of this site (Thomas E. Foulks) is a great-grandson of Charles S. Foulks. This is a fictionalized biography of Charley. Although based on fact, much of it is sheer speculation.

The Ohio River Valley winter of 1864 had been a tough one, and Charley Foulks knew he would have a long, hard-working spring. The winter wheat crop in the Columbiana County area was almost a total failure from winter-kill, and he had plowed under much of it to plant oats and some potatoes at his place.

Worse yet, he had his father's Meigs County farm property to worry about, as well. So, on May 15, 1864, he was packing clothing and tools to make the 160-mile downriver trip from the Columbiana County farm to Meigs County. There, he hoped, the winter had been less harsh, and he could put in some corn and plant potatoes. This year, thankfully, he also did not need to make the trip to Georgetown (another 150 miles) to check the oil well. As his father had expected, it had played itself out.

He would be traveling alone, wife Hattie and the children to join him later, during September's harvest season. His sons, two-year-old Albert and infant James Morgan were far too young to help, while daughters Margaret, Lizzie and Nancy were more useful helping Hattie at home. Letitia seemed to be hitting it off with that Gray youngster who had been too young for Civil War service.

Charley -- Charles Sydney Foulks -- had been too old, at 43, for the war between the States. His brothers, James Morgan and Albert Gallatin had not been, so they were on the battlefields. His brother Daniel was just completing training as a physician, a skill more valuable than soldiering...or farming. That's why Charley, oldest son of Columbiana County scion Charles Morgan Foulks, was again packing his gear for a long journey. His father, now 66, could still "ride the river" making various entrepreneurial "deals" -- but he had only one son at home to follow up on them.

Like the oil well. No one quite remembered when Charles Morgan -- Morg, as friends called him -- had gained an interest in it, but it had become a gusher for its era. Morg wrote his sister Minerva, in 1862, that the well was 600 feet deep and flowing "of itself" 15 to 18 barrels of "pure oil" a day. He had gone to see it for himself. But the flow subsided, until the amount of oil gained was not worth the cost of handling it...especially when the men necessary for such an enterprise were all off to war.

Morg's ability as an entrepreneur never really surprised Charley. He recalled when his father, in 1851, had decided to build a pottery, moving into an industry that was just beginning to flourish in the New Liverpool, Ohio, area. Morg and his partner knew nothing about pottery, but they hired good people, who did. The pottery thrived for several years, Morg eventually selling his interest; presumably, at a profit. Later, better, more efficient potteries came online, and Morg's original Sprucevale Pottery eventually failed. He paid only $400 to buy the property and land back, at an 1860 sheriff's sale. That site is now a historical landmark in the area.

Charley greatly admired Morg. His father, once the best-known school teacher of the area (who held classes in a schoolhouse where the McGuffey readers had their birth), was one of the most respected men of the county's St. Clair Township. Three times a county commissioner, he was also a township trustee, and regarded by many as their informal legal advisor. Morg had been Charley's teacher, as well, and the literacy the father was able impart shows easily in the many letters the father and his sons exchanged during the Civil War.

Morg had his own home, separate from the various farm properties. It was the Calcutta homestead of the community's founder, William Foulks (his father), who had built a two-story ten-room log house with a porch that ran the length of the house, on Sprucevale Road.

Willingly, Charley handled family responsibilities -- including the work and travel that went with them. Morg had to have somebody to help, and he was the eldest son. Charley was the one to worry about the land in Meigs County, as well as Gallia, Vinton and Richland Counties, as his father helped provide the entrepreneurial spirit of turning frontiers into civilized communities. He knew things would change when the war ended.

But they didn't. James Morgan was medically discharged; the results of dysentery fever sending him to the county's insane asylum. Daniel - long ago nicknamed "Doc" - followed his ambitions to become a physician. (Curiously, Daniel was paid a $50 bounty to retrieve James after an escape from the county home. James later escaped again, never to be heard from afterward.) Albert had been away from farm life during his Civil War service, and did not want to return to it -- he chose to practice law, as well as become a merchant, in Calcutta.

To outsiders, Charley was Morg's right-hand. But also -- behind his back -- known as Morg's best servant, his "go-fer." What father wanted, son did. But the stabilization of society after the war at least meant the traveling was less, as Charley, Harriet and the kids moved into the prosperous farm his father owned jointly with other investors. Known as the Cooley Farm, it was only one of many properties in the county in which Morg held a financial interest.

Charley was 51 when Morg died, in 1872. As expected, Charley inherited his father's interest in the farm. Morg, however, still trying to manage the affairs of his children even after death, provided that Charley must pay his sister Elizabeth $200 to gain the inheritance. (The Charles Morgan Foulks will has several instances of such post-death macro-management.)

That was a shock, Elizabeth had long since moved with her husband back to Pennsylvania. (Her need for the $200, is lost in history. But $200 was not pocket cash in that era).

After thinking about it for several weeks, and with Harriett reminding him land was cheap in Indiana (where her parents, James and Rebecca Johnson, had moved years earlier), Charley rebelled. Gathering every dollar he could, Harriet and he began packing. Even though many considered him an old-timer, Charley was quite familiar with moving around -- and it was time to make a move for himself. Simply put, he had taken enough orders from Morg -- one from beyond the grave, was one too many.

Early in 1873, splitting from all the Foulks links of Ohio, they moved to Indiana, settling on a farm at Coverdale and County Line Roads, in Allen County.

Did Elizabeth get her $200? Well, Charley left the farm...

[All facts related to dates, locations, relationships are as accurate as can be ascertained. Emotions and motivations are purely fictional. But, plausible. Factually, Elizabeth may have received the money -- but the migration of Charles S. Foulks and his family to Indiana, less than a year after his father's death, is fact. Why, we don't know. But, put yourself in Charley's shoes....]

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