Santa Clara County Biographies


This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


B. S. FOX
 
            Mr. B. S. Fox, who, as we have stated, came out in 1852 with the 
nursery stock of Commodore Stockton, severed his connection with the commodore 
the next year, and established a nursery of his own on the Milpitas road.  This 
is now known as the �Santa Clara Valley Nurseries and Botanical Gardens.�  He 
had with him Thomas Egan, and the nurseries were first known as B. S. Fox�s 
Nurseries.  At first there were one hundred and twenty-six acres, and it was the 
largest tract devoted to this business on the coast; the acreage was still 
further increased by the acquisition of more land, until it contained over two 
hundred acres.  Mr. Fox was an Irishman by birth, and a thorough botanist.  When 
he first came to America he procured an engagement with Charles Hovey, the 
well-known nurseryman of Cambridge, Massachusetts.  When Commodore Stockton was 
looking for a competent man to take charge of his California nursery, Mr. Fox 
was recommended to him, and was engaged for the position.  This was a fortunate 
circumstance for Santa Clara County.  He was not only a pioneer fruit man, but a 
man of great scientific knowledge, and an untiring student.  To his experiments 
we owe three of the finest varieties of pears now cultivated, the P. Barry, the 
B. S. Fox, and the Colonel Wilder, which have been place in the front rank by 
the opinions of the leading pomologists of America.  His magnificent orchard was 
developed from the nursery, and was not planted so much for growing fruit for 
profit as to test the varieties which he was offering for sale.  To his 
enthusiasm Santa Clara County owes much of her early horticultural development.  
Mr. Fox died in July, 1881, at Council Bluffs, Iowa, while on his way to visit 
his early home.  His nurseries were left to his nephew, R. D. Fox, a 
biographical sketch of whom appears in this book, and who has since conducted 
the business with an intelligence that has maintained the reputation it attained 
under the administration of his uncle.
 
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, 
Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 
1888.
Pg. 172-173
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler