G.R. Fox Shotgun

[eightbore]

When were the G.R. Fox shotguns made and where was the company located? Thanks

[DGKaas]

Bill- G(eorge) H. Fox American Arms Co swing out action doubles 1879-184 ish...Boston address but I think they were really made in Chicopee Falls, MA-Don

[Researcher]

Don't know of any G.R. Fox guns. Post some pictures of this find.

George H. Fox and the American Arms Co. built the side-swing Fox patented doubles in Boston in the 1870s and 80s. I don't find any link to Chicopee Falls in the definative article on American Arms Co. by Elliot L. Minor, assistant curator of the NRA Museum, in the April 1970, The American Rifleman. There have been unsubstantiated rumors of a move by the company to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and an actual move to premisis in Bluffton, Alabama. However, when George H. Fox died on August 3, 1901, there was still gun parts and machinery in Boston. By November the machinery was sold to Marlin. There is also a good article on the Fox side-swing hammer doubles in The Double Gun Journal, Volume Five, Issue 4, Winter 1994, by William M. Furnish and James A. Nelson.

[eightbore]

My error. I found an envelope addressed to G.R. Fox in Norristown, PA and thought it sounded like the side swing gunmaker. Dave, do you know of any G.R. Fox connected to Ansley?

[Researcher]

There was an elderly son of Ansley's half-brother, Raphael, in a nursing home in Ellicott City some years back that Allgood was trying to get some info out of, but as I recall the Gent was a bit too far gone with the big A. There were Georges in Ansley's ancestry. His Uncle, George Kilgor Fox, Jr., was a hero in Loudoun County, Virginia. At the outbreak of the Northern War of Aggression, George K. Fox, Jr. took three wagonloads of the county records and hid out in the montains beyond Lynchburg. Union forces were notorious for destroying records at county courthouses throughout the south. Hence after the war George returned with the records and the carpetbaggers didn't get a foothold in Loudoun County.

Many years ago I got a Baltimore Arms Co. envelope addressed to an Ida M. Fox in Kansas City, MO, but I was never able to make a connection to Ansley.

[MARSHFELLOW]

Researcher & Eightbore,

You guys really keep coming up with really neat historical stuff....wow.

tjw