Isaac Willard Fox
Glass dealer, Chicago merchant, inventor and Lake Zurich landowner — a man who appears in the records as often as “I. Willard Fox” as by the name the village remembers.
From the glassworks of New York
Isaac Willard Fox was born on November 6, 1821, according to the local biographical account later published in the Daily Herald. The legal record establishes his death on August 29, 1884. He is often called Isaac W. Fox in local history, but the contemporary commercial and legal record frequently uses I. Willard Fox. Recognizing those forms as the same person has been essential to following him between New York, Chicago and Lake Zurich.
The best-documented beginning of his working life is in glass manufacture. Isaac and his brother Samuel H. Fox had been partners in New York. Isaac sold his interest to another brother, Henry W. Fox; Samuel and Henry continued the business as Fox & Co. Isaac moved to Illinois and later sold paints, oils and window glass in Chicago, including glass supplied by the family firm. The business relationship became the source of both opportunity and an exceptionally long financial dispute.
Histories of the New York glass industry connect the family to Sand Lake and Durhamville, with Dunbarton also appearing in the commercial record. Secondary research identifies Isaac Bristol Fox as father of the glassmaking brothers and places Albert R. Fox in the larger family enterprise.
Durhamville & Dunbarton Glass Works, I. Willard Fox. 203 Lake.Edwards' Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1866 · Newberry Library [S72]
That directory line is a firm anchor. So is the property at 376 North La Salle Street named in the court's 1869 agreement. An earlier suggestion that Fox was at 82 North La Salle through 1865–1871 has not been verified and is not used here.
The purchase that moves the story back
Entry 42 on page 9 of the 1891 title abstract summarizes a warranty deed from Charles J. Starr and Sarah A. Starr to I. Willard Fox, recorded April 28, 1857 in Volume 27 of Deeds, page 228, for $8,600. The property spans parts of Sections 17, 18 and 20 in Township 43 North, Range 10 East — about 535 acres.
Its legal description includes the west half of lakeshore land in the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 20, divided by a north–south line running to the lake — a far more specific early link to the later Nestlerest vicinity than the phrase “Lake Zurich farm” alone.
A purchase-money mortgage back to Starr followed, payable January 1, 1861 at seven percent. The transcription of the abstract dates both instruments April 13, 1857; an earlier reading of the deed heading as April 18 should be rechecked against the photograph, and the original deed in Volume 27 will settle it.
A probable house date — not yet a building contract
The traditional date for the surviving house is about 1859. The Ela Historical Society attributes the Nestlerest house to Isaac Fox in the late 1850s, and at the 2009 Village hearing the building was described as “thought to have been built in 1859.”
The 1861 Hale & Truesdell map independently labels an I. W. Fox tract immediately south of the lake. These sources fit together well — but no construction contract, contemporary building notice or dated improvement assessment has yet been found.
The useful next step is a measured overlay of the historical maps, recorded plats and modern survey. Try the overlay on the map →
The Fox family
The legal record names Isaac and Eleanor's six children twice — in the 1887 Supreme Court proceeding and in the abstract's account of the 1885 master's deed. Select anyone in the tree to read what the evidence says.
A supplied 1870 census transcription describes Isaac, Eleanor and the six children as one household, but the original schedule has not been inspected. Genealogy-site details are search leads, not verified facts.
An acre for a schoolhouse and a town house
One of Fox's most tangible civic acts was a joint conveyance with Eleanor: a warranty deed, recorded May 22, 1865 in Volume 38 of Deeds, page 305, for a consideration of $5, to the Trustees of Schools of Township 43 North, Range 10 East.
The description begins 4 chains 85 links east of the northwest corner of the northeast quarter of Section 20 and runs 3 chains 16 links east and 3 chains 17 links south — about one acre. Its uses were a schoolhouse site for District 13 and a town-house site for the township. The trustees were to build and keep a substantial fence, and the land would revert if it ceased to be used for those purposes.
We plotted it.
Measured from the federal survey corner of Section 20, the deed's chains and links land squarely on 95 East Main Street — the old Ela Town Hall, today the Ela Historical Society museum, where school use was reported until 1914.
Isaac Fox School, which opened in 1993, preserves his name. Fox is best called an early landowner, businessman and civic benefactor; he died twelve years before Lake Zurich's 1896 incorporation. The village's first president was his son-in-law, Frank P. Clark.
Live satellite view. Gold outline: the 1865 acre, plotted from the abstract's legal description against the PLSS grid. Approximate.
An inventor amid the struggle
Isaac's surviving record is not only one of debt. In 1872 a patent for an Improvement in Gas-Generators was issued to Isaac Willard Fox and David H. Irland, both of Chicago. The full name and city make this a strong identification with the businessman in this story.
The apparatus combined a furnace and retort with condensers, a purifier and a gas holder. One aim was to remove moisture before gas reached a building's pipes and burners; another allowed a small amount of non-freezing liquid to be used in winter. It concerns manufactured fuel gas, not electricity.
The patent documents an invention and its claims. It does not show that a machine was built, sold, or installed at the Lake Zurich house.
The drawing sheets carry Fox's own signature as inventor — “I. Willard Fox.”
A death in the middle of the case
A month after a lower court found a much smaller debt and offered a way to redeem the farm, Isaac Willard Fox died. His will left Eleanor an interest for her lifetime, with the six children taking the remainder. The evidence establishes the date of death, but not the cause or a verified burial place.
What happened to the farm next — the Supreme Court's reversal and the foreclosure of 1891 — is the subject of the next chapter.