Josiah Fox

About the Book

For two hundred years historians have debated the role Josiah Fox played in the design of the USS Constitution. This biography records what he had to say about the situation, his experiences as a naval constructor during the Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison administrations, and expels the idea that Joshua Humphreys alone designed the first frigates built by the United Sates government.

In addition it explores his early life in England and a return visit forty years later; the frictions generated by his Quaker attitudes in this country as well as in England; and the life of a naturalized American citizen in Philadelphia, Norfolk, Washington, D. C., and the Ohio River valley.

Included is his disownment by the Philadelphia Monthly Meeting and his involvement in the Hicksite Separation that occurred at Mount Pleasant, Ohio. Forty years of correspondence with his brothers and sisters in England provide a glimpse into family life in the early nineteenth-century.

About the Author

Merle Westlake has contributed articles to The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, The American Neptune and numerous architectural journals. He holds a Bachelors degree in architecture from the Carnegie Institute of Technology and a Master of Architecture and Urban Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He is an Academician at the National Academy of Art and a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects. He lives with his wife in Lexington, Massachusetts.