Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
‘Larger than life’ constable Wilson Fox dies
Was part of Chester County law enforcement for 50 years
Wilson Fox would not want you to read this. Fox, the longtime state constable, former radio newscaster, and feisty institution steeped in the world of Chester County law enforcement in the late 20th century – more formally known as J. Wilson Fox Jr. – died Saturday, May 26. He was 88.
His death was confirmed by his daughter, Dale Conover, who worked alongside him for the last decade of his life, transporting prisoners and serving court warrants, tasks he continued until just a few weeks before his death.
But until now, no record has appeared in public of his passing. He had long ago declared to those who knew him that as much as he loved the Daily Local News and newspapers like it, and read
them every day, no formal obituary should ever appear in those pages after he died. No memorial service should be held, no funeral rites performed. Though a figure of some historic significance and a character in hundreds of true-to-life stories, he wanted no part of those outward rituals.
“Who wants to sit around and mourn over a dead body?” said Dawson R. Muth, his friend and protege, on Friday, quoting Fox. “If you are going to have some remembrance for me, do it while I’m alive, not after I’ve passed away.”
But at the risk of offending him with their thoughts on his life, Muth and Conover spoke about him on Friday, recalling the part he played in the county community for more than 50 years.
“Wilson was a bold, brash individual,” said Muth.” He was a Chester County character and almost a legend. He was magnanimous, spoke in a gravelly voice, and was ubiquitous in the world of our county.”
“He never wanted glory,” said Conover, even though his face was seen in dozens of newspaper photographs as he escorted one prisoner after another in and out of local courthouses, and at one point was known as “Mr. News” for his daily broadcasts on WCOJ-AM radio. “He did what he did because he loved it. He was a behind-the-scenes kind of person.”
As a state constable, Fox was instrumental in increasing the activity of those who are appointed or elected to the office in the county, positions used by the courts to handle the important but sometimes mundane tasks that keep the system running efficiently. In establishing the practice of transporting criminal defendants from the county prison to local district courts, Fox and his fellow state constables freed up police officers from the back-and-forth that kept them away from other public safety duties.
He also served as a reliable ombudsman for new constables, dispensing his knowledge of the system whenever asked. Muth recalls that immediately after he was sworn in as a deputy constable for East Bradford in 1979 at the young age of 19, he asked what his first step should be. “You’ve got to go see Wilson Fox,” came the answer.
Fox also unwittingly played a role in changing the state’s landlord-tenant “Distress and Distraint Law,” Muth said. Dating back to the 1700’s, landlords had legal authority to use constables to enforce evictions, giving them the power to confiscate and then sell furniture and other property belonging to tenants who had gotten behind on their rent. Constables like Fox would enter the apartments without permission and leave behind only a notice of “distraint” on the door.
So prodigious was Fox at cleaning out the apartments of late-paying tenants at the former DevonStrafford Apartments complex in Tredyffrin that Villanova students who lived there once hung a banner from one of the buildings asking, “Is Wilson Fox really Superman?” Muth recalled. The practice ended in 1972 when a tenant named Susan Gross, from Newlin, sued over the procedure and had it declared unconstitutional. Fox was the defendant.
But Fox did not enter the world of Chester County determined to be an agent of the court. He and his late wife, Marie C. Fox, moved to the county from New Jersey in 1952, and Fox set up shop as a Fuller Brush salesman, milk truck driver, Curtis Candy Co. representative, school bus driver, and, most notably, newscaster on WCOJ, at the time the county’s pre-eminent radio station. He first worked at the station’s headquarters in West Brandywine, then later moved to studios in West Chester, first at the Mansion House Hotel and later in a brick storefront on West Market Street.
In that capacity as a newsman, Fox came to know all the movers and shakers in the county in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, covering police news, courts, and county government, sometimes even filing reports from the Devon Horse Show, said Conover. He also wrote news stories for both the Daily Local News and the Coatesville Record as a paid correspondent, or “stringer.”
At some point, Fox noticed that West Chester police were not serving warrants for unpaid parking tickets, simply dropping them in a box where they sat uncollected, Conover said. “My dad said, ‘I could find some way to serve them.’” He was given the task after being deputized as a constable in East Goshen, and later became an elected constable in Newlin, where he and his family lived on seven acres along the West Branch of the Brandywine Creek.
His warrants work grew until he could no longer split time as a radio host, so he left that position and joined the constable force full-time.
“He lived for his job,” Conover said. “He loved it. He did it 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
“When you rode with Wilson, you had to get used to him steering the wheel, smoking a cigarette, drinking a cup of coffee, and shuffling through all the warrants on his dashboard,” renumbered Muth. He worked for courts across the county, but mostly in the West Chester area. Along the way he played a supporting role in some of the most high-profile criminal cases in county history, including the infamous Johnston Brothers Gang from the 1970’s and 1980’s.
Conover said that once Fox was told by a law enforcement official that should he come under attack while transporting a member of the murderous gang for a court appearance by their confederates, he should ignore the ambushers. “Shoot (the Johnstons) first,” he was told. He did not have to.
Fox was born in Chester, Delaware County, in 1929 to John Wilson Sr. and Eleanor Gladys Fox, the second of four children. His father worked as a supervisor at the Sun Oil Co., and was slowly poisoned by the toxic chemicals he worked around. He died when Fox was 8.
His mother decided she could not raise all four children by herself, so she sent Fox to Girard College in Philadelphia, the school and home for parentless boys. He met his wife at a dance given at the Ellis Girls School in Newtown Square, a home for fatherless girls where his youngest sister had been sent.
He is survived by Conover, of Newlin, and his daughter Dawn Ficca of Coatesville; three grandchildren; and six greatgrandchildren; he was preceded in death by his wife and sisters, Rose, June, and Renee.
“Wilson was one of those people who you either loved him or you didn’t,” said Muth. “He was gruff, and he said what was on his mind. He really didn’t care if you were offended by him. But he was larger than life.”