The Fox family home in Santiago Township, Sherburne County, began with an original 1876 structure that remained part of the house until its sale in 1968. Herbert Maximilian Fox was born in England in 1849, immigrated to Canada at age 16, and three years later came to Clinton Lake Township, now Palmer Township, in Sherburne County. After working for another Englishman and then at the Biggerstaff family's farm in Haven Township, he had saved enough by 1878 to buy 160 acres and a house in Santiago Township. In 1879, H. M. Fox married Eleanor Biggerstaff, and they moved into the house; their son John was born two years later. In 1917, John married Nellie Bartholomew, who joined the household, and they had two sons, William and Irvin. After Eleanor died in 1923, John became head of the household. Over the years, the family added land around the original farm. H. M. Fox died in 1940 at age 91, and ownership passed to John; after John's death in 1961, the 557-acre farm passed to his sons. Herbert Maximilian Fox was also a prominent community member, serving as a U.S. Census enumerator in 1880 and as Santiago Township's tax assessor during the 1880s and 1890s. In 1892, a local newspaper reported that in his tenth year assessing Santiago, the township's total valuation had risen from about $12,000 in his first year to more than $68,000. The farm stood on land selected for the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge, created in 1965, and the family had to sell their home to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1968, they moved off the farm, ending the Fox family's ninety-year occupation of the land. The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and was later moved to the Sherburne County Historical Society.