William S. Box was born 8 April 1804 in South Carolina.  He married Milena Palmer on the 18 December 1831 in Blount County, Alabama.
 

In 1835, William, his father, John M. Box, and his brothers received grants for land in what are now Cherokee and Houston Counties.  Fort Box was built to protect the Box family.  The creek nearby is known as Box Creek.
 

William’s land was seven miles northwest from the fort.  He did not venture on his own land until 1839 due to the Indians.
 

William had seven children by Milena: Sarah Elizabeth Dendy (1834), John Henderson (1836), Margaret E. Russell (1838), William Henry (1840), Soloman Franklin (1842), Annie Ball Isaacs (1845) and Sam (1851).  By his third wife, Rebecca Hassell, he had two children, Thomas Benton (1860) and Alabama Rebecca Dockray (1862).
 

William served his community in several ways: as Justice of the Peace in 1837, as commissioned Magistrate in 1838, and he served on the commission to select the site of the Cherokee, County seat in 1846.  William S. Box died in 1870 in Cherokee County, Texas.

Mary Anne Dendy Dunn, Descendant