John was baptised as a FOXON. John, Jenefer and family came to the Swan River Colony under the ill-fated scheme aboard the Gilmore, arriving on 15 December 1829. Like many other pioneer families they encountered terrible hardship and tragedy, but endured. On 16 February 1830 Jenefer (Jane) died 13 April 1830 at Clarence as a result of childbirth with their fifth child. In vain the family endeavoured to keep the child alive but he succumbed to dysentery at the age of three months and was also buried at Clarence. John remarried Mary Ann Hokin 22 May 1833, a widow whose husband had been drowned eighteen months earlier in a boating accident on the Swan River. This union was of very short duration as John was convicted with several others of having plundered the wreck Cumberland and was transported to Van Diemens Land per the government schooner 'Ellen' on 25 March 1835. He died in the Launceston hospital and was buried on 28 October 1839 having served four and a half years of his seven year sentence. In spite of these tragic events the rest of the family ultimately prospered. The brothers became ship-owners, trading round the coast also to Singapore and Mauritius and also acquired numerous properties in and around Fremantle. Another blow was dealt when James was drowned in a shipwreck just off the port in 1848. John (Jnr) and his wife, Elizabeth (nee Cooper) at one time owned 4,000 acres and the homestead known as Ravenswood Hall on the Murray River between Mandurah and Pinjarra. They also owned the Albert Hotel (latterly known as the Southern Cross & Commercial) in Fremantle. It was here on 10 March 1871 that the first Council meeting was held. John was a member of the earlier Town Trust and had served five terms as Chairman. Jane married Henry Gray a merchant of Greenough and Geraldton in Perth on 22 August 1843.