A Foster Saga
The history contained here is not about the most prominent or prolific branch of the tangled forest that is the Foster family. However these are My Fosters and from the beginning of my search to put the story together
This branch of the Foster family that is known to have spread from John Foster who in 1785 purchased land on Sandy Run, near Grindal Shoals in Union County, South Carolina. The story begins before that, probably via Virginia to England then Flanders but those bridges are yet to be firmly constructed. For now we have John Foster.
The last will and testament of John Foster tells us plainly the names of his sons. Its construction tells us there are other unnamed children and memorializes a son that presceded him in death.
In his will John Foster specified his personal property to be given to his wife for her life time and then divided equally between his children with the exceptions of his sons Frederick, John, Jared Thomas.
Then after deducting 70 acres previously deeded to son Thomas, John Foster decrees one third of his land to his grandson Jeremiah, the son of Frederick, another third to children of son John M. and one third to the children of Jared.
That grandson Jeremiah is specified by name whereas all other grandchildren are identified through their fathers is the likely owing to a special fondness in that young Jeremiah is the name sake of deceased elder son. Jeremiah and Frederick Foster were enlisted in Means’ 1st SC Militia during War of 1812 where service records indicate Jeremiah died in hospital at Hadrell’s point, a garrison in defense of Charleston, January 15 1815, virtually as the war was ending. Frederick named his first son after his departed brother.
As for the other unnamed children we can thank the family historians who have tracked the Hames and Gault families.
Evidence recorded in the Hames family histories affirms that Nancy Foster, daughter of John Foster and Mary McElfresh was born in Virginia became the wife of Sandy Run neighbor Edmond Hames.
Correspondence from the day reveals that Mary McElfresh was called Molly and that she was the sister of Susannah Jasper and Massey Fitch, both connected to families that settled in the same region of Union County.
Gault family genealogies have daughter Mary (Polly) Foster married to Henry Gault, also a neighbor at Grindal Shoals.
That pioneers like John Foster and his related families settled in a place like Grindal Shoals was not unique. Now that the War of Independence was over families all across the former colonies were on the move taming land seceded by Indians and building new lives on lands that had just been wrestled from the British crown.
Places like the once that became known as Grindal Shoals had been important from prehistoric times because of it offered a place the Pacolet river could be forded. At the time of the Revolution, the community which had sprung up there became just as important for the Patriot and British armies as they had been to the native hunting parties for thousands of years before.
Of the countless pioneer communities sprung up as the country populated, some thrived and endure until today. Others, like Grindal Shoals, played their part in history and then receded into the scrub brush.
Second Generation
Frederick and Jared Foster left for Tennessee when new Cherokee lands became available. John M. may have practiced law and left for Kentucky with some of his Jasper kin but if he did, he returned and farmed near Sandy Run where his children fought wars and intermarried throughout the community.
Thomas sold the land he received from his father in 1835 and vanished.
Nancy Hames and her family rose to prominence and wealth and their offspring are well known pillars of the community in Union County to this day.
Little is known of Mary.
In Tennessee, Frederick Foster owned land in Bradley County and had a slew of daughters to go with along with his son Jeremiah who farmed adjoining lands.
Jared seemed to do less well and it appears he did not become a land owner in Tennessee. He would later claim land in Missouri due to his service with Major Lauderdale as a Tennessee Volunteer during the controversial Seminole Removal.
Tennessee census records from 18xx show his family to consist of wife Dorcus Moseley, Andrew J. , Elizabeth, Mary Lucinda J. more more more.
Whether Dorcus Moseley was his first wife remains a question as evidence suggests that besides the young children with them in XXXX, elder sons John and Dan may have been farming nearby.
One of Frederick’s daughters married into the neighboring Haggard family ancestor to singer Merle Haggard. Jared’s daughter Elisabeth appears to have befriended and possibly infleuenced by a neighbor girl who grew up to be infamous female outlaw Belle Star.
By 185X the family moved again. West of course. Son Francis Marion was born in XXXX Arkansas. By 185X Jared excercised his right to claim land in reward for his Tennessee Volunteer service and he selected a parcel in Jasper county MO. Brother Frederick and his family including several families who had married his daughters settled in Lawrence County just to the east.
The farm land was good -he politics were bad. Jasper and Lawrence Counties were embroiled in the border strife caused by popular vote as to slavery or not for Kansas and Nebraska. Bleeding Kansas was pitting neighbor against neighbor in guerilla warfare that spawned outlaw bands like the James and Younger gangs.
Once war finally erupted, several of of Frederick’s sons in law served with the Confederate Missouri Home Guard.
Jared and his family moved to Marmaton Kansas and Andrew J. enlisted in the Union 2nd Kansas Battery of Light Artillery. As a driver serving with the battery, Private Andrew J. Foster made several marches back into SW Missouri. Records show the battery’s first ever action ourside Fort Scott was to march on a road which would have taken him right past the land they had lived on in Jasper Co. MO. He later told his grandson that he werved at Honey Springs (Indian Territory – now Oklahoma) and “Newtonee” which turned out to mean the second battle of Newtonia Missouri and several other “frackuses” He told the US board of pension that he was hurt in the service by a bucking horse at Maysville Arkansas and this affected, he claimed, the rest of his working life.
Third Generation
After the war Andrew is known to have settled in Montogmery County Kansas near a little community called Westralia. Westralia was outgrown and defeated by nearby Coffeyville.
It might have been at Coffeyville, or it might have been at Marmaton that Andrew J’s first wife died during childbirth. Her name was XXXXXXXX Collins. His daughter survived and was raised by neighbors.
Born to Andrew and his second wife Hannah Catherine Morgan of Indiana were Duke, Roscoe, Oscar and Vida.
Brother Francis M. came to Coffeyville and seems to have done very well there.
Following the death of Jared at Westralia, Andrew packed up his family and moved west. The Oregon Trail was not new by 1870, it had been well travelled but it still represented new possibilities. Son Ewell was born in Wallace Idaho. They were censused at Laramie Wyoming in 1880. In 1888 son William Cloyd was born. And by XXXX the whole family were resendents of North Bend Washington.
Hops farms were attracting workers from all over the Pacific North West as local investors were taking advantage of a hops blight in Europe. Andrew J. made a timber claim on the side of Mount Josiah. It is saif a tree from his property was cut and loaded on a freight car and exhibited at the 1923 Worlds Fair in St. Louis, a testament to the bounty of the new state of Washington.
Fourth Generation
In 1905 Hannah Catherine Foster accompanied sons Duke, Roscoe, Ewell, Oscar and Cloyd to Alberta, Canada. The Dominion Lands Act of 19$$% was offering free land to any who would settle it. By 19$$$ Duke and Roscoe returned to Washington State.
Andrew lived out the end of his life at the State Soldiers Home in Orting Washington. According to his letters to Cloyd, he was visited regularly by his sons, except Cloyd. It is known that his daughter Sarah and her husband Charles Barnes arrived in North Bend and took part in family events.
Neither Hannah Catherine Foster nor her son Cloyd ever did return to Washington. Andrew’s letters to Cloyd ask him write more often and to look after and respect his mother.
Cloyd Foster began to farm a quarter section adjoining his brothers at a place called Lunnford Alberta. Less than a mile away a family from an English suburn near Burmingham had claimed and built a log cabin. Evenutally Dorothy Margaret, one of the daughters of Harry R. Tarplee of Erdington England would marry Cloyd.
As a boy interested in pioneer history I remember Grandma Foster telling me of the day a neighbor shild was sick and a rider was needed to hurry to the city of medicine. “It was quite romaintic” she told me, to see one of the neighbors sons Cloys, galloping off on his 60 mile journey.
To Cloyd Foster and “Maggie” were born Bernice, Lawrence, Maxwell and Don.
Bernice married neighbor farmer Bert Thompson. Lawrence married Jean Walker of a large family from Ontario via Provost Alberta. Maxwell went to war in 1944 and returned with a new bride but never quite came home settling instead in Vancouver BC. Don married Viola XXX and his children farm the brothers original homesteads, as well as the Tarplee land to this day.
Fifth Generation
Lawrence and Jean opened Foster’s General Store in Manola in 19$$$ and served that community until they retired in XXXX.
Born to Lawrence and Jean were son Marvin Dale Foster in 1946, daughter Marilyn Jean in 1948 then, after the drowning death of Marilyn at age 14, Gregory Lawrence in 1962.
Jean Foster passed away in 1988.
Lawrence remarried Angela Jober.
Lawrence passed away in 2001.
I am Gregory Lawrence Foster. I am writing this for my my kids, my brother Dale, Angela and any of you that might find a family connection you didn’t know about.
I wish dad and mom, Grandma Foster, cousin Elton could have lived to know the whole story of these Fosters.