BIO: William FOSTER, Centre County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by JRB Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/centre/ http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/centre/1picts/commbios/comm-bios.htm _______________________________________________________________________ Commemorative Biographical Record of Central Pennsylvania: Including the Counties of Centre, Clearfield, Jefferson and Clarion: Containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens, Etc. Chicago: J. H. Beers, 1898. _______________________________________________________________________ COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 153 WILLIAM FOSTER, HISTORY OF. John Forster, or Foster (as many of his descendants now write the name), the ancestor of one branch of the Forster family, of Buffalo Valley, was a son of David Forster, of Derry, formerly Lancaster, now Dauphin, County, Penn. This appears by the will of David Forster, dated September 2, 1745, and recorded in Lancaster County. It is believed, though not certainly known to be a fact, that David Forster, with some of his family, came from the North of Ireland about the year 1733, with the Scotch-Irish immigration of that period, and was among the first settlers of Donegal, Derry and Paxtang. He died in 1754, leaving a widow, Mary by name, and five sons, named respectively: William, John, David, James, and Robert. One of these sons, John Forster, the ancestor, became the owner, by purchase, of 271 acres of land situated in Hanover (then Lancaster) County, which had been surveyed to John Young under a warrant granted to him in 1740. This tract of land was confirmed 154 COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. to John Foster by a patent deed from Thomas and William Penn, bearing date the 17th day of November, 1752, and he resided upon the tract until about 1773 or 1774, when for some reason, probably with a view of bettering his condition and that of his family, he disposed of it by sale and became one of the pioneer settlers of Buffalo Valley. That delightful and charming Valley, then an almost untraversed forest of stately oak, hickory, walnut and pine, was within that part of Pennsylvania known as the last purchase made from the Indians by the Proprietary Government of the Colony in 1768. The first surveys in the Valley were made in 1769, and from that year sturdy, adventurous and self-reliant settlers, among whom was John Forster, began to occupy, clear and cultivate its beautiful virgin acres, even then rich and inviting with the promise of future fertility and productiveness. Among the first surveys made in 1769, after the land office had been opened on the 3d of April of that year to receive applications for land within the Purchase of 1768, a number of tracts, aggregating eight thousand acres through the heart of the Valley, were returned for certain officers of the 1st and 2nd battalions of the Pennsylvania regiment that served under Col. Henry Boquet in the expedition that marched under his command in 1764 to the relief of Fort Pitt, the site of the present city of Pittsburgh, then beleaguered by the Indians. In the allotment of these surveys to the officers who were to receive them, were two that fell respectively to Lieut. Charles Stewart and Lieut. James McCallister. These tracts were at the western part of the survey, lying about two miles west of the present town of Mifflinburg. The first tract, that of Lieut. Stewart, was called in the patent "Joyful Cabin," and contained 340 acres and 63 perches. The other, that of Lieut. McCallister, was called "Chatham," and contained 340 acres and 60 perches. Before removing from Hanover to Buffalo, John Forster had become the owner of these two tracts. On the western tract near Buffalo creek, he built his cabin, literally the beginning of a new home in the wilderness for himself, wife and children, and there he lived until his death, which occurred in 1783. In the tax list of Buffalo township, Northumberland County, for the year I775 - the list for the previous years not being in existence - the name of John Forster appears; on this list his property returned for taxes consists of twenty acres of cleared land, two horses, three cows and three sheep, probably for that time a substantial return. The property adjoining on the west of where he lived was the farm so well known in the Valley for many years as the William Young farm. His life seems to have been quiet, unobtrusive and moderately successful, though no knowledge of his personality or traits of character have come down to his present descendants. As before stated, he died in 1783, and among some old family papers now in the possession of a friend at Paxtang, Dauphin County, is a letter written from Buffalo to Paxtang announcing his death, from which the following extract is taken: John Forster was taken sick of a fever on the 10th of September, 1783, died on the 20th, and was buried on Sunday, September 21, 1783." Of his wife nothing is known except that her name was Margaret. Eight years later another letter announced her death, as follows: "Margaret Forster was taken sick on December 31, 1791, and died January 8, 1792, about 9 P.M., and was buried on Tuesday, January 10, 1792." The interments, though there are no marks to show where they lie, were in the old Lewis graveyard, about three miles southwest of Mifflinburg, then the common burial place for the inhabitants of the upper end of the Valley, where also rest in the peaceful sleep of death others of their family - children and grandchildren. By his will, on record at Sunbury, after providing for the support of his widow, he directed that his real estate, consisting of the two tracts of the land already mentioned, and containing together 680 acres, should be divided into three equal parts to be given to his three sons then living, a third to each, and that his daughters should receive certain bonds, which he described as "Bonds I received from the sale of my plantation in Hanover." The children of John and Margaret Forster were four sons and four daughters. The sons were: Thomas, Andrew, John, Jr., and Robert. The daughters were Christena, who became the wife of John Montgomery; Jane, who became the wife of William Irvine; Elizabeth, who became the wife of Joseph Gray; and Rebecca, who became the wife of William McFarlane. A marriage record of the Derry and Paxtang Presbyterian congregation, published in Vol. VIII of the second series of the Pennsylvania Archives, shows that Thomas Forster, the eldest son, was married to Jane Young November 4, 1777, and that Robert, the youngest son, was married to Esther Renick December 14. 1784. Andrew, the second son, was married to Susanna Gray. She was a daughter of Capt. William Gray, of Revolutionary fame, and was first married to William Hudson. After his death she became the wife of Andrew Forster. John, Jr., the third son, died young and unmarried, COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 155 the victim of an Indian massacre. His death occurred on the 16th of May, 1780, in an attack made by a band of raiding Indians on what was known as French Jacob's Mill (Jacob Groshong), about five miles north of Mifflinburg, and near where the road through the Brush Valley narrows enters Buffalo Valley. He was one of a company of enlisted rangers whose duty it was to patrol the northern side of the Valley along the Buffalo Mountain to guard against Indian incursions. A sudden and unexpected foray, however, was made by the savages, and in the smart skirmish that followed four of the rangers were killed, among them being John Forster, Jr. The names of the others were James Chambers, George Etzweiler and James McLaughlin. Thomas Forster was the Revolutionary soldier of the family - a sincere patriot and lover of liberty, he was early in the field for the independence of the American Colonies. In 1776 he is the first found in the record as Major of the Fourth Battalion of the Northumberland County Associators, of which Phillip Cole and Thomas Sutherland, another ancestor of some of the present Forster family, was the lieutenant-colonel. This battalion was sent to Reading, but anxious to be at the front, Major Forster became a lieutenant in Capt. John Clark's company of Col. Potter's regiment. This company was detained in Reading until it was too late to reach the scene of actual hostility in time to take part in the engagements at Trenton and Princeton, but participated actively in several subsequent skirmishes, in which a number of casualties occurred, and in which the members of the company won honorable distinction. Returning to the quiet life of a farmer after his patriotic military service, Thomas Forster, on the death in 1783 of the oldest son, inherited, together with his third of the real estate, the homestead of the family, where he lived a prominent and highly respected citizen of the Valley until his death in the month of November, 1810. His body also lies in the Lewis burying ground. In religious faith and belief the Forsters were strict Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, and were early members of the Buffalo Cross Roads Presbyterian Church, founded in 1773, and the parent congregation of that denomination within the bounds of the present county of Union. According to Linn's Annals, the pews of the Buffalo church were just rated and rented in 1791, and among the pew holders of that year were Thomas Forster and his brothers, Andrew and Robert. The marriage of Thomas Forster and Jane Young was blessed with six children - three sons and three daughters. The sons were John, William and Thomas; the daughters, Margaret, Elizabeth and Jane. It is only William, however, the second son of the family, who demands our attention on this occasion. He was born in 1784 at the home of his father in Buffalo Valley. The means then provided in that newly settled locality for education were not great, and it is probable that in youth but few opportunities were afforded him for book learning. But he is still held in pleasant remembrance as an intelligent and upright man, of sterling integrity in business affairs, possessed of a genial, cheerful disposition, the head of a household noted for its hospitality, a devoted husband and father, and an excellent citizen. In the second war with Great Britain (in 1812), like his father, he found it a duty to enter the military service in defence of the right of his country. With his older brother, John, and his cousin, William, son of Robert Forster, he became a member of a company of Pennsylvania Militia, commanded by Capt. John Donaldson. The company was attached to a regiment commanded by Col. Snyder that marched to Meadville, thence to Erie, and then to Buffalo, N.Y., remaining in service about three months. He was first married to Esther Young, who was born in Dauphin County, and their children were William and Esther (twins); the latter married Neill McCay, of Fredericksburg, Ohio, where they celebrated their golden wedding in 1892. Mr. McCay died soon afterward; his widow still lives in Ohio, and by the favor of a kind Providence was able to come from her distant home on December 28, 1897, to be present to mingle her congratulations with other friends at the fiftieth anniversary of her twin brother's marriage. The mother of William and Esther Forster died, and the father married Rachel McCay. The children of this second marriage were: Christena, who became the wife of Mark Halfpenny, and reared a family; he died in 1889, and she in 1877. He was an extensive manufacturer of woolen goods at Lewisburg, Penn., and his children still own considerable property there. Margaret, who became the wife of Dr. Seabold, had four children, and died in 1879. Robert M. married Delilah Smith. In 1862 he enlisted in the Union army, and was killed in the battle of Gettysburg; he left three sons; his widow died December 28, 1895. Thomas died at the age of seventeen, and Catherine married William Witmer, a lumber merchant of Philadelphia. William Forster died at his home in Hartley Township, Union County, March 26, 1853, at the age of 156 COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. seventy years; and found interment in the same burial ground where his father and grandfather lie. William, son of William and Esther Forster, was born in Buffalo Valley (now Union County), Penn., March 22, 1819. He was reared on a farm, and had the usual school privileges of the day and locality. Among his early teachers were Miss Ruth Campbell and a Mr. Hanna, a Quaker. This was at Mifflinburg. He remained at home until 1848, then came to Centre County, locating on the Centre Furnace lands (now Dr. Christ's farm). In the spring of 1856 he moved to his present home in the upper part of Penn's Valley where he owns a beautiful farm, and upon which he built the house he now occupies. His farm comprises one hundred acres. Formerly a part of the town site of State College belonged to the farm. Mr. Foster is one of the substantial citizens of State College, and by good management and industry has accumulated a competency. As were all his ancestors, he is a Democrat in his political views. The Forsters, too, were Presbyterians for generations, and our subject adheres to the same faith. He is now the only man in the community who was there when the Pennsylvania State College building was erected, making him the oldest pioneer of the locality left. In 1847 Mr. Foster was married, in Union County, to Maria Corl, who was born in the Buffalo Valley, Union Co., Penn., in 1827, a daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth Wyley Corl. To this happy union have come children as follows: Elizabeth, who in 1872 married William Everhart; they went to Chicago on their wedding trip, and she died there. Charles H., a trusted United States Mail Agent employed since 1885 on the main line of the Pennsylvania railroad between New York and Pittsburgh. James is a chemist in Alabama. Mary A. lives with her parents. John is a chemist in Alabama. The sons are all graduates of Pennsylvania State College. Joseph Corl, the father of Mrs. Foster, came from Chester County, Penn., to the Buffalo Valley, and his ancestors were originally from Germany. Her mother, Elizabeth Wyler, came from Lancaster County, Penn., and her ancestors from Ireland.