TSummary

The earliest reference to Jarrett or Jared Foster, son of John Foster that I can find is with the 1815 estate settlement papers of his late brother Jeremiah.  Jeremiah was serving with 1st South Carolina Militia at Haddrell’s Point near Charleston during the War of 1812, but died of disease.

From his brother’s estate, Jarrett, then about 20 years old, bought a man’s saddle.

I have not identified Jarrett Foster in the 1820 census.  Perhaps someone will sleuth out his location in that year.

n 1822 Jarrett Foster serves as witness on a document where his father deeds a horse to his cousins James P. and Thomas.

Jarret’s whereabouts in the 1830 census is a mystery to me.

Since we know that the move to Tennessee included brothers Frederick and Jarrett and their families, and Frederick was still in Union County at the time of the 1830 census, it is probably Jarrett is too.  Any sleuths find him?

Jarret’s father, John Foster willed to “the children of my son Jared”, a portion of his estate.

A like portion was willed to Jeremiah, son of Frederick.

The will was written in 1831 and the estate was settled in 1836.  AND by spring 1837, Jarett, his sons John and Danis, and Frederick and his son Jeremiah start showing up in Bradley County Tennessee Tax lists.

It seems likely the inherited land became part of the stake money to start new in Tennessee, however no sales or transfer documents have been found as yet.

Here is a look at the 1837 Tax list for Bradley County TN.

Private Jarrett Foster enlisted for a six month tour with Major Lauderdale’s Tennessee Volunteers VERY shortly after arriving in Tennessee.

Major Lauderdale was involved with Zachary Taylor and others with President Andrew Jackson’s fight with the Seminole Indians of Florida.  See Seminole War.

Here is a look at the 1839 Tax list for Bradley County TN.

Wooten’s scrapbook provides an excellent first-hand documentation of pioneer life in Bradley County.  The “treaty removing the indians has only just been made and removal was underway in the 1830s.  The scrapbook provides many accounts of what life was like.  I will cite several and link them here.

Other links to the early history of Bradley and McMinn Counties can be found here also:

The 1840 Census for Bradley County TN. reveals the Foster families and several neighbors who married into the family as well.

The 1850 Federal census finds the Jarrett Foster family in Jasper County Missouri.

Neighbouring families intermarried are the Keith Family, Gibson Family (Married Frederick Foster’s daughters (Frederick is in nearby Lawrence County), and the Hornback family that married into Jarrett’s family. Jarrett’s son John is nearby in Jasper County as are the intermarried Coffelt famiy.

Since this is the first census to list the full names of all members of the household, we can see the family consists of:

Jarrett Foster 55  born in South Carolina
Dorcus Foster 49 born in South Carolina
Lucinda J. Foster 22 born in Tennessee
Sarah Foster 20 born in Tennessee
Martha E. Foster 14 born in Tennessee
Elizabeth Foster 10 born in Tennessee
Andrew J. Foster 8 born in Tennessee
Francis M. Foster 4.   born in Arkansas

The youngest born in Arkansas tells us that the migration west from Tennessee to Missouri was via a southern route around the Boston Mountains (Ozarks), through Arkansas.

Just a few months after the 1850 census was taken Jarrett Foster applied to have bounty land he was owed by the U.S. government for service with the Tennessee Volunteeers applied to a piece of land in Jasper County Missouri. This is likely the land they had been squatting on.

Then just a few years later, in 1855 the U.S. government made more land available to veterans and Jarrett applied for additional land.  The application revealed he “disposed” of the first land he received.

What the documents and depositions in the Civil War Pension papers of son Andrew J. Foster reveal about how and where Jarrett and family lived between 1855 and the end of the end of the war in 1865:

“-I was raised near Carthage, Jasper Co. Missouri and lived in that country until I moved to Bourbon Co, Kansas and settled near Marmaton City, about 3 miles west on a farm with my father and family. The family was comprised of father and mother – both dead, and one brother Francis M. Foster now in Joplin, Missouri.
-As I have stated in my affidavit, in summer of 1860 I lived with my parents and younger brother in Jasper Co. Missouri. Father and mother were old and hated to leave the old home so we stayed too long. As you know, south Missouri was overrun with rebel army. The bushwhackers robbed us of all stock but 1-3 year old yoke calves so we had to stay ’til the Feds come a rush from Kansas. We threw what things we had in a wagon I had patched up, hitched steers and went to Marmaton City Kansas. In 1862 19th day (of August), I enlisted. My brother F.M. drove a bull team across the plains
-When we went to Kansas we rented Parly Foster’s place (no kin) and he lived in Marmaton City Kansas. Uncle Johnny Prigmore lived near us and had known me from a boy up but he was as old as my father and must be dead now.
-That from 1850 to 1860 he lived near Carthage, Jasper County, Missouri, with his father Jarret Foster and his mother Dorcus Foster and his younger brother F.M. Foster, and that during the said years from 1850 to 1860 my elder brother D.G. Foster lived in Tennessee, and my brother John and sister Elizabeth lived near Carthage, Jasper County, Missouri, in homes of their own, both of them being married, and that he also had a sister Sarah living in a home of her own in Texas.
-In Missouri, I lived during my young days 8 miles south of Carthage Missouri on Center Creek
-After discharge, I returned to my father in Bourbon Co. Kansas… and that same fall I think we moved back to the old location near Preston, Jasper Co. Missouri but found the house burned out. went three miles up the creek – The Big Muddy and lived over a year, when we built on the old place and lived there until 1869 when Father and I moved out to near Coffeyville, Montgomery Co. Kansas.
-During the latter years we lived in Missouri we were located 11 miles north and west of Carthage.
-Old doctor Elder living on a creek about 8 or 9 miles from us (I think called Coolomine Creek) was sent for and he came and examined me and called my trouble a rupture.” – A.J. Foster in his Pension Depositions

“-We lived with our father until 1869 and then he and father…went to Kansas leaving me here and I followed them there in 1873. We lived on adjoining farms for over a year. Then he lived on a nearby place another year and then he went to Washington state .

Mother always told me that you were born February 15th 1842 and that I was born January 9th 1846.
I am the baby one of the family and a twin. You remember hearing mother talk about Dialthe don’t you, she was between you and me.” -F.M. Foster in Deposition for A.J. Foster’s Pension Case.

One event that will have shaken the Jarret Foster family, while their son Anrew was away with the Union Army, would have been the raid of Confederate Bushwackers known as the Marmaton Massacre.

No reference can be found of any of the Foster’s being in danger, although it is said John Prigmore was shot at.  This might be the “Uncle Johnny Prigmore” A.J. referred to in his Pension depositions.

Site of Marmaton Massacre Marker

The Kansas census of 1865 captured the Jarrett Foster family within the Rockford Post office area of Marmaton Township in Bourbon County Kansas.

Jarret appears as Garrett.  A spelling that shows up in the families with at least one nephew in the Hooper family (daughter Mary Foster married Andrew Hooper) named Garrett Hooper.  Son Danis, was also known as Danis G. Foster.  Probably with his father’s middle name.

Anyway here, Garrett is 69,
Dorcus Moseley Foster is 62.
Son A.J. Foster is 23 and the notation says 2nd Kansas Battery.
Son Marion (Francis Marion) is 19

Nearby and on the same page is the Hornbeck family, soon to marry in.

Just as son Andrew J.’s pension depositions described, the family did try to go back to south west Missouri after the war.  At least we see here the sale of their home property in Missouri to son Andrew.  And in Andrews documents we see his sale of the property shortly afterwards,  Which preceded the move of the family to the Coffeyville Kansas area for good.

The Federal census of 1870 would be Jarrett’s last census.

At the Montgomery City Post Office, Westralia Township we find:

G. Foster is 73, a farmer
D. Foster is 67, Keeping House
A.J. Foster is 27, a farmer
and there are two borders.

Obituary of Jared Foster.  Placed by his neighbours. August 12, 1876.