Thompson and Foster

Thomas Thompson was "of small stature," the historian of Deer Isle wrote, "but he possessed a great share of courage, being perfectly fearless." He married Mary Foster at Roxbury on 28 Oct 1765 and took her to Deer Isle, Maine, where he is counted among the settlers of 1765. He settled on the land beside Mr. Closson's, by the cove that took his name, and came to own about three hundred acres; he was chosen an elder of the church and a selectman, helped provide the timber for the island's meeting house in 1795, and died about 1824, aged upward of eighty. Mary, "a very worthy woman," was a sister of William Foster, a Deer Isle blacksmith who came from Dedham, and the family remembered her as a small, precise old lady in a cap with her feet on a footstool; she died in March 1837, aged 91. Their daughter Rebecca, born on the island on 12 May 1772, married Nathan Low of Boxford at Boxford on 23 Oct 1792, and between 1795 and 1797 they settled on Deer Isle, at Thompson's Cove, on land laid out to her father. She died in 1836, the mother of Capt. Nathan Low.

Mary was perhaps a daughter of John Foster of Roxbury, who died there in 1760, and he perhaps a son of Samuel Foster, a Boston periwig-maker; through them the line goes back to the first years of Dorchester. In April 1635 Patience Foster, widow of Richard Foster of Biddenden, Kent, embarked at London on the Elizabeth with her son Hopestill, fourteen, and her mother Rachel Bigg, widow of a Cranbrook clothier; James Bate of Lydd, his wife Alice and their daughter Mary, seventeen, were on the same list. At Dorchester Hopestill married Mary Bate. He was the town's brewer, a selectman for about thirty years and the captain of its company. In July 1670 he met King Philip at Wading River about land within Dorchester's bounds, and in 1672 Philip wrote to ask him for "five yards of White light collored serge to make me a coat." He sat for Dorchester in the General Courts of King Philip's War and died in October 1676, two months after Philip was killed. His eldest son Hopestill, a Boston soap boiler, was made an ensign in the war; he married Elizabeth Payson, daughter of Deacon Giles Payson of Roxbury, who had come from Nazeing, Essex, on the Hopewell in 1635. Their son Samuel, a goldsmith, died in 1702 at twenty-five, months after his son Samuel, the periwig-maker, was born.

The wives of the two Samuels brought in more of early Boston, and their families are lines of their own. The goldsmith married Rebecca Briscoe, a baker's daughter, whose family is the Briscoe line. The periwig-maker married Rachel Kneeland at Boston in 1722; her family, back to a Scot of Boston and to Jane Hawkins, the midwife of Anne Hutchinson's circle, is the Kneeland and Hawkins line.

The line at a glance

The Thompsons: Thomas Thompson (c. 1744-c. 1824), of Thompson's Cove, Deer Isle = Mary Foster (c. 1745-1837) > Rebecca Thompson (1772-1836) = Major Nathan Low.

The Fosters: Thomas Foster (d. by 1586) = Dorothy Austin, of Biddenden > Richard Foster (d. by 1630) = Patience Bigg (bp. 1588), daughter of John Bigg and Rachel Martin > Capt. Hopestill Foster (1620-1676), of Dorchester = Mary Bate (c. 1618-1702/3), daughter of James Bate and Alice Glover, of Lydd > Ensign Hopestill Foster (1644/5-by 1677/8) = Elizabeth Payson (b. 1644/5), daughter of Deacon Giles Payson and Elizabeth Dowell > Samuel Foster (1676-1702), goldsmith = Rebecca Briscoe (b. 1679) > Samuel Foster (b. 1701), periwig-maker = Rachel Kneeland (b. 1705) > John Foster (d. by 1760), of Roxbury, perhaps the father of Mary Foster, above.

The scope walks every ancestor of Rebecca Thompson, but stops at the goldsmith's wife, Rebecca Briscoe, whose Briscoe, Compton and Wilson ancestors are in the Briscoe line, and at the periwig-maker's wife, Rachel Kneeland, whose Kneeland, Green, Hawkins and Mills ancestors are in the Kneeland and Hawkins line. Rebecca Thompson's husband's side is the Low line, which stops at her.

How sure it is

Rebecca's place as Thomas and Mary Thompson's daughter is compiled, probable: Hosmer's Historical Sketch of Deer Isle (1886) lists "the wives of Major Nathan Low" first among Thomas's daughters, the Deer Isle families typescript gives her birth among Thomas and Mary's children, the Boxford record calls her "of Dear Isle," and her husband's deed of 1803 bounds his land on Thomas Thompson's. The Thompsons' marriage is in the Roxbury records (documented, proven). Thomas Thompson's parents and origin are unknown.

Everything above Mary Foster rests on a possible link. Mollie's typescript makes her a daughter of John Foster of Roxbury and his wife Jane, but John married Jane Lindsey at Boston on 20 Apr 1750, about five years after Mary was born, and neither their children recorded at Roxbury (1751-1760) nor the guardianships of 1773 include a Mary. Hosmer calls her a sister of William Foster of Deer Isle, and a William, son of John and Jane, was born at Roxbury in 1753; that the two Williams are one man is an inference. She may be John's daughter by an earlier wife, or of another Foster family altogether: the link is inferred, possible. The ruling of 2 Oct 2026 left her father a research task (Research decisions), and the question is followed in the thread Who were Mary (Foster) Thompson's parents?. John Foster's own parents, Samuel Foster and Rachel Kneeland, rest on Pierce's Foster Genealogy (1899) alone: compiled, possible.

Above John the chain is firmer. The periwig-maker is tied to the goldsmith by a deed of 27 June 1722 that he made with the goldsmith's widow and daughter (documented, probable); the goldsmith to Hopestill and Elizabeth (Payson) Foster by his birth record and his own deed, "son of Hopestill Foster the soap boiler"; the ensign to Capt. Hopestill by his marriage record ("eldest s. Capt. Hopestill") and the captain's will; and the captain to Richard Foster and Patience Bigg by the administration of 1630, the ship list of 1635 and Smallhope Bigg's will (all documented, proven). Mary Bate as the ensign's mother is inferred from her husband's marriage (probable). Rebecca Briscoe was the goldsmith's "now wife" in 1699/1700 and his widow in the deed of 1722, and the periwig-maker was born between them, so she was his mother (documented, probable). Richard Foster's parents, Thomas Foster and Dorothy Austin, are Bisbee's (1956, via Pane-Joyce), and Patience Bigg's and Mary Bate's parents are compiled (Pane-Joyce; Savage; Watkins, "Bate of Lydd," NEHGR 51): probable. Whether Mary (Martin) Bate was a sister of Rachel (Martin) Bigg, which would make Hopestill and Mary Bate second cousins, is possible only; Watkins queries her surname. How sure the Briscoe and Kneeland generations are is set out on their own lines' pages. The research is in Low Line Research: Harriet Phillips Low's father's side (Part Two, and the addendum of 2 Oct 2026) and Low Master Research (section 5).

Mollie's typescript follows the same Foster chain, with slips in its dates, but much around it does not hold. No Boston birth is found for Thomas Thompson, and he married at Roxbury, not at Boston or Dorchester. Nothing supports the story that Mary was "half French and Indian," which Mollie rejects herself. Richard Foster of Biddenden was not the son of Rev. Thomas Foster of Ipswich, Suffolk, whose son Richard was alive in 1639, and the descent from the Foresters, Baldwin of Flanders and Charlemagne goes with it. Patience Bigg's death of 1702/3 is Mary (Bate) Foster's; the Baptist fines are the Billerica Fosters'; and Boston's arms did not come from the Foster arms, though Capt. Hopestill's son John Foster made the colony's seal (Mollie Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer's typescript: a claim-by-claim review, F1-F9; books/mollie/checked.yaml).

Open questions

• Mary (Foster) Thompson's parents: John Foster's estate papers (Suffolk Probate no. 12403) and the guardianships of 1773.
• A first marriage of John Foster about 1743-45, and Mary's baptism in the Roxbury church records.
• Samuel Foster's will of 1728 (Suffolk no. 5650), for the step above John.
• Thomas Thompson's parents and origin.
• William Foster of Deer Isle: Mary's brother, or Major Nathan Low's "brother-in-law" of 1815?