Hopestill Foster

Hopestill Foster was of Biddenden, Kent. At fourteen he sailed with his widowed mother Patience and his grandmother Rachel Bigg on the Elizabeth, which embarked at London on 17 Apr 1635 ("Hopestill Foster, 14"), and they settled at Dorchester. He was in the early list of members of the Dorchester church with them, and was made a freeman on 22 May 1639 ("Hopestill Fostere," Records of Mass. Bay 1:375).

He was Dorchester's brewer, "a brewer, active in all town affairs, a man of judgment, and deserved popularity" (Roberts, History of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company 1:121, quoted by Pierce). He joined the Artillery Company in 1642 and was its fourth sergeant in 1647; he became ensign of the Dorchester train band under Humphrey Atherton in 1644, and later its captain. He was a Dorchester selectman for about thirty years (Roberts: 1645 to 1674, with gaps), and the town's deputy to the General Court in 1652, and again in 1653 as "Ensigne Hopestill Foster" (Records of Mass. Bay 3:259, 297).

His uncles' wills had left a quarrel in the family, and by an agreement of 10 Sept 1653 (Suffolk Deeds 1:318) he and his Stowe cousins set out to end the "many & vncomfortable differences" over the wills of their "deceased uncles Mr. Smallhope Bigg and Mr. John Bigg," which had "occasioned much trouble each to other p'tie & likewise vncomfortable suits att Lawe." Hopestill took half of the lands "In Crambrooke Withersham & Lidd" and £15 a year from John Bigg's lands (Waters, Gleanings 1:23).

He witnessed the will of the Dorchester teacher, Rev. Richard Mather, on 16 (8) 1661 and its codicil of 21 (7) 1664, and on 24 May 1669 "Capt. Hopestill Foster" swore to it before the magistrates with Capt. Roger Clap and William Pond (source).

Wading River, 12 July 1670. In March 1669/70 "Daniell (alias) Squamuck, Sachem" wrote to him from "Mattakeeset," asking for "the five pounds that you engaged to my deceased brother" and calling Philip's claim to the land "the mount hope Sachem's pretended title" (Pierce, p. 494, in vol. 3 of the Foster Genealogy). Squamaug was acting sachem of the Massachusett after his brother Josias Wampatuck was killed by the Mohawks in 1669. Then Philip himself wrote, and on 22 June 1670 Foster answered him: "To Philip, Sachem of Mount Hope, Capt. Foster of Dorchester sendeth greeting. You may by this understand I re'd your letter dated June the 15th 1670, wherein you desire a meeting about land at pole plaine and within our township ... we shall some of us be together with some of the bay Indians give you a meeting if the lord permits at Captain Hudson's farme at Wading river upon the 12th of July next ... H. Foster with the Consent of the townsmen." The land, he wrote, was Dorchester's: "wee say tis ours already both by grant from our Court and also by agreement with Indians, who say that it is theirs."

On 12 July 1670, at Capt. William Hudson's house on Wading River, Philip and Squamaug probably settled their bounds on the line between Plymouth and Massachusetts, which gave Philip "a large tract of land that formerly was claimed by Chickataubut" (Clark, History of Norton, pp. 50-51). John Sassamon, it seems, signed the treaty as a witness (Mather, Brief History, Drake's ed., pp. 51-52 n.). Hudson was Humphrey Atherton's partner in the Narragansett purchases. Dorchester's accounts settled on 13 Nov 1671 allowed a shilling "the Captin had to expend on the Indians and 1s for Liquors for the Jorney to wading Riuer," and paid "Capt. Foster for money he laid downe to the Sachem"; that year he signed the town's warrant to pull down bounds that others had laid out "about wadeing riuer" within Dorchester's line (Dorchester town records, pp. 177-180). Philip had not forgotten the meeting. From Mount Hope on 15 May 1672 he wrote: "Sir, you may please to remember that when I last saw you att Wading river you promised mee six pounds in goods; now my request is that you send me (by?) this Indian five yards of White light collored serge to make me a coat and a good holland shirt redy made, and a pair of good Indian breeches ... and silk & buttens & 7 yards Gallonnes for trimmings ... King Philip his Majesty P. P." (Pierce pp. 494-495). In January 1674/5 Sassamon was found dead under the ice of Assawompset Pond, and Plymouth's trial of three Wampanoag men for his death began the war (Soldiers in King Philip's War, pp. 26-27). Five years before, Foster had sat across from both Philip and Sassamon.

In 1670-71 the Dorchester church named "Capt ffoster" among its messengers to counsel the divided Braintree church, and sent him to Mr. Josiah Flint "to sterr him up to hasten his remove to dorchester" (Records of the First Church at Dorchester, entries of 12 (4) 1670, 7 (3) 1671 and 16 (5) 1671).

King Philip's War. When the war opened he was captain of the Dorchester company: "Hopestill Foster. [Capt.] / John Capen. [Lieut.] / Richard Hall. [Ensign]" on the roster of the Suffolk Regiment (Bodge p. 473). Dorchester had chosen him a selectman again in December 1674 ("Mr Stoughton, Capt. Foster, Liftnt Capen, William Sumner, Ensigne Hale," town records p. 204), but "In 1675 he was elected, but declined" (Roberts). He and Lt. John Capen sat for Dorchester at the General Court in May and October 1674, May 1675 and May 1676 ("Capt Hopestil Foster, Left Jn° Capen, Dorchest.," Mass. Bay Records 5:1, 14, 42-43, 77); the session of May 1676 raised the spring forces and ordered the Christian Indians to be settled under English overseers (5:84-86). In May 1675, answering "the minister, Joseph Emerson, with the selectmen of Mendon," the Court made "Mr Edward Tyng, Mr Joseph Dudley, Mr Wm Parkes, & Captaine Foster, the former comittee," a standing committee for that place (5:40). Two months later Mendon, where Job Tyler lived, was the first Massachusetts town struck, on 14 July 1675, and it was abandoned and burned. He sat on the committee for Wrentham, another town the war emptied, until his death; in 1677 the Court named Ensign Thomas Fuller to it "in the roome of the late Capt Foster" (5:148). In 1676 his son Hopestill was made ensign of a Boston company, and his son Elisha probably served under Capt. Thomas Brattle and Capt. John Jacob. He made his will on 19 July 1676 and died that October, two months after Philip was killed: "Captain Hopestill Foster Died Oct. 15. 76" (Dorchester records, vol. 21, p. 29), though his gravestone has the 14th.

His will (Suffolk Probate 6:136-138) names his wife Mary; sons Hopestill, John, James, Elisha, Comfort and Standfast; "young Hopestill, my grandson"; and daughters Thankful Baker, Patience Browne and Mary. By it he gave £5 toward the free school (Roberts 1:121). His house stood at a corner of Adams and Centre Streets.

His son John Foster (bp. Dorchester 10 Dec 1648, d. 9 Sept 1681), Harvard 1667, was the Boston printer who opened Boston's first printing office in 1675, printed the first histories of the war, Increase Mather's Brief History (1676) and William Hubbard's Narrative (1677), and cut the woodcut portrait of Richard Mather and the 1677 "White Hills" map of New England, both counted among the first portrait and map printed in the English colonies (Wikipedia, "John Foster (printer)"). He also "made the Seals or Arms of the Colony, viz an Indian with a bow and arrow" (Blake's Annals); that colony seal is the truth behind the family story, in Mollie's typescript, that Boston's city arms came from the Foster arms.

Open questions

• TAG 80:26 and the Great Migration sketch, on his baptism and the Biddenden Fosters.
• His death day, 14 or 15 Oct 1676: is the gravestone the original?
• Where is the 1670 agreement between Philip and Squamaug that Drake owned?