Hopestill Foster

Of Biddenden, Kent. He came as a boy 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 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).

Brewer, of Dorchester: “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).

By an agreement of 10 Sept 1653 (Suffolk Deeds 1:318), he and his Stowe cousins tried 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).

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).

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).

On 22 June 1670 he wrote to Metacom, the Wampanoag leader the English called King Philip: “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.” Philip wrote from Mount Hope on 15 May 1672: “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). King Philip’s War began three years later; Hopestill died in October 1676, two months after Philip was killed.

His will, dated 19 July 1676 (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 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 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); Mollie’s claim that Boston’s city arms came from the Foster arms garbles this.

His house stood at a corner of Adams and Centre Streets: “southwest” in one place in Pierce (and in Roberts), “northwest” in another; in Mollie’s typescript the letters are too faint to read (“S.E.” or “S.W.”).

Open questions

• TAG 80:26 and the Great Migration sketch, on his baptism and the Biddenden Fosters.