Hopestill Foster
Ensign and soap boiler of Boston, eldest son of Capt. Hopestill Foster of Dorchester, where he was baptized in 1644/5 and married Elizabeth Payson in 1666/7. Father of Samuel Foster, born in 1676; he was dead by January 1677/8, when his widow Elizabeth was granted administration.
Life
- 1644Bornbp. 10 Mar 1644/5, Dorchester, Massachusetts
"Hopstill ffoster : 10 1 mo 44" (Records of the First Church at Dorchester, p. 156; also quoted on WikiTree, Foster-2330).
documentedproven - 1666Married Elizabeth Payson15 Feb 1666/7, Dorchester, Massachusetts
"Hopestill, eldest s. Capt. Hopestill, of Dorchester, and [blank] Pason, at Dorchester, 15 : 12m : 1666" (Roxbury church record, VR 2:152).
documentedproven - by 1677Diedby 28 Jan 1677/8
Administration granted to his widow Elizabeth, 28 Jan 1677/8. Mollie has Boston, 1678.
documentedproven
Family
- Father
- Hopestill Foster
His marriage record calls him "eldest s. Capt. Hopestill, of Dorchester"; the Captain's will names son Hopestill and "young Hopestill, my grandson."
- Mother
- Spouse
3 children
Pedigree
Notes
Ensign; soap boiler, of Boston. Children (Boston RC 9): Elizabeth, 26 July 1669; Mary, 22 July 1671, who married Timothy Nash on 2 Apr 1694 (Mollie has “Thomas Nash”); and Samuel, 27 Dec 1676. His inventory “mentions money due from Father Payson” (Pierce p. 505).
He joined the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1673 and was its first sergeant in 1675. He was made a freeman in 1673, joined Boston’s Second Church, and was a Boston constable in 1674-75. On 28 Dec 1676 he was appointed to a committee “to guard the town against a conflagration” (Roberts, History of the AHAC 1:223).
A deed of 1726 sets apart “the portion set apart for the thirds of Elizabeth Brown, grandmother of Samuel Foster,” his widow’s dower, in a family house on Fitch’s alley, fronting east on “the lane leading from the town dock” (Suffolk Deeds 40:22-23, abstracted in NEHGR 178:35). This was probably his Boston homestead [inferred].
Mollie says he was fined as a Baptist in 1672, 1675 and 1678 (p. 120). Those presentments belong to Thomas Foster of Billerica and his son Hopestill (b. 1648), of the Billerica and Woburn Fosters; this Hopestill was dead by January 1677/8.
Open questions
- His mother: the colonial tree marks Mary Bate as his mother on documentary evidence. No record seen names his mother (Roberts calls him “son of Capt. Hopestill and Mary (Bates) Foster”), so the page keeps the link as inferred, probable.
Mollie's typescript
Mollie gives his birth at Dorchester, his marriage to Elizabeth Payson, and his service as sergeant in the Artillery Company and captain of militia.
Hopestill Foster (4) was born in Dorchester march 10, 1645, and married Elizabeth Payson, daughter of Giles Payson of Roxbury, Feb. 15 1167. ... Hopestill joined the A.&H. Artillery Co. in 1673 and he was a sergeant in 1675; and a captain of the Colonial Militia.
p. 118 →He served on a committee to guard Boston against fire, and died there in 1678.
Hopestill was appointed one of the committee as suggested by the "Honorable Council" to guard the town against conflagration. He died in Boston 1678.
p. 119 →
Checked against the records
- DisprovenElizabeth Payson's second husband was Edmund Brown, soapboiler
Edmond Brown was a Boston shopkeeper. The soap boiler was her first husband, Ensign Hopestill Foster, whose son Samuel called himself "son of Hopestill Foster the soap boiler" in a deed of 1699/1700. She married Hopestill at Dorchester on 15 Feb 1666/7, and Brown before 1694.
Read it in the book, p. 118 → - DisprovenHopestill Foster (b. 1645) was fined as a Baptist in 1672-78
Those presentments concern Thomas Foster of Billerica and his son Hopestill (b. 1648), of the Billerica and Woburn Fosters. Ensign Hopestill Foster, the Boston soap boiler, was dead by 28 Jan 1677/8, when his widow was granted administration.
Read it in the book, p. 120 →
Connections
- In his ancestry
- 2 notable connections →
Every notable ancestor and famous relative that Hopestill's own ancestors lead to, with the lines drawn down to him.
- Small world