John Foster

The plaque says John Foster helped found Jefferson College; the college's National Register nomination says how. The Mississippi territorial legislature incorporated the college at Washington on May 13, 1802, its first act of incorporation, on land given by John Foster, James Foster and Randal Gibson. Short of money, it did not admit students until January 1, 1811. Aaron Burr was arraigned for treason in a court building near the campus oaks in 1807, Mississippi's first constitution was signed in a church on the grounds in 1817, and Jefferson Davis studied there in 1818. The school closed in 1964.

What the plaque says

John Foster John Foster John Foster was born on May 25, 1757, in South Carolina to William James and Mary (Hill) Foster. Family history indicates he may have served with his brothers in Charleston against a British attack in June 1776. He married Rachel (Gibson), and they had at least six children, four of whom eventually lived in Texas. About 1781, the Fosters crossed the Appalachians and traveled almost 2,000 miles by flatboat to the Spanish-occupied Natchez District of present-day Mississippi. There, Foster became a substantial landowner and cattleman. After Rachel died, he married Mary (Smith) Kelsey, and of their seven children, three would come to Texas. After Mississippi Territory was created in 1798, Foster opposed the decrees of the appointed governor and petitioned Congress for an elected legislature. He established the town of Washington, and after it became the territorial capital in 1802, helped found Jefferson College. In 1822, Foster joined his son Randolph in Texas and became one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred" colonists. In 1824, he received an 11,600-acre grant in what is now Fort Bend County. He is believed to have established a school on his property that eventually became the Foster Community School. On December 25, 1835, John Foster signed the Columbia Resolutions urging Texas' declaration of independence from Mexico. Leaving behind four sons to support the struggle for Texas independence, Foster went to Wilkinson County, Mississippi, in early 1836 to live in retirement at the home of one of his daughters. He died there on January 26, 1837. (2002)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site — 21 mi
  Stephen F. Austin's colonial capital on a Brazos bluff, the town of the Consultation and the first Texas newspapers, burned by its own garrison in the Runaway Scrape of 1836.
• Brazos Bend State Park — 21 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• The Menil Collection — 26 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Rothko Chapel — 26 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.

More markers nearby

• Randolph Foster — steps away
• Foster Community — 1.4 mi
• Site of Thompson's Ferry — 2.3 mi
• John Foster Land Grant — 2.7 mi