Randolph Foster

In October 1835 Richardson Royster Royall sent Foster to fetch 800 pounds of lead reported to be at William Stafford's plantation, and during the war he supplied the army with meat and gave food and escort to his family and neighbors in the Runaway Scrape. Randal Jones, with whom he had served in 1812, was his neighbor for fifty years. In December 1845 he signed a proclamation at Richmond praising Sam Houston's work for annexation and inviting him to dinner. In August 1865 he wrote David G. Burnet asking him to seek Jefferson Davis's release.

What the plaque says

Randolph Foster Born in the Natchez District of Spanish West Florida on March 12, 1790, Randolph Foster was the son of John and Rachel (Gibson) Foster. After service in Captain Randal Jones' Company during the War of 1812, Randolph hunted and explored throughout what was then the southwest, including stops in this part of Texas. When he heard that Moses Austin had permission to settle 300 families in Texas, he headed back to the area. Foster arrived in Texas with Stephen F. Austin in 1821 as an "old three hundred" colonist. In 1824, he received title to 4,400 acres in present-day Fort Bend and Waller Counties. He served as an Indian scout for the colony. In 1829, he married Lucy Ruffin Hunter (1804-1872). They made their home on the John Foster Grant and had seven children. During the War for Texas' Independence from Mexico in 1836, Foster helped procure munitions for the Texian army, then joined Captain Wyly Martin's Company. In April 1836, when Santa Anna and his vanguard troops sought to cross the Brazos at present-day Richmond, Foster and his outnumbered comrades delayed them long enough to prevent them from reaching Harrisburg in time to capture the Texian government. A prominent planter and rancher, Foster signed the petition to create Fort Bend County and supported the Foster Community School. In 1856, he was appointed a trustee of the Frost Institute, a private school, by the Texas Legislature. He died at the home of one of his daughters, near the later established Foster Community, on August 18, 1878. (2002)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• 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.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 26 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.

More markers nearby

• Foster Community — 1.4 mi
• Site of Thompson's Ferry — 2.3 mi
• John Foster Land Grant — 2.7 mi
• John McNabb — 4.0 mi