GILMER COUNTY, GA - BIOS  Foster, William Henry

*****************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm

http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm
***********************
This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by:
 Suzanne Forte  suzanneforte@bellsouth.net


WILLIAM HENRY FOSTER was born in 1845 in Buncombe County,
North Carolina, the son of Newton Monroe and Mary Caroline
Gudger Foster. Between 1846 and 1847 the family moved to
Gilmer County. William died in 1920 in Gilmer County and is
buried in the Ellijay City Cemetery.

William Henry was 16 when he enlisted in the Confederate
Army at Augusta, Georgia on March 18, 1862, as a private in
Co D, lst (Ramsey's) Georgia Infantry. That Unit was
disbanded and in April 1862, he re-enlisted in l1st Co A,
12th Battalion Georgia Artillery, which later became Co A,
63rd Georgia Infantry. He served through the entire war and
was paroled at Greensboro, North Carolina on May 1, 1865
with Johnston's Army of Tennessee.

After the Civil War he went to Texas where he married Nancy
Isabelle Beene. They had eight children, including two sets
of fraternal twins, all born in Mexia, Texas. Nancy Isabelle
died following the birth of the second set of twins. William
took his children back to his home in Ellijay, Georgia and
with the help of his older sister, Matilda Foster
Hunneycutt, the children were raised. William later married
Dora Bradley in Ellijay and there were two children born of
this marriage. William Henry was called "Bud" Foster and was
postmaster of Gilmer County. In 1896 he was commissioned by
W. Y. atkinson, Governor of Georgia, as Sheriff of Gilmer
County, an offer that he served in for three years.

William's great-great grandfather, William Forrester, came
to this country from northern Ireland in 1748. The family
lived in Lancster, PA for a time and then moved on to
Virginia, where they lived for many years before descendants
moved on to Buncombe County, NC. Two of William Forrester's
sons were Revolutionary War soldiers.