Dennis Melville Foster; Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana Submitted by Mike Miller ** ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Dennis Melville Foster. For many years prominent in railroad construction and other important enterprises in Louisiana and other Southern states, few men in Southwestern Louisiana are better known or held more trustworthy than Dennis Melville Foster, Jr., postmaster at Lake Charles, and prominent in republican politics in Calcasieu Parish. Mr. Foster was born on his father's plantation near Lake Charles, Louisiana, October 18, 1872, son of Major D. D. M. and Martha Belle (Shattuck) Foster, residents of Lake Charles. Major Foster was born in Somerset County, Maine, January 23, 1844, and was eighteen years old when he enlisted in the Union army for service in the Civil war, as a member of Company A, Twentieth Maine Volunteer Infantry, later becoming a captain in the Eighty-first United States, and still later was brevetted major in the United States Volunteer Infantry. He took part in man of the serious battles of the war, including Stone Mountain, Antietam, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and others. After the war, in association with his brother-in-law, Mr. Shattuck, Major Foster embarked , extensively in cotton planting on the Mississippi River, in Point Coupee Parish, Louisiana, but the enterprise was a failure, as the mighty current, as many times before, overflowed adjacent lands, and the promising cotton plants were washed away. A store had also been started at Gretna, built in 18~9 removal was made to Calcasieu Parish, and Major Foster was engaged in logging and getting out timber at Gray's Bluff for the next five years. In 1874 he moved to Deesport, near Lake Charles, where he went into the lumber business and had a large shingle factory where hand-made shingles were manufactured and were shipped to Texas points on the Calcasieu River boats. He was one of the pioneers in the oil industry in Southwestern Louisiana, in association with H. C. Drew, drilling the first wells put down in this territory. In 1882 he engaged in the mercantile business at Drews' Mills, near Lake Charles, in 1888 served as postmaster of Lake Charles, and in 1893 embarked in the pine lands business at Lake Charles and still continues an active interest. He has long been a prominent republican politician and is a member of the Louisiana Society of the Grand Army of the Republic. He was long chairman of the Calcasieu Parish and the Seventh Congressional committees of his party, and in 1912 was a delegate to the National Republican Convention. He is prominent also in Masonry and is past master of Lake Charles Lodge N. 163, Free and Accepted Masons. Dennis Melville Foster, Jr.. was educated in private schools and some time subsequently, Mr. Foster took a business course in a commercial college at New Orleans. He was associated more or less with his father in store and mill and in 1888 entered the employ of S. B. Watkins at Deesport, for several years working in different capacities in the Watkins sawmills, then became railroad tie inspector as the Watkins Railroad was building into Lake Charles. Mr. Foster then went into railroad construction, and in association with Samuel Robertson was engaged on the Kansas City & Southern, and later, with R. M. Quigley & Company, did construction on another part of the same road, railroad construction occupying his time and attention until 1900 and carrying him into Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee. In the above year Mr. Foster first became interested in the rice business, at Mermenton, in Acadia Parish, and from 1902 to 1904 he was manager for the Pelican Rice Company, from 1904 to, 1906 was head bookkeeper for the Lake Charles Rice Mills, in the latter year being connected with the Lawrence Hamilton Feed Company of New Orleans. He returned then to Lake Charles and Served as assistant postmaster until July 1, 1914, When he resigned, in order to organize and become secretary of the Southwestern Louisiana Produce Association, a local enterprise of Lake Charles. In every way he was COnlpCtCiit to further the objects of such an organization, for he has long been a close Student of local agricultural production. From 1916 On he has been engaged in farming in Calcasieu Parish, and until 1920 was the largest individual rice grower in this section. Mr. Foster was married in April, 1901, to Miss Mamie Dees, who was born at New Orleans but was reared at Deesport, near Lake Charles, daughter of L. C. and Anne (Hughes) Dees. The father of Mrs. Foster was a Confederate veteran and a prominent lumber man and democratic politician at Deesport and Lake Charles. Mr. and Mrs. Foster have two children: Mercy Dees and Anna Belle. The older daughter is a graduate of Beachwood School, Philadelphia, and of the Texas State University. She taught school at Sulphur, Louisiana, prior to her marriage to Lieut. Frank H. Lamson-Scribner, United States Marine Corps, Washington, District of Columbia. Mr. Foster has long been an important political factor in this section of the state, and in 1916 was a delegate to the National Republican Convention at Chicago, Illinois. In 1922 he was appointed postmaster at Lake Charles by the late President Warren G. Harding. Both he and his wife are active in the First Baptist Church at Lake Charles and concern themselves with many things that contribute to the public welfare. Mr. Foster is prominent in the Masonic fraternity. A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 262-263, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.