BIOGRAPHIES:  Nathaniel C. FOSTER, Fairchild, Eau Claire Co., WI 

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** Posted for informational purposes only - poster is not related to the 
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Nathaniel C. Foster, one of the well-known business men of
northwestern Wisconsin, a resident of Fairchild, Eau Claire county,
was born in Owego, Tioga county, N. Y., June 6, 1834, and is
descended from prominent New England ancestors, the son of Willard
and Lovicea (Pickering) Foster.  He attended the common schools of is
native county and in 1854 came to Wisconsin and located at Fort
Howard, now Green Bay.  After his arrival there he worked a short
time in a saw mill, then purchased an interest in the mill and
engaged in the lumber business on his own account, remaining there
for some twenty-five years.  In 1876 he moved to Fairchild and
purchased large tracts of timber land in Eau Claire and Clarke
counties, the timber from this land furnishing the supply for his
large mills at Fairchild, which were erected in 1877 at an outlay of
$100,000.  The plant had a capacity of 125,000 feet of timber daily,
besides 14,000,000 shingles and 6,000,000 lath per season, and
employed a force of 250 men.  In July, 1891, his various interests
were incorporated under the name of the N. C. Foster Lumber Company,
with a fully paid-up capital of $500,000.  N. C. Foster, president,
and his two sons, E. J. Foster and G. A. Foster, vice president,
secretary and treasurer, and continued in this business until 1906.
The company also carried on a general merchandise business, which was
later sold to the Farmers' Mutual Trading Company and which was
incorporated in 1903 with Mr. Foster president.  He is also president
of the Farmers' Co-operative Supply Company, located at Greenwood,
Clark county, which has been in operation since 1898.  He is also
president of the First National Bank of Fairchild, of which he is the
founder.  This institution was established with a capital of $25,000;
its assets are now $227,000 and its deposits $183,455, surplus $5,000.

Mr. Foster is one of few if not the only man in the United States
who ever built a railroad without mortgaging it for a single dollar.
In 1882 he built forty-five miles of railroad from Fairchild to
Mondovi, which he used for hauling logs, and was the first road
devoted to that purpose built in Wisconsin; it was chartered in 1886
and afterwards sold, and is now known as the Mondovi branch of the
St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha railroad.  His original log railroad,
consisting of thirty-eight miles from Fairchild to Owen, where it
connects with the Soo railroad, put in operation in 1905, was built
by Mr. Foster for the N. C. Foster Lumber Company.  In 1913 Mr.
Foster began the building of an extension of the Fairchild &
Northeastern railroad from Fairchild to Cleghorn, a distance of
twenty-eight miles.  In addition to his many other enterprises Mr.
Foster is largely interested in the real estate, selling lands to
actual settlers for the N. C. Foster Company, which are mostly
located in Clark county, Wisconsin.  These lands are principally sold
to a thrifty class of Slavic people.  Mr. Foster is a man of
excellent character, pleasing personality, and readily wins the good
will and holds the confidence of those who come within the range of
his influence.  He is a man of genial, social temperament, loyal to
is friends and true to whatever is noble and best in life, and to
this, as well as his fair and honorable business methods and sound
business principles, is due his success.  He was married in 1859 at
Green Bay, Wis., to Miss Esther Stearn, and to them were born seven
children, viz:  Gilbert A.; Edward J.; Sarah, who married Cassius
Wilson; Carrie and Clara, twins; Willard, and Grace M.  Carrie
married George Winslow; Clara married ? Duncan, and Grace M. married
Henry Thomas, second husband Hollenberg, now living in Los Angeles,
Cal., a widow.

-Transcribed from the "History of Eau Claire County Wisconsin,
1914," pages 712-713

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