Central Texas History

Andrew B. Foster, sheriff of Comanche county, needs no introduction to the citizens of this or surrounding counties in central Texas.  There are, indeed few gentlemen here who are better known or more highly respected than he.  He has been connected with the sheriff's office for some eight years, having been deputy under F. E. Wilson and for the past six years being continuously re-elected.  Some personal mention of him is therefore appropriate in this work, and the following facts in regard to his life have been gleaned for publication.
Andrew B. Foster is a native of Tennessee, born July 15, 1843, son of T. Boyd and Eleanor S. (Cowan) Foster, and the fourth in their family of eleven children.  His father was a native of Old Virginia and his mother of Alabama.  He was reared to farm life in Alabama, where his parents resided for many years, and received his education in the schools of Jackson county, that state.  In 1862, at the age of eighteen years, he went forth in the strength of his young manhood to fight for the southern cause, civil war at the time having been in progress about one year.  It was as a member of the Thirty-third Alabama Infantry that he entered the ranks;  he served as a non-commissioned officer and distinguished himself by his brave and decisive action through the various engagements from Nashville to Atlanta, and at the last named place was taken prisoner and sent north.  He was held captive at Camp Chase, Ohio, during the last year of the war, was there at the time of surrender, and on being released returned to his home in Alabama.
Mr. Foster maintained his residence in Alabama until 1875, when he came to Texas and located permanently in Comanche county.  Here he has from time to time made profitable investments in realty and at this writing has a landed estate comprising a thousand acres, three hundred acres of which are under cultivation and producing the usual crops of the vicinity.  He has one acre in fruit trees.  And in connection with his farming operations he also has extensive stock interests, raising both horses and cattle and making a specialty of grading them up to a high standard.  Both as a farmer and a stock man he takes a high rank in the county.
Politically, Mr. Foster is a stanch and steadfast Democrat, has given the party valuable aid and has been honored by it with official preferment.  He is a man of promptness and nerve, ever on the alert in the faithful performance of his duty, and his long continuance in the office is evidence of his popularity.  Socially, he affiliates with the F. & A. M. and the I. O. O. F.
Mr. Foster is a man of family.  January 30, 1867, was consummated his marriage with Miss Nancy B. Brewer, a native of Alabama and a most estimable woman, who has since shared the joys and sorrows of life with him.  They have ten children living, viz.: Betty E., Sidney B., Sallie P., Thomas L., John C., Allie, Pearl, Annie B., Willie B., and Frank W.  Earnest and an infant daughter are deceased.

This text is from an 1896 book about the History of Texas "together with Biographical Sketches of Many of the Leading Families of CENTRAL TEXAS."  There is no author listed in the book, published be the Lewis Publishing Co.

The daughter "Sallie P." (mentioned in the last paragraph) is our g-grandmother - Sallie Pauline Foster, the wife of Charlie Row, these being the parents of Pauline (Roe) Bagley, Walter Roe, and others.