Person:Joseph Foster (11)

Joe Foster was a physician in Lancaster County. He attended the Medical College of South Carolina 1858-1859. His Preceptor was R.E. Wylie. He graduated from the Medical College of New Orleans, and served as a Medical Officer during the Civil War. He rose from Private to Surgeon of Jenkins' Brigade, and was functioning as Division Surgeon at the surrender. He was buried as a Brigadier General, but there is no record of his holding that rank.

Article, Lancaster News (undated clipping):

                                            Dr. J. H. FOSTER

  "Between the years 1865-85, one of the best known men in the county and village of Lancaster was Dr. Joe. An old-time family doctor, physician, nurse, and friend, he was loved by one and all as he traveled over the rutted dirt roads in his horse and buggy to the homes of the sick.
  Dr. Joseph Henry Foster was born April 20, 1835 at his father's plantation home on the Catawba River in the Waxhaws section of Lancaster County. He was the youngest child of John and Ann Kelsey Cantzon Foster, and a grandson of Captain John Foster and his wife Ann Dunlop(sic---should be Mary Atkins. Ann Dunlop was his great grandfather Henry Foster's wife). The Foster home had been built close to the river, sometime around 1752 when the family came down from Pennsylvania, on the plantation now belonging to the children of Anna Foster Moore. But, due to the prevalence of malaria which had caused the deaths of a number of the older brothers and sisters of Dr. Joe, a new home had been erected higher up on the old plantation. This home site is on the Lancaster-Riverside highway where C.C. Hanson now lives. The house was burned before 1900.
  Dr. Joe and his brother, Captain John Cantzon Foster received their first education in a neighborhood school, then were sent by their father to Mt Zion Institute in Winnsboro to prepare for entrance into the University of South Carolina. From the University both were graduated in 1855. Joseph Henry then studied medicine in Charleston and in 1860 finished at the New Orleans School of Medicine.
  Early in the spring of 1861, Dr. Foster volunteered with the Lancaster Greys of the Confederate Army, and was with them on the S.C. coast and later in Virginia. He was promoted to the full rank of Surgeon by order of the Secretary of War of the Confederacy in 1862 and served with the 5th S.C. Volunteers, under the command of General Coward, until the end of the war. An obituary of him at the time of his death says "Dr. Foster had but few equals in the Confederate service as a successful surgeon and physician, and it not infrequently happened that he was detailed to do brigade and division duty."
  At the close of the war, Dr. Foster returned to his father's Waxhaw home, which he inherited upon his father's death in 1867. In 1869, he was married to Charlotte Brown, daughter of Daniel Washington and Elizabeth Amanda Barnes Brown. In 1876, the couple moved down to the village of Lancaster. Their home was on the corner of Dunlap and Catawba Streets, later sold to Dr. G. F. Poovey, and now belonging to the county, the site of the Public Welfare Building.
  In addition to practicing medecine, Dr. Foster was interested in agriculture in every form. He planted his farm in the Waxhaws and raised cattle on land he had bought on Gills Creek, a good part of what is now North Main. He grew fruit trees and always had a beautiful flower garden."
  Dr. and Mrs. Foster had ten children, all but three growing to adulthood. Three of his sons followed their father's profession, the fourth was a Lancaster attorney.
  Dr. Foster died May 23, 1885. Buried in the same plot of the old Presbyterian Cemetery with him and his wife are three young children and a son, Dr. Carl Foster, and the latter's wife. Dr. Carl Foster practiced medicine many years in Columbia, S.C.. Also buried beside their parents are two daughters well-remembered by many Lancastrians, Misses Eloise and Gertrude Foster, who were beloved teachers in the Lancaster Public school for many years. Two children are still living, Dr. Ralph Kelsey Foster and Miss Caroline Foster, both of Columbia, S.C."

1. ↑ Headstone Lancaster 1st Presbyterian.
2. ↑ Headstone Lancaster 1st Presbyterian (2).