Foster, William Edward, 1795-1843
Biographical Note
William Edward Foster [Sr.] (1795-1843) was born in 1795 in Matthews County, Virginia, though he spent most of his life in North Carolina. In 1833, he married Mary Eleanor Wiatt (sometimes Wyatt) (1812-1894) from Wake County, North Carolina. The couple had four children: Cecilia Dabney Foster Lawrence (1835-1894); Cora M. Foster Yarborough (1838-?); Eleanor Foster Yarborough (1840-1925); and William Edward Foster (1843-1906). Foster [Sr.] and his family were living in Louisburg, North Carolina by the 1840s. Foster [Sr.] was in Georgia, on route to Alabama on business when, according to newspaper accounts, he was murdered by an African-American slave traveling with him on April 5, 1843. His son, William Edward Foster, was born on April 15, 1843, not long after Mary E. Foster received word of her husband’s death.