BIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

THE LEADING CITIZENS OF MADISON COUNTY

CONTENTS
Preface
Names Index
Portrait Index

MISS RHODA FOSTER, who is a representative of one of the oldest pioneer families of Madison County, is a daughter of Joseph Foster, who was born in Warren, Conn., in 1786. He was a son of Joseph Foster, a New England farmer, whose eldest son, Nathan, removed from the land of his fathers to Madison County, New York, about 178o, and was followed to this then new Western country in 1799 by the father of the subject of this sketch. Joseph Foster, the grandfather of our subject, married Desire Hopkins, by whom he had two sons and three daughters, the daughters being: Deborah, who married John Pomeroy; Thursa, who married Joshua Tucker, and whose son, Adoniram Tucker, now resides near Hamilton; and Azubah, who removed to Michigan. Joseph Foster and his wife lie at rest in the cemetery at Hamilton Centre, Madison County.
Joseph Foster, the father of our subject, married Lois Alderman about 1805. They were the parents of nine children, four sons and five daughters, namely: Nathan, who died at the age of three years; Melinda, who died, unmarried, at the age of twenty-six; Abbey Ann, who died in 1882, aged sixty-four; Harley, who died in 1887, aged sixty-eight, leaving a son and daughter; Lyman, who has three daughters; Harriet E., widow of Benjamin Richmond; Spencer, a farmer on the old homestead, who has one daughter; Rhoda, the subject of this sketch; and Cynthia, wife of Charles W. Wilcox, who has one son. Miss Rhoda Foster has been a milliner in the village of Hamilton for the past forty years, and through strict attention to her business has been quite successful.