MICHAEL FOSTER
Michael Foster, who came to Tazewell County in 1864 and purchased an 80-acre farm on Section 16, Deer Creek Township, upon a portion of which the village of Deer Creek has since been founded, has proved himself one of the most capable farmers and business men in that portion of the County. His boyhood was spent in Wurtemberg, Germany, where he was born March 10, 1835, and is youth was clouded by the death of his parents, Michael and Regina (Aulbrlght) Foster, the calamity throwing him upon his own resources, and testing his ability to rise above a grievous misfortune. He is the only member of his father’s family to come to the United States, and subsequent success and honor have proven the wisdom of this ambitious departure. After residing two years in Pennsylvania Mr. Foster came to Illinois and worked by the month, making arrangements to purchase the aforementioned farm in 1864. Prosperity came to him, and in time the idea of establishing a village on his land developed from a possibility into the distinct probability, especially after he had begun to plat some of his property and dispose of it in lots. He encouraged the founding of the village by presenting the land for the Methodist Church in 1888, and has since had the satisfaction of witnessing the development of a thriving community of 300 souls, with established homes and industries, maintaining its own schools, stores, bank and municipal building, and giving promise of an extension of its limits, as the advantages of its location is more fully appreciated.
In Washington Township, Tazewell bounty, Mr. Foster married Eliza Myers, February 17, 1861. Mrs. Foster is a native of Fairfield County, Ohio, born March 6, 1838, and the daughter of Henry and Saloma (Cloar) Myers. Her father was born in Pennsylvania, and settled in Washington Township, Tazewell County, about 1848. He became an extensive land owner and successful farmer, reared a family of nine daughters and five sons, and lived to be fifty-six years old; his wife died at the age of fifty-eight. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Foster: Hepperly D., T. L., Ida M. Belsly, Jessie Zehr, Etta Myrtle Ehrisman and Harley Roy—all married and established in homes of their own.
Mr. Foster is a Republican in politics, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He is well known for his liberality of views, his generosity in responding to legitimate claims upon his time and purse, and his unswerving integrity in all walks of life.
Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Tazewell County - page 1002