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Chapter 53
Foster

Williams >

Elias and Mary Foster were the first who settled in Walsingham, west of Big Creek.

Before the war of the Revolution, Elias was in comfortable circumstances in Long Island. However, he promptly threw in his lot with the British, and served in the Royal Regiment, New York.

In 1783 he came with others to New Brunswick, settling about ten miles from Fredericton. He was a widower at the time he left his American home, but married again in New Brunswick.

In 1800 he came to Long Point with his young family, settling in Walsingham, near the marsh land, west of Port Royal. Three years after he was made a justice of the peace, and later, a justice of the Court of Requests. He continued a man of prominence and influence till his death, in 1833.

His eldest son, Edward, served in the war of 1812 as a commissariat officer. This gentleman was a skilful hunter, and his family tell many thrilling "bear stories," tales of adventure in the thick forests west of Walsingham Centre. His list of bear "scalps" is said to have amounted to over one hundred.

Muskrats seem to have been plentiful in Walsingham at that time, for it is said Mr. Foster killed as many as seventeen hundred in one year. The skins had a value of about two shillings, York currency. Evidently Long Point was a sportsman’s paradise to an even greater extent than it is at the present time.