Herman T. Foskett, a pioneer of Butler county and prominent farmer and stockman of Fairview township, was born in Medina county, Ohio, October 31, 1854, and is a son of Fordyce and Lydia (Phillips) Foskett. The father died in 1860, leaving the widowed mother and four children. Fordyce Foskett, the father, was born in Charlestown, Mass., December 16, 1816. He was the son of Hosea, who was also a native of Massachusetts, and a prosperous and well-to-do man for his time. He migrated from Massachusetts to Ohio with his family in the thirties, and Fordyce D. Foskett here met Lydia Phillips and they were married October 21, 1847. She was born in Bristol township, Ontario county, New York, July 6, 1827, a daughter of Daniel and Achsah (Simmons) Phillips, the former a native of Massachusetts, and the latter of Vermont. Daniel Phillips was a son of Zebulon Phillips, who was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and aid-de-camp to General Washington. In 1831 Daniel Phillips left New York State with his family and went by boat from Buffalo, N. Y., to Cleveland, Ohio, and from there to Huron county, where the family settled, and the parents spent the remainder of their lives.

Herman T. Foskett was one of a family of four children born to Fordyce D. and Lydia (Phillips) Foskett, as follows: Amarilla, now the widow of H. H. Hulbert, a pioneer settler of Butler county; Hosea G., deceased; Ella C. married P. W. Crawford, Seville, Ohio, and Herman T., the subject of this sketch. About ten years after the death of the husband and father, Mrs. Foskett and her son, Herman T., then a boy about sixteen years of age, left Ohio and came to Kansas, coming as far as Florence by rail. They lived about a year with Mrs. Foskett's daughter, Mrs. H. H. Hulbert, and in 1872 homesteaded a claim on section 17, Faidview[sic] township. They built a small cabin, 12x14 feet, and bought a yoke of oxen and a wagon for $110. Mrs. Foskett wanted a cow and started out with her ox team and boy in search of some one who had a cow for sale. She was directed to a Mrs. Cowley, who lived two miles north of El Dorado, where she bought a cow, for which she paid $50, $5 for a pig, and fifty cents each for three hens and a rooster. When Mrs. Foskett had loaded her pig and chickens in the wagon and tied the cow behind the wagon and was ready to start with her oxen, Mrs. Cowley remarked that when she reached home she could imagine that her place was well stocked, that the bawling of the cow, the bleating of the calf, the cackling of the hens, and the crowing of the rooster ought to make her think that she was living on a real farm.

Thus Herman Foskett and his mother started in the stock business in Fairview township, and in a few years they were well on the road to prosperity. They have always raised considerable stock and conducted

quite a large dairy, keeping from eighteen to twenty cows. Mrs. Foskett's butter was always in demand and she found a ready sale at top prices for it. Even during grasshopper year, when other settlers were hard up, and many were forced to accept aid, the Fosketts were in a fairly prosperous condition. They had a nice orchard of about 100 trees when the grasshoppers came, and in order to save the trees from devastation, Mrs. Foskett went from time to time among them, shaking the grasshoppers off each tree and succeeded in saving the trees from complete destruction, which was the fate of most of the young orchards of the country.

Mrs. Foskett and her son operated the farm jointly until 1907, when Herman bought his mother's quarter and now owns 240 acres of well improved and productive land near Rock creek, a tributary of the Whitewater. Mr. Foskett was married in 1882 to Miss Euretta Rutherford, a daughter of Daniel Rutherford, who came to Kansas from southern Ohio. To Mr. and Mrs Foskett have been born two children: Edith L., deceased, and Ethel Lydia. The Foskett family is well known in Butler county and are of the representatives of this county.

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