Randolph Foster
Richmond, Fort Bend County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Randolph Foster Born in the Natchez District of Spanish West Florida on March 12, 1790, Randolph Foster was the son of John and Rachel (Gibson) Foster. After service in Captain Randal Jones' Company during the War of 1812, Randolph hunted and explored throughout what was then the southwest, including stops in this part of Texas. When he heard that Moses Austin had permission to settle 300 families in Texas, he headed back to the area. Foster arrived in Texas with Stephen F. Austin in 1821 as an "old three hundred" colonist. In 1824, he received title to 4,400 acres in present-day Fort Bend and Waller Counties. He served as an Indian scout for the colony. In 1829, he married Lucy Ruffin Hunter (1804-1872). They made their home on the John Foster Grant and had seven children. During the War for Texas' Independence from Mexico in 1836, Foster helped procure munitions for the Texian army, then joined Captain Wyly Martin's Company. In April 1836, when Santa Anna and his vanguard troops sought to cross the Brazos at present-day Richmond, Foster and his outnumbered comrades delayed them long enough to prevent them from reaching Harrisburg in time to capture the Texian government. A prominent planter and rancher, Foster signed the petition to create Fort Bend County and supported the Foster Community School. In 1856, he was appointed a trustee of the Frost Institute, a private school, by the Texas Legislature. He died at the home of one of his daughters, near the later established Foster Community, on August 18, 1878. (2002)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Spanish West Florida in 1790, Randolph Foster served in the War of 1812 and hunted across the southwestern frontier before joining Stephen F. Austin's first colony as one of the fabled "Old Three Hundred" in 1821. Granted 4,400 acres and serving as an Indian scout, he became a prominent Fort Bend planter. During the 1836 revolution he helped supply the Texian army and, with a handful of comrades, delayed Santa Anna's crossing of the Brazos long enough to keep the fleeing Texian government out of enemy hands.
Why it matters
Foster's life traces the Anglo-American settlement of Texas from Austin's colony to independence, the frontier generation whose land grants and militia service turned Mexican Tejas into a republic.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Randolph Foster was born in 1790 in the Natchez District on the lower Mississippi. At the time, the region belonged to Spain, and its borders were still in dispute. It was the edge of the young United States, where Spanish, French, American and Native nations all overlapped. Foster grew up among frontier families who were used to moving west in search of land.
In 1821 Mexico won its independence from Spain and allowed Stephen F. Austin to carry out the colonization plan that his father, Moses Austin, had started. Austin was to settle 300 families in Texas, and those first settlers became known as the "Old Three Hundred." They received generous land grants along the Brazos and Colorado rivers. In return they accepted Mexican citizenship and Mexican law.
By the 1830s, tension between the American settlers and the Mexican government had grown. Disputes over immigration, slavery, trade and how much self-rule the colonists should have led to the Texas Revolution in 1835-36. Much of the fighting happened in the very river country where Foster had made his home.
People & events
Randolph Foster was the son of John and Rachel (Gibson) Foster. During the War of 1812 he served in Captain Randal Jones' company. Afterward he spent years hunting and exploring the Southwest, including this part of Texas. When he heard that Moses Austin had permission to bring 300 families into Texas, he came back. He arrived with Stephen F. Austin in 1821, one of the original Old Three Hundred.
In 1824 he received title to 4,400 acres in what are now Fort Bend and Waller counties, and he worked as an Indian scout for the colony. In 1829 he married Lucy Ruffin Hunter. They made their home on the John Foster Grant and raised seven children. When the revolution came in 1836, Foster helped find munitions for the Texian army and then joined Captain Wyly Martin's company.
His biggest moment came that April. Santa Anna and his advance troops were trying to cross the Brazos at what is now Richmond, racing toward Harrisburg to capture the fleeing Texian government. Foster and his outnumbered comrades held them up long enough that the government got away. Weeks later the war ended with the Texian victory at San Jacinto. In the years after, Foster prospered as a planter and rancher. He signed the petition to create Fort Bend County, supported the Foster Community School, and in 1856 the Legislature made him a trustee of the Frost Institute. He died at a daughter's home on August 18, 1878.
Its place in the American story
Foster's life follows a whole chapter of American expansion. He was born under Spanish rule on the Mississippi frontier, fought in the War of 1812, and joined the first Anglo-American colony in Mexican Texas. He then helped win the independence that led to the Republic of Texas and, in 1845, to statehood. Few lives show as clearly how the southwestern frontier changed hands, one generation at a time.
His delaying action on the Brazos shows how much small, local stands mattered in the Texas Revolution. A handful of men slowing an army at a river crossing doesn't sound like turning-point history. But the survival of the Texian government in those desperate weeks was essential to the cause. If the government had been captured, the outcome could have been very different.
His later years matter just as much. Signing county petitions, supporting schools and sitting on an academy's board of trustees were the everyday work that turned frontier settlements into lasting communities. The Old Three Hundred are remembered for land and battle. Men like Foster also built the institutions that followed.
If you visit
Richmond sits on the Brazos River, the same river Foster and his comrades defended in April 1836. Stand near the river and imagine that spring. Families were fleeing east in what became known as the Runaway Scrape, and a Mexican army was pressing toward the crossings. The river is still the region's central landmark.
Fort Bend County has deep roots in the Old Three Hundred era, and Richmond is one of the best places in the Houston area to feel that history. Take time with the marker and its long account of Foster's life. Then think about how much changed between his birth under Spanish rule and his death in a Texas that was a state of the Union.
For a road trip, Richmond pairs well with other revolutionary-era sites west and south of Houston. A good loop would include the San Jacinto battleground east of the city, where the campaign Foster helped shape came to its end.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Randolph Foster
- · Stephen F. Austin
- · Moses Austin
- · Lucy Ruffin Hunter
Related events
- · Texas Revolution
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Wyly Martin
Richmond, TX
Wyly Martin's life ran through the founding struggles of two frontiers. Born in Georgia in 1776, he scouted under William Henry Harrison and served under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, then reappeared in Texas as alcalde of San Felipe de Austin, a delegate to the conventions of 1832–33, and a captain in the Army of Texas during the 1836 revolution. He closed his career as chief justice of Fort Bend County before his death in 1842.
Isaac Best
Pattison, TX
Isaac Best (1774–1837) was one of the 'Old 300,' the first families to settle Stephen F. Austin's colony. Before coming to Texas around 1824 he had built a mill and a fortified refuge, Best's Fort, on the Pennsylvania–Kentucky frontier during the War of 1812. In Texas he received a land grant east of the Brazos and steadily expanded his holdings to some 8,000 acres; nearby Best Creek still bears his name.
John Foster
Richmond, TX
Born in South Carolina in 1757, John Foster pushed west across the Appalachians around 1781 to the Spanish-held Natchez District, where he became a landowner, founded the town of Washington, and helped establish Jefferson College. In 1822 he joined the Texas frontier as one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred," receiving an 11,600-acre grant in what is now Fort Bend County. On Christmas Day 1835 he signed the Columbia Resolutions urging Texas independence, then retired to Mississippi, where he died in 1837.
Foster Community
Rosenberg, TX
The Foster community traces to 1821, when Randolph Foster pitched a permanent camp on an enormous land grant tied to his father John, one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred" colonists. Foster kin fought in the Texas War for Independence, and the settlement thrived on sugar cane in the 1840s, later shipping its crop by a railroad Imperial Sugar built to the mills at Sugar Land. Schools, a store, and a post office followed, but by the end of World War II the failing sugar crop, the Depression, and shifting ownership drained the community away.