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A VALUABLE CONTRIBUTION
TO THE HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
Foster’s Crossings – All About the Place.
Correspondence of the the Star.
Foster’s Crossings, Jan. 1, 1868.
Would you like to know something about our thriving little village? Our Franklins and Waynesvilles are shown up in your columns, and why not bring our Foster’s Crossings before the people in the same way? We have a right to a position among the towns of Warren county, and we are going to stand up for our rights and be seen and heard. our town is improving, and we want the people to know it. Though we are now in our infancy, we may soon grow to be very important and be called upon to elect an alderman; and thus open the way to greatness for some “humble individual.”
We want the people of Warren to know that we live and thrive, and I will now proceed to tell them what our village is, and where it may be found. It is situated on the Little Miami R. R.; twenty-seven miles from Cincinnati and ninety-two from Columbus; on the Cincinnati and Hopkinsville turnpike, twenty-one miles from Cincinnati; and on the Little Miami River about twenty-five miles from its mouth. It stands on both sides of the river, and is connected by the new bridge built by Mr. Hebble and completed last spring. This bridge would be an ornament to any town and is as substantial as it is useful and ornamental. It is a monument to the memory of the builder. The turnpike was built through here in 1840, and the railroad four or five years later. A store and a tavern were soon built by Mr. Foster, the name on the tavern sign being “22 Mile Stand,” it being a little more than twenty-one miles from the city. The name of the railroad station being Foster’s, the place soon took the name of Foster’s Crossings and has been known by that name ever since. The name being a natural one nobody has cared to change it. The railroad and turnpike form a crossing on the east side of the river, and on the west side the turnpike is crossed again by the river common road. There are clustered at these corners and in the vicinity of these crossings forty-seven houses by actual count. Of these twenty-seven are dwellings and remaining twenty are business houses and shops. There are three dry goods and grocery stores, a merchant tailoring house, two boot and shoe establishments, a first class boarding house, a grain depot, a flouring mill, a saw mill, a distillery, a railroad depot, a coop-
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The Sabbath school is a union school, and though it is small, the officers and teachers are zealous co-workers and are determined to keep it up. We boast of a population of one hundred and eighty souls, men, women and children. One hundred and five are German, fifty are American, and twenty-five are Irish. You will observe that we are decidedly germain in our make up. These Germans are industrious and show a considerable degree of enterprise. The most of them are owners of real estate, and by their diligence have acquired a comfortable home with a few acres of ground.
The flouring mill at this place is one of the best on the river. The mill race cuts off about an acre of ground and forms an island on which are three dwelling houses and a saw mill. The timbers of the new bridge were framed on this island and the builder came near loosing it twice during the September freshet of last year. There is another flouring mill in the vicinity which does its shipping from this station. This mill was built by Gov. Morrow in 1813 and was conducted by him up to the time of his death, March 22, 1852. It is still in “active service.”
The postoffice was established here in 1860. Now a few words about politics and I will be done. Our postmaster is “Simon pure” Union. Being an old soldier, he “sees clearly” that he should be on duty in the Republican ranks. Owing to the predominant German and Irish population we are not as strongly Union as we ought to be. Though the ballots may be in the Democratic hands the brains are in the Republican cranium. This latter bit of modesty I hope the opposition will excuse.
Resident.