History

In the 1880s, Robert Foster owned a large parcel of land directly south of the Burton & Moses development on Burton Avenue.  In 1889, he sold the land to Dr. Erasmus Burton and Darius Adams for a new 45-lot development along both sides of a new roadway that would bear his name, Foster Avenue.

Robert Foster was born on October 3, 1847, to Thomas Foster and Mary (Whigham) Foster.  Thomas Foster was born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 1805 and, in the early 1840s, he settled on a large parcel of land in East Cleveland Township.  Thomas built a log cabin on the property, located near 564 East 105^th Street, where Thomas and Mary raised their three children.  The Foster’s property was located west of Doan Avenue (East 105^th Street), and north of St. Clair Avenue. The land was eventually divided by the Lake Shore Railway.  Upon Thomas Foster’s death in 1877, title to the property transferred to Robert Foster.

Robert Foster married Lillian Ethel Draper on December 20, 1877.  Lillian was born in Geauga County on March 19, 1855, the daughter of Clark Rogers Draper, an Ohio Universalist preacher, and Catherine Williams (Smith) Draper.  The Draper family moved to Iowa when Lillian was young for Reverend Draper’s ministry.  Upon her husband’s death in 1870, Catherine Draper moved the family back to Ohio, settling in the Cleveland area, where she built a farm near the site of the car barns at St. Clair Avenue and East 125^th Street.  Robert and Lillian Foster had five children.