Early and Personal Life
Foster was born on a sugar plantation near Franklin, the seat of St. Mary Parish, to Thomas Foster and the former Martha P. Murphy. His family like other prominent Southern families did not shirk their duties during the Civil War and suffered tremendously during the war losing both relatives and riches. Despite their losses and the subsequent military despotism of Reconstruction and the corruption of the Republican Party machine which attempted to seize their property, the Foster family managed to secure most of their plantation. Subsequently, Foster was educated in public schools and attended Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and graduated from Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee in 1870. He studied law at the University of Louisiana (later Tulane University) in New Orleans and was admitted to the bar in 1871.
On May 15, 1877, Foster married the former Florence Daisy Hine, the daughter of Franklin merchant T.D. Hine. She died on August 26, 1877, at age 19. In 1881, he married the former Rose Routh Ker, daughter of Captain John Ker and the former Rose Routh of Ouida Plantation in West Feliciana Parish near Baton Rouge. The couple had ten children, nine of whom lived to maturity. One was Murphy James Foster, II, the father of future Governor Murphy (Mike) Foster. By and large the family has been Episcopalian.
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