The clock is a surface mount tower clock with Roman numerals, manufactured by Electric Time Company of Medfield, MA. It is mounted high above the main entrance of John and Randolph Foster High School.
Surrounding the clock are two different shades of red brick. The wall area around the clock is a buff colored brick with a diamond pattern of reddish bricks.
Foster High School is at 4400 FM 723 Rd, about 10 miles north of Richmond, TX.
John and Randolph Foster
John Foster (1757-1837), one of Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists, was born in 1757 in backcountry South Carolina where he and his brothers were patriots during the Revolutionary War. Successfully negotiating with Spanish officials, by 1783, Foster had obtained grants of land for himself and his wife, Rachel Gibson, on the Natchez Trace, in present day Mississippi where he became the first recorded settler. In 1801, Foster's first wife died and he married a young widow, Mary Elizabeth Smith Kelsey and moved to Wilkinson County where he devoted himself to his family and the development of his land.
John's son, Randolph (1790-1878), served in the war of 1812 in the company raised by Capt. Randal Jones, who would become his lifelong friend and Fort Bend County neighbor. Between 1814 or 1815 and 1821, Randolph, an experienced frontiersman, explored and hunted throughout the Arkansas territory and Spanish Texas. As early as 1817, he camped on or near what would become the John Foster Grant. During the summer of 1821, Randolph "fell in" with Stephen F. Austin, who was making his first trip to Texas, and accompanied him to San Antonio. Thereafter, Randolph helped Austin outline the boundaries that were most desirable for his colony. No doubt inspired by Randolph's reports of the fertility and beauty of southeast Texas, in 1822, at the age of sixty-five, John Foster moved to Texas with his sons, one of which was Randolph. In 1824, John Foster was granted two-and-a-half leagues and three labors of land in present-day Fort Bend County. Randolph, who was single, was granted one league that today is divided between Waller and Fort Bend Counties. Very soon after his arrival, John Foster established a school for his family, which quickly became the Foster Community School. John Foster hired a teacher from the East to teach in this school. In his father's absence, Randolph kept the school in operation until about the time of the Civil War.
The Fosters devoted themselves to the clearing and development of their lands; surviving records provide only a few glimpses at their activities. In 1826, Randolph served Austin as an Indian agent and scout. In 1829, Randolph married Lucy Ruffin Hunter (1804-1872) and brought her to live on a part of the John Fisher Grant.
In December 1835, some twenty-eight men stepped forward to concur in the preamble and resolutions of declaration of complete independence from Mexico by attaching their signatures thereto, including John Foster, who in his seventy-eighth year was again willing to risk life and fortune to oppose tyranny.
In the spring of 1836, Randolph Foster collected supplies, munitions and weapons for the use of the army. Sam Houston assigned Randolph Foster and Deaf Smith to destroy the bridge that the Mexican Army had just crossed to get into the area of the battlefield. The two then returned just in time to participate in the last part of the battle of San Jacinto.
In 1855, Dr. Johnson Hunter donated a five-acre tract of land on the R.H. Hunter survey for The Frost Institute, located approximately six miles north of Richmond. Hunter's son-in-law, Samuel Miles Frost was the organizer and three trustees including Randolph Foster were selected to serve.
The Foster descendants have continually occupied the Foster Grants up to the present day, and many others live in the surrounding area of the Foster Community. Many of the Foster descendants continue to be involved in education within the Lamar Consolidated School District, as well as the State of Texas.
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