Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

East, Putnam county, New York, where
during the remainder of his life he was the
proprietor of a woolen factory. He married
(first), in 1806, Phoebe Burchard,
who was born March 13, 1782, and died
April 27, 1814. He married (second),
Phoebe Hobbs, who was born October 19,
1792, and died May 31, 1871, in Elizabeth,
New Jersey. The death of Mr. Foster occurred
October 10, 1833.
(VIII) Anson Foster, son of John Benedict
and Phoebe (Burchard) Foster, was
born November 19, 1806, in South East,
New York, and lived in New York City
and in Stoningfton, Connecticut. He mar-
ried Mary Atwater. He died October 22,
1880.
(VIII) Mary Elizabeth Foster, daughter
of John Benedict and Phoebe (Hobbs)
Foster, was born June 23, 1829, in South
East, New York, and became the wife of
John Ely Keeler, as stated above.
(IX) Mary Gazella Foster, daughter
of Anson and Mary (Atwater) Foster,
was born April 13, 1856, in Stonington,
Connecticut, and on November 15, 1882,
became the wife of John Foster Keeler,
as stated above.
BEERS, Louis S.,
Attorney.
In the parish of Westcliffe, County
Kent, England, the Beers family appears
to have originated at a place called Bere's
or Byers Court. William de Bere of
Bere's Court, was bailiff of Dover about
1275, and Nicholas de Bere held the manor
of Bere's Court in the twentieth year of
Henry III. Of this same family was
Roger Bere, who died in the reign of
Queen Mary, and whose son John, in 1542,
purchased the Horsman place, in Dartford,
said to have been a mansion of some
note. In his will, 1572, this John Bere
founded four almshouses in Dartford, and
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
386
devised his mansion to his son Henry.
His grandson, Edward, died unmarried,
in 1627.
Martin de Bere, the first of the family
to whom an unbroken line is traced from
the American pioneer, lived at Rochester,
County Kent, in i486; he married a
daughter of Thomas Myssell, of Wrotham,
and had a son, John Beers, who
married Faith, daughter of John Royden.
James Beers, their son, married Dorothy,
daughter of John Kingswood, of Rochester,
and their son, John Beers, married
Mary, daughter of Robert Selby, of Yorkshire.
They were the parents of James
Beers, who was a mariner, and was lost
at sea ; he married Hester, and she died
in 1635. Anthony Beers, his son, came
to America with his uncle, Richard Beers,
in 1635 ; he was first in Watertown, later
in Roxbury, and served as a sergeant in
the Indian Wars in 1649. In 1658 he removed
to Fairfield, Connecticut, and like
his father, he was a mariner, and was also
lost at sea, in 1676. His wife was Elizabeth,
and their children were : Ephraim,
born in 1648; John, born in 1652; Samuel
B., born in 1657; Barnabas, born 1658.
Anthony Beers was undoubtedly the an-
cestor of the Beers family whose history
is given herein.
Ezekiel Beers, grandfather of Louis S.
Beers, was born in 1793, and died December
25, 1859. He lived for many years
in New Canaan, and may have been a
native of that town. In his youth he
learned the trade of cabinet-maker and
undertaker, which occupation he followed
in Westport for some years. In those
days a cabinet-maker did his own finish-
ing, and that part of the work so affected
the health of Mr. Beers that he was forced
to give it up and take up the occupation
of carpenter.
Mr. Beers married, September 10, 1818,
Abigail St. John, born in 1800, daughter