Abbie Foster’s house, courtesy of the Newburyport Public Library Archival Center
The House that Abbie Foster Built
Abbie Foster was given the land for a $1 and built this beautiful mansion as a widow at the age of 46.
Abbie Foster’s house, courtesy of the Newburyport Public Library Archival Center
Abbie Foster
Abbie L. Foster (1846-1913) seems to be one of those forgotten people with an intriguing story. In 1895 Abbie Foster built a huge Victorian McMansion on High Street, what is now 74 High Street.
Abbie Foster was born in Newburyport to David Currier a shoemaker and his wife Mary Currier in 1846. They were working/middle-class folks, Abbie had one brother and two sisters. Her sister Helen Currier never married and they lived together all of their lives, either with their parents, then boarding with their mother and after their mother’s death, together.
I found an article in an 1886-1887 city directory about a “Fancy Goods” shop downtown, “A. L. Currier,” it is Abbie Foster’s shop.
“Miss A. L. Currier, Laces, Trimmings, Jewelry, etc., No. 58 State Street – The attractive lace, trimming, and jewelry establishment of Miss A. L. Currier, No. 58 State Street (the corner of Pleasant and State Streets), has for ten years been one of the popular shopping places for ladies of Newburyport and vicinity. The store is arranged with taste, and the stock is always select and desirable. Every fashionable article in laces, trimmings, gloves, and notions generally, the latest novelties in ladies’ fancy goods, and all kinds of elegant jewelry, are to be had here at lowest possible prices, and satisfaction is uniformly guaranteed. Miss Currier is a very prompt and reliable business lady. She is a native of Massachusetts.”
Abbie was single until she was 44, and in 1891 she married Daniel Foster who was 60. This was Daniel’s second marriage, there were no children from his first. He came back to Newburyport in 1887 and seems to have boarded in different places, including where Abbie’s family lived, which was 14 Spring Street. Daniel died in 1893 only 2+ years after they were married. Abbie was a widow for 20 more years.
A detail of the photograph with the side of 76 High Street, courtesy of the Newburyport Public Library Archival Center
A detail of 74 High Street, courtesy of the Newburyport Public Library Archival Center
A detail of the field behind 74 High Street, courtesy of the Newburyport Public Library Archival Center
Abbie was given land on High Street for $1.00.
After Daniel died, in 1894 the heirs of Solomon Haskell and Mark Haskell gave Abbie the land that she built her house on High Street, and the land that what was once known as Haskell field and is now known as Foster Court. They gave the land to her for $1. Abbie gave the right of way to the City of Newburyport in 1898 and it is named after her because she owned the land. Foster Court does not show up on any map until 1940.
The first question I had was why in the world would these folks give land for a $1 to Abbie? I talked to Ghlee Woodworth and Melissa Berry, two local historians, and they both suggested that there was probably a family connection between the Curriers and the Haskells. And after a lot of digging around, there was a connection, and I’m going with that they were distant cousins, and they gave her the land. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.
And Ghlee Woodworth and Sharon Spieldenner, the head archivist from the Newburyport Public Library Archival Center, went and looked in City Hall for the tax records, and Abbie started paying taxes on the land in 1896, which probably means she probably built the house in 1895, however, she did not take out a mortgage, so she must have built it with cash? The tax records show that the house was worth $9,000 which in today’s’ money is somewhere around $250,000 and $300,000 but the house itself in today a 2019 market would be well over a million dollars if not two million. It’s a fancy place. Abbie did take out a mortgage for $10,000 from the Institution for Savings in 1910. I have no idea why.
74 High Street today, courtesy of Mary Baker Eaton
Where did Abbie Foster get all that money?
And the big question was where did Abbie get all that money. It took me quite a while to find that out.
I looked into Daniel Foster, her husband, thinking maybe the money came from him. But if he had that kind of money, why did he board all those years, why not buy a house. There is the write-up of Daniel as well as the write-up of Daniel’s father Thomas Foster, who among other things was a Revolutionary War hero, and owned N & T Foster with his brother Nathaniel Foster downtown in the building that is now called the Phoenix Building. Nathaniel was a clock and watchmaker, and Thomas was one of the “old time” silversmiths before Towle Silver existed, and many people apprenticed with him. I thought the money might have come from there. Some obviously did, but Thomas had a whole lot of children beside Daniel.
The other person I thought might have helped Abbie was her brother Warren Currier who lived at 190 High Street. Among other things he was Mayor of Newburyport from 1873-1874 and was a partner in Summer, Swasey and Currier a very successful shipping merchant business at 45 Water Street. I did find Warren’s will, and he gave Abbie around $1,000, big bucks, but not enough money to build a $9,000 house on High Street.
Helen Currier, her unmarried sister who lives with her all her life and died in 1901, lived at 74 High Street. Helen had first been a school teacher and then the principal at a school on School Street (I’m assuming it was or became the Jackman School). I looked up the salary of a woman teacher and it was miserable, enough to help support her mother and father, but not much more than that. No money there.
So Abbie built this spectacular house at 74 High Street. The 1900 census shows that she lived there with her sister and a servant. The 1910 census shows that she is lived alone in that great big house with one servant. She lived there for 17 years. This is far, far away from where she grew up as a shoemaker’s daughter.
And I found someone who knew someone who remembered Abbie, someone who lived in the neighborhood. He referred to her as “Old Lady Foster.” Abbie was in her 50’s and 60’s when she was referred to as “Old Lady Foster.”
And I found a write-up of her funeral. Not an obituary, and no obituary for her sister Helen. A write-up, here it is: “The funeral of Mrs. Abbie Louise Foster, widow of Daniel Foster was held from her late residence, 74 High street, yesterday afternoon. Rev. C. S. Holton officiated. There was a large number of friends and relatives present.” The pallbearers were her doctor, another doctor in town, her neighbor at 62 High Street and a clerk at one of the banks. No family. It doesn’t include any glowing details of how wonderful she was, what church and organizations she belonged to the way many of the write-ups in the newspapers seemed to do (at least all the ones I saw when I was going on a hunt for Abbie’s obituary).
And I asked around at the Archival Center at the Newburyport Library as to what folks thought it meant. I know when I moved here in 1981 there was still a very strong class system here in Newburyport. There was still the upper crust on High Street and then everyone else, and it was even more pronounced earlier in the century. “Old Lady Foster” for me is kind of a derogatory term. Maybe she “made it” and was accepted by the folks on High Street, or maybe not.
Ghlee Woodworth had suggested the money was probably from an inheritance.
A write-up on Daniel Foster
Mark of N&T Foster Silver, Newburyport, MA
A write-up on Daniel Foster’s Father, Thomas Foster
The money mystery solved.
And finally, I found Daniel’s father’s will in the digitalized version of the Newburyport newspapers in the Newburyport Public Library Archival Center, and it turns out that his father, Thomas Foster, left everything to Daniel, with the hope that if he had no children, he would like his money to be divided between various religious and civic groups.
During the time after his father’s death, Daniel seemed to lead a fairly modest life. He boarded and then eventually lived as a married man and died in Abbie’s maternal home at 14 Spring Street, which she shared with her sister Helen. No fancy stuff.
And then eureka, I then found Daniel’s will. He left Helen, Abbie’s sister, $6,000, which was a whole lot of money back then, he left Abbie the rest of his estate and made her the executor of his will. He left various family members very small amounts of money.
Daniel’s family then, according to the Newburyport newspaper accounts, contested the will. They lost. Daniel clearly loved Abbie and liked her family a whole lot better than his own.
That is how Abbie Foster came to be able to build that gorgeous Queen Anne Victorian at 74 High Street.
A great deal of thanks to the Newburyport Public Library Archival Center for all their help in researching and figuring out the story of Abbie Foster.
Check Out The Interactive History Map
More information about Newburyport and its history can be found on the interactive history map, “Newburyport – Keeping the Story Alive.”
Solve The Abbie Foster Puzzle
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