FREDERICK FORNEY FOSCUE
BIOGRAPHY and GENEALOGY
(September 11, 1819 – March 3, 1906)
Virginia, Texas, and Coosa, Marengo, Monroe Counties, Alabama
(Excerpt from History of Coosa County: by the Rev. George Evans Brewer, 1887)
Rev. Benjamin Foscue was a pioneer settler of Coosa, about Hanover or Weogufka, and was a Primitive Baptist preacher of good property. But he lost a good many of his slaves by cholera, when he was moving from Coosa to Louisiana. Frederick F. came with his father to Coosa, and on reaching his majority became a lawyer. He was a good speaker, a handsome man, and had a popular manner among the people. He was elected, with A. H. Kendrick, to the House in 1849. In 1851 he moved to Marengo County, and represented the county in 1853. After this he went to Texas, and was a member of the Legislature there at the time of secession.
EXCERPT FROM Texas State Historical Association
Frederick Forney Foscue, lawyer, legislator, and Confederate soldier, was born on September 11, 1819, in Monroe, Alabama, son of Benjamin Frederick and Eliza (Scurlock) Foscue. He attended school at Washington College in Virginia where he studied law. Before moving to Texas in 1854, Foscue practiced law and served as a state representative in Alabama. Upon arriving in Cherokee County, F. F. Foscue took up farming as well as a law practice. His first wife, Mary Jane, did not enjoy living in Texas, so she moved home to Alabama. He married twice more after his divorce.
While living in Cherokee County, F. F. Foscue ran for and was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1859. He was supportive of Texas leaving the United States during the secession crisis. At the outbreak of the Civil War Foscue joined the Confederate Army and acted as an Enrolling Officer for the Confederate Congressional District for East Texas. In early August 1861 with about seventy men from Cherokee and Smith counties, Foscue, then a captain, joined other Confederate troops in Missouri. He was later elected a colonel, but the particular details of his service to obtain the rank were lost in a fire in Shreveport, Louisiana. He later represented Liberty County in the Tenth legislature from 1863 to 1866, and he served in the Senate in the Eleventh Texas Legislature.
Foscue moved to Tarrant County sometime after the Civil War. He founded the town of Pantego which he named after an American Indian friend. He continued to develop land in the Arlington area and became a well-known banker. Frederick F. Foscue died at home on March 3, 1906, and was buried in Parkdale Cemetery in Arlington.
