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Foster has been the moving spirit in carrying out the plans and details of this great enterprise since 1902. Born at Westerly, Washington County, Rhode Island, September 6, 1875, H. V. Foster is a son of Henry and Gertrude (Daniels) Foster, his father also a native of Westerly, while his mother was born at Paxton, Worcester County, Massachusetts. Henry Foster was on e of the ablest financiers and oil operators of his generation. For many years he followed banking in Rhode Island, but about 1882 moved to Independence, Kansas, where he kept the center of his financial operations until his death on February 25, 1896, at the age of forty-seven. His name is closely associated with a great deal of important development work in the Southwest. He was the builder of the Missouri Pacific Railroad from Leroy to Coffeyville, Kansas, and was also interested in mining, constructed a number of waterworks plants in various parts of the Southwest, and owned or partly owned several ranches for cattle raising. As already mentioned he secured the lease for the production of oil on the Osage Reservation, and died about the time the Government gave its final approval to the terms of that lease. His wife died at Independence, Kansas, about 1883 at the age of thirty-two. Their two children are: Annie G., a resident of New York City; and H. V. Foster. H. V. Foster was specially equipped by education and native ability for the large business affairs which he has directed for a number of years. He is an engineer by profession, though most of his time has been devoted to the executive details of business. As a boy he attended public school in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, also at Independence, Kansas, and his parents being Quakers subsequently sent him to the Westtown Boarding School maintained by the Society of Friends at Westtown, Pennsylvania. Going abroad he entered University College of London, England, and graduated with his engineer's certificate in 1894. On his return to the United States he entered Columbia University at New York. As an engineer his first work was on a drainage project comprising 60,000 acres in Wisconsin. In the meantime he became interested in oil development, and in 1902 removed to Bartlesville to take charge of the Osage Lease and becoming president of the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company. He has since devoted all his time and energy to this industry, and is a master of the business in every detail. Mr. Foster is also vice president and director of the Union National Bank, and his offices are in the Union National Bank Building. Because of the active participation of the Foster family in the oil industry in Osage territory and because all matters affecting the Osage oil lands are subjects of historical interest in Oklahoma, a few2 quotations from a recent article that appeared in the Washington Star are properly presented at this point. "A modern industry represented by the huge oil derricks and pipe lines of Oklahoma" reads the article in question, "has brought at least one nation of Indians into its own as far as the individuals of its tribe are concerned in being the original landlords of that part of this continent in which they have made their home. The red man pictured in his feathered head-dress on the American penny is suggestive of the former wealth of the nation being held by the Indian. Today, when the white man's dollar has developed a part of the country upon which the Indians still live, the Osages have received such large oil and gas royalties that they hve been declared the richest nation in the world. Had the white man never come to this continent these Indians would have undoubtedly been content in their original wild state, taking pleasure in their hunts and ceremonials, but since it is a fact that civilization has killed off their buffalo and so taken their livelihood from them the Osage Nation may consider that the star of fortune rose about 1870. "At that time the encroachment of settlers who were making their homes in Kansas was so evident to the Indian and to the Government that later Congress purchased the land upon which the Osages had been living and ceded them the territory they now occupy. By this deal the Indians unknowingly received lands worth millions of dollars on account of the oil lying beneath its surface. Today these resources are so extensive that the government in the capacity of guardian for the red man finds itself thrown in direct business relations with some of the greatest financial powers of the Nation. It gains through this particular management of affairs a clearer knowledge of the business of producing and marketing oil, the most potential wealth-making power of the present day. "Nineteen years ago when James Bigheart was the principal chief of the Osage Nation, about one million five hundred thousand acres of land, or approximately two thousand square miles-a tract many times as large as the District of Columbia-was leased directly from the tribe, through the United States Government, to Edward B. Foster of New York City. The development of a large part of the territory was made by the sub- lessee, known as the Illuminating Company, engaged in producing oil. when the original blanket Foster lease and the subleases expired at the end of ten years they were renewed for another ten years, which will expire March 16, 1916. It was for this reason that in March, 1915, one year previous to the expiration of the lease of the vast stretch of oil lands, the oil interests of the world were assembled in a great conference with the government, hoping to receive a share of consideration when the time comes for Uncle Sam and the Osage Indians to say who shall obtain the right to produce oil in the Foster lease land in the future. "The terms by which the Foster lease has been carried are that of payment of one- eighth royalty on all oil produced is made to the Indians. One twenty-fourth royalty is retained by the Foster interests for their management and extensive development of the land. In years past it has been a common cry that the Indians always came out at the little end of the horn when dealing with the white man. The story of the Osage, however, is a contradiction to such a plaint, for by the Foster lease alone the Osage Indians have to date gained more wealth than the real producers of the oil. "As these red men have not allied themselves with modern civilization in being able to fill a place in the industrial world, and their incomes from tribal trust funds and oil leases are more than sufficient to keep them in idleness, there is but one answer to the question of whether the Osages as a nation are better Indians because of their independence through wealth. In all there are about 2,230 citizens of the Osage tribe. From oil royalties alone they average per capita, including children, nearly seven hundred dollars per year. a family with two children receives an average annual income of about twenty-seven hundred dollars from this one source, besides large sums from lands allotted to them, making the wealth of the people greater than that of any other nation in the world. * * * As a matter of record to date, the one-eighth royalty paid the Indians on the Foster lease contract exceeds the profit which the actual operators have made during the seventeen years on their five-sixths working interest. Nearly five million dollars have been paid to the Indians." All this is interesting historical reading, and is especially suggestive of the important part played by Mr. Foster in the industrial affairs of this state. He is a splendid type of the modern American business man, and one who does big things always in a big generous way. While a republican, he has never sought public office and has preferred to confine his contributions to this adopted city's welfare by conscientiously performing the duties of good citizenship. He is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a Shriner, and is also a member of the local lodges of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America. In social and business circles he is known not only in Oklahoma but in most of the larger cities. He belongs to the Lotus and Republican clubs of New York; the Illinois Athletic Club of Chicago, the Misquanmicut Golf and County Club of Watch Hill, Rhode Island; the Colonial Club at Westerly, Rhode Island; and the County Club of Bartlesville. May 1, 1897, Mr. Foster married Miss Marie Dahlgren, who was born at Chicago, Illinois, a daughter of Carl John and Marie (Sierks) Dahlgren. Mr. and Mrs. Foster have two children: Ruth Daniels and Marie Dahlgren. Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Norma Capehart March 5, 2003. SOURCE: Thoburn, Joseph B., A Standard History of Oklahoma, An Authentic Narrative of its Development, 5 v. (Chicago, New York: The American Historical Society, 1916).