William Foster Carper had a farm where the complex of county buildings at Silverdale is now located. His wife was a Spicer from one of the
county's earliest families. The Carper home was near the site where the county workhouse and nursing home now stand.
Foster Carper was born in Virginia about 1810, but he had made his way to Hamilton County prior to the Indian removal. He married Elizabeth W. Spicer. His father was Joseph
Carper, who had married Margaret Foster. Her father, William Foster, fought in the Revolution and was from the Fosters who were among the
early settlers of the “forks of the James River.”
William Foster was born in Augusta County, Va., about 1740. William Foster married Mary Gilmore, daughter of Capt. James and Martha Gilmore, in 1763 in Augusta County. Mary Gilmore
Foster was born about 1742 and she died in 1789. William Foster was a soldier in Capt. Matthew Jewett's company of the Seventh Virginia Regiment. He died at Wythe County, Va., in 1803.
Several of his children were pioneers of Tennessee. James Foster, the eldest son, married Elizabeth Hoge in 1801 in Montgomery County, Va. They made their way to Bledsoe County in
1809 and settled below Pikeville on the Sequatchie River at the section later known as Lea's Station. Isabella Foster, sister of James Foster, married her kinsman Thomas Foster, and they moved to Warren County, Tenn. William Foster Jr., brother of Thomas and Isabella, married Sally B. Boyd in Montgomery County, Va., and moved to Franklin County, Tenn., about 1815.
Margaret Foster Carper, the youngest of William Foster's children, was living at Tyner when she died in 1866. She was said to be the first
white person buried in the Silverdale section. Her gravesite was "south of the late T.J. Fryar home in a little clump of bushes inside the field
on the east side of the road leading from the Fryar residence to the main public road."
The Carpers were longtime neighbors with the Springers at Silverdale. In 1842, Jonathan Springer made out a deed of trust to Foster Carper to secure payment of a $32.25 debt.
Alexander Carper, who was born in Virginia about 1805, was another early resident here. He later moved to Davidson County.
Henry and Thomas W. Spicer had arrived in Hamilton County in the early 1830s, and they were involved in speculations at the then-county seat of Dallas. Thomas W. Spicer and Thomas Shirley in 1833 sold James Davis a Dallas lot for $200. Henry Spicer later moved to Marion County. Sarah Spicer, who was apparently the widow of Henry Spicer, came to live with the Foster Carper family. Henry and Sarah Spicer were Virginia natives. William Spicer, who was apparently a younger brother of Elizabeth Spicer Carper, lived with the Carpers at one time.
T.W. Spicer in 1833 joined with Thomas Shirley and Samuel Igou in acquiring from Solomon P. Mitchell a thousand acres where Mitchell
previously had lived. The price was $325 and also included Mitchell’s “household furniture."
Spicer sometimes dealt in slaves, including the 1836 sale of a Negro girl to Samuel Poe for $650. T.W. Spicer served as chairman of the County Court at one time, and he was a witness on many early transactions in the county. He was born in
Virginia about 1795. His wife, Jane A., was a Tennessee native who was born about 1810. The Spicers were living at Harrison just before the
start of the Civil War, and he was listed as a justice of the peace. He was named postmaster for Harrison on Aug. 29, 1860. Living with the
Spicers in 1860 was William Champion, who later served as sheriff. Thomas W. Spicer died just after the end of the war. He left his nephew, John A. Smith, “my little riffle gun,” and he gave William C. Davis “my gold spectacle.” Miss Bell Jack received “my sorrel colt.” Other bequests went to the three children of Stephen Decatur Spicer.
Foster Carper had passed away in 1859. On his death bed, this “planter and farmer” decreed that his body “be decently interred in the apple
Orchard, on my own premises, where my mansion house stands, in a manner suitable to my condition in life, and as to such worldly estate as it hath please God to intrust me with.” His
widow, Elizabeth, took Hillary W. Mosley as her second husband in 1871.
The Carper children were Sarah Jane, Joseph H., Margaret M., William Alexander and Harriet Angeline. Sarah Jane married William I. Standifer. Joseph H. Carper enlisted Sept. 24, 1862, with the Confederacy's 2nd Co. K of Ooltewah. He was listed as deserting on Sept. 12, 1863. Margaret Carper married G. Pinckney Summers,
but he died during the Civil War of smallpox. Their child, Martha Jane, later married William Joseph Hixson. Margaret Carper Summers took James Garrison Smith - a Union army veteran
- as her second husband. In 1868, Harriet A. Carper married Azariah Shelton, a teacher who became the county school superintendent, then
was tax collector and trustee. Joseph H. Carper and his wife, Sallie R., had several children, including Lucy E., Margaret D., James F., Mary S.
and Nancy C.
After the county acquired the old Carper farm and began converting it for its use, plans were made to move the bodies of Foster Carper and
other family members. Among those buried there was Jonathan Springer, who had helped to make the coffin for the mother of Foster Carper. Time then came in 1930 for the Carper home to be torn down. The finishing work on it had been done by Wes Talley, a brother of Squire Talley. The Talleys lived near Talley Road. It was said
of the demolition of the Carper place that “one of the old landmarks of that part of the county was removed. But the old must give way to the
new whether the old or the new be better.”