Books › The History of the Violin: And Other Instruments Played on with the Bow from the Remotest Times to the Present, Also, an Account of the Principal Makers, English and Foreign, with Numerous Illustrations, 1864 › scan 313
Scan 313
The History of the Violin: And Other Instruments Played on with the Bow from the Remotest Times to the Present, Also, an Account of the Principal Makers, English and Foreign, with Numerous Illustrations, 1864
4 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 291. See the scan on archive.org.
1variations may be the careless manner, in early times, of writing names which may be seen in the church register, also in the engraving upon the tombstones of this family. At this distant period of time there is much difficulty in obtaining correct information of the town or village in which he was born, but in the researches made ten or twelve years since amongst the aged inhabitants of Brampton, in Cumberland, they named several places in that part of the country from whence he probably came; but none could assert what pursuit or vocation he followed in early years; almost the whole of them said he came from "Ayont the Wood," but others named Kirklington, Bewcastle, Longtown in the Netherby quarter; but the town which had more advocates than any other was Kirkandrews, on the Esk, which, from the many kind inquiries made on this matter by Mr. Samuel Irving, of Stanwix, Carlisle, may be considered to be proved almost to a certainty; but it should be "Ayont the Wood, in Nichol Forest, in the parish of Kirkandrews, on the Esk." From this place the aged people said, he moved to little Easby, two or three miles from Brampton, in the parish of this last name, and left there for the town of Brampton, at which place they all agreed he died about 1790, at the great age of one hundred and two or three years, and was buried at the old parish church, a mile, or little more, from the "Town Foot."
3The family, however, state that he left Longtown for Brampton. On searching the church book of burials we find a John Foster buried 7 Oct. 1781, aged ninety-three years; but there is no statement to identify that it is the desired one; however, as this date so nearly coincides with the information gained, and will agree with the birth of his son William, supposing that he married at twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, it is assumed
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.