Martin Oster (ca. 1741–1827) studied law before serving in the French quartermaster’s corps during the Seven Years’ War, 1760–63. He then worked settling army accounts before obtaining employment at the Hôtel Royale des Invalides in 1765, where he eventually rose to be first secretary. Oster sailed for America late in 1777 at the behest of the French monarchy. He was named vice-consul at Philadelphia in 1778, transferred to Richmond in 1783, and later resided in Norfolk. The revolutionary government in Paris recalled Oster in 1792, but he remained in Virginia. He held a post as French commissary for commercial relations at Norfolk until the returning Bourbon monarchy retired him with a pension about 1815 (J. Rives Childs, “French Consul Martin Oster Reports on Virginia, 1784–1796,” VMHB description begins Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1893– description ends 76 [1968]: 27–40, esp. 28–9, 38–9; Abraham P. Nasatir and Gary Elwyn Monell, French Consuls in the United States: A Calendar of their Correspondence in the Archives Nationales [1967], 566–7; Worthington C. Ford and others, eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 [1904–37], 12:948; PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 31 vols. description ends , esp. 10:544; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 8 Dec. 1827).

staunton is in Augusta, not Louisa County.