JOHN FOSTER, 1648-1681, Harvard College, Class of 1667
no. 11414
[from Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, By John Langdon Sibley. Cambridge, 1881, v.2 p. 222-228]
JOHN FOSTER, B. A., the first printer in Boston, baptized 10 December, 1648, was son of Hopestill Foster, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, brewer, Captain, Representative, County Commissioner, whose wife was Mary, daughter of James Bates.
The son began to teach school in Dorchester, probably in October, 1669, for twenty-five pounds a year. It was “granted as a liberty to y° Master, if he see it meete, for to go once in a fortnight to a lectuer.” In 1670 his salary was thirty pounds. December 23, 1672, it was agreed that he “shall teach such lattin schollars as shall Come to his fathers hous one wholl yeer next ensueing from the first of January next, and to instruct and give out Coppies to such as come to him to learne to writte . .. for his paines to haue £10.” In 1674, his “recompence” for teaching grammar scholars in English, Latin, and writing, “at ye schole-house,” was thirty pounds.
May 27, 1674, the General Court, having “granted that there may be a printing press elsewhere then at Cambridge, for the better regulation of the press,” voted that Thomas Thacher and Increase Mather “be added vnto the former licensers.”
ecember 25, 1674, “Foster bought the press, intending to set up printing in Boston,” and there opened the first office in 1675 at the “Sign of the Dove.” Perhaps he was encouraged in the undertaking by Increase Mather; as the first work, issued in 1675, and the last, in 1681, were both by Mather ; and Foster’s interest in the family appears from his having left a legacy to him and to Cotton Mather.
Thomas says: “It does not appear that” Foster “was bred to printing, or that he was acquainted with the art; the probability is that he was not; but having obtained permission to print, he employed workmen, carried on printing in his own name, and was accountable to government for the productions of his press.” He printed works by Increase Mather, William Hubbard, Roger Williams, Thomas Thacher, Samuel Nowell, Eleazar Mather, John Eliot, Anne Bradstreet, William Adams, James Allen, and Samuel Willard, and several Broadsides.
no. 2838 Map of New England
The map in Hubbard’s Narrative, “being the first that ever was here cut,” was reproduced, in the London edition of Hubbard, nearly in facsimile, but distinguishable by “Wine Hills” being substituted for “White Hills.”
A list of works printed by him may be found in the Boston Daily Advertiser, 9 May, 1875.
Foster’s publications, nearly all of them in quarto and in pica type, were not inferior in workmanship to the productions of the press in Cambridge. In 1678 he appears to have procured a new font of long primer; after which his handsomest work was done. The ink and paper have stood the test of time much better than those of a century later.
no.
2839
Foster was the author of almanacs for at least the years 1675 and 168o, and the author and printer of them for at least 1676, 1678, 1679, and 1681.
The Almanac for 1681 was “By John Foster, Astrophil. . . . Boston: Printed by J. F. for Samuel Phillips in the west end of the Exchange. x681.” At the end are three pages, “OF COMETS, their Motion, Distance & Magnitude,” followed by three of “Observations of a Comet seen this last Winter 1680. and how it appeared at Boston in N-E. whose Long. 315. gr. and Latitude 42 gr. 3o min. N. November the nineteenth 168o, at five o clock in the morning this Comet was at Boston first observed, it was near 14 Degrees in Libra, and i gr. 3o m. southward of the Ecliptick. The weather being clear shewed its Tail to a great length, near 3o gr. but so faint that it vanished as soon as the day-light appeared.” Then follow observations on its locality and appearance till To February, when it was “so far exiled that it” was “beyond the view of a naked eye.”
“And thus is this prodigious Spectacle removed, leaving the world in a fearful expectation of what may follow : sure it is that these things are not sent for nothing, though man cannot say particularly for what: They are by most thought to be Fore-runners of evil coming upon the World, (though some think otherwise), as was long since observed by Cicero, ab ultima antiquitatis memoria notation est Cometas semper calamitatum prenuntios esse.”
“The Reader is desired to take notice that our Latitude here in Boston, hitherto reputed to be 42. gr. 30. min. is by better Observations found not to exceed 42. gr. 24. m. of which you may expect the certainty by the next opportunity.”
In Blake’s Annals of Dorchester, under date of 1681, we find, “This year Died Mr. John Foster, . . . Schoolmaster of Dorchester, and he that made the then Seal or Arms of y° Colony, namely an Indian with a Bow & Arrow &c.” How much is meant by this is uncertain; perhaps merely that he engraved it. The topic is considered in the History of Dorchester, page 494.
At the end of W. Brattle’s Almanack for 1682, is an “Advertisement.
“There are suitable Verses Dedicated to the Memory of the INGENIOUS Mathematician and Printer Mr. john Foster. Price 2d. a single Paper, both together 3d.”
Two Funeral Elegies are printed in Simonds’s South Boston. One of them, by Thomas Tileston, consists of one hundred and four lines. After alluding to his worth and learning, the writer says : —
“Adde to these things I have been hinting,
His skill in that rare ART of PRINTING ;
His accurate Geography,
And Astronomick Poetry;
And you would say ’twere pitty He
Should dy without an Elegie.
” His piercing Astronomick Eye
Could penetrate the Cloudy Sky,
And Soar aloft, ith’ highest sphere
Descrying Stars that disappear
To common eyes ; But Faith and Hope
His all excelling Telescope,
Did help his heaven-born Soul to pry
Beyond the Starry Canopy.
- • • • •
“Heaven’s blazing Sword was brandished
By Heaven’s enraged wrath we dread;
Which Struck us with amazing fear
Some fixed Star would disappear ;
Th’ appearance was not long adjourn’d
Before our Fear to Sorrow turn’d.
“Oh Fatal Star (whose fearful flame
A fiery chariot became,
Whereby our Phcenix did ascend,)
Thou art our Foe, although his Friend.
“That rare Society, which forth
Hath Sent Such Gems of greatest worth,
Its Oaks and pleasant Plants by death
Being pluckt up, it languisheth ;
Thus dye our hopes, and Harvard’s glory
Scarce parallel’d in any Story.”
According to the other Funeral Elegy, of fifty-two lines, by Joseph Capen, H. U. 1677 : —
[VOL. II. 15 June 7. 1879 – is this a reference Simonds?]
“What e’er the world may think did cause his Death,
Consumption, ’twas not Cupid, stopt his breath.”
It ends with the following, not unlike the Epitaph written long afterward by Franklin : —
“Thy body, which no activeness did lack
Now’s laid aside like an old Almanack;
But for the present only’s out of date —
‘Twill have at length a far more active State.
“Yea, though with dust thy body soiled be,
Yet at the Resurrection we shall see
A fair EDITION and of matchless worth,
Free from ERRATAS, new in Heaven set forth:
‘Tis but a word from God the great Creatour,
It shall be Done when He saith imprimatur.”
The writer of a letter, 4 March, 1879, says, incidentally: “It has been for some years one of my desires to prepare an acceptable memoir of John Foster, and to that end I have preserved everything that was purchasable coming from his press, and every item referring to him. After a while I came to look upon Foster as one of the great men of that great age, — a scholar, a thinker, a printer, engraver, chemist, — a man worthy of the love, friendship, and admiration of the Mathers. Had Foster lived to the age that Franklin reached, Franklin might have been called a `second Foster.’ ”
In his will, dated 18 July, 1681, less than two months before his death, he speaks of ” My body weak & languishing, but my understanding not distempered or impaired.” He names sisters Mary Sale and Thankful Baker ; and from his bequest to the latter of ” Medicinal Books,” it may be inferred that he had given some attention to the study of medicine. His house in Dorchester, valued in the inventory at sixteen pounds, he bequeaths to his mother. The portion of his father’s estate bequeathed to him, but of which he had not come into possession, he gives to his mother one part, and to his “Brethren and Sisters, viz Thankfull, Patience, James, Elisha, Mary, Comfort, & Standfast, each a part; & to [his] Brother Hopestil, his Children one part, to be divided to them equally. … What I have in Boston belonging to Printing,” valued in the inventory at sixty pounds, “may be sold and such Debts as are due in Boston may be therewith paid, my (funeral Expenses discharged; and ao or thirty shillings, paid, or reserved to pay for a pair of handsome Gravestones,”1 and “what remains may be disposed of,” twenty shillings apiece to John Eliot of Roxbury and to Increase Mather and to Cotton Mather.
At the top of the head-stone which he ordered is a device of the sun in the meridian throwing its beams on a globe below representing the world, from which arises a flame upon which Death, with his bony hand, is in the act of putting an extinguisher. Behind Death stands Time, with his scythe, grasping Death’s arm as if endeavoring to arrest the action. All the figures are in relief. Beneath this is the inscription, some of the letters of which being small and joined together, have been differently read and transcribed, but it is nearly as follows : —
“THE
INGENIOUS
Mathematician & printer
Mr JOHN FOSTER
AGED 33 YEARS DYED SEPTr 9th
1681
” APRIL, 1681.
- M ASTRA COLIS VIVENS ; MORIENS, SUPER IETHERA FOSTER
- F. SCANDE, PRECOR; COELUM, METIRI DISCE SUPREMUM.
METIOR, ATQTE MEUM EST : EMIT MIHI DIVES IESUS:
NEC TENEOR QUICQUAM, NISI GRATES. SOLVERE —”
The inscription on the foot-stone is : —
” Mr
JOHN FOSTER
ARS ILLI SUA CENSUS ERAT —
OVID.
SKILL WAS HIS CASH.”
After Foster’s death, the General Court, 12 October, 1681, committed the care and management of the press to Judge Sewall, from which he was relieved in September, 1684.
- D. Harris, in the Boston Daily Advertiser, 12 March, 1875, says : There can be no reasonable doubt that the present gravestone of Foster was cut a good half-century after the printer was laid with his fathers, and probably took the place of the ” handsome ” gravestone named in the will. It is one of the most elaborately chiselled monuments of its time in the country. The gravestones erected in the old burying-grounds in New England, prior to about 178o, were mostly imported already carved, but not lettered, the completing strokes being given by the resident artists. This is proved by the fact that stones with heads and borders of the same design and style of work are found in different grounds from Portsmouth round to New York, the styles of lettering differing greatly. It is not difficult for a sharp observer, consulting only the carving at the edges, to locate within a quarter of a century or less the date at which many of these stones were cut.
AUTHORITIES. —.I. Blake, Annals of Dorchester, in Collections of the Dorchester Ant. and Hist. Society, ii. 29. History of Dorchester, 244, 492. S. G. Drake, History of Bos¬ton, 424. Essex Institute, Historical Collections, viii. 166. J. A. Lewis, in Boston Daily Advertiser, 1875, June 9 ; and Letter to W. B. Trask, 1879, March 4. Massachusetts Bay Records, v. 4. I. Mather, Diary, in Library of Massachusetts Historical Society (Belknap’s copy). Mass Historical Society, Collections, ix. 181 ; xlv. 49. New England Historical and Genealogical Register, iv. 167 ; vii. 206 — 208, 344, 345. J. Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, ii. 187, 189. T. C. Simonds, History of South Boston, 33. I. Thomas, History of Printing, i. 275.
Foster John elegies by Tileston and Capen
Published in History of South Boston; Formerly Dorchester Neck, Now Ward XII. of the City of Boston. By Thomas C. Simonds. Boston, 1857. p. 34-39
Funeral Elegy by Thomas Tileston
” FUNERAL ELEGY,
Dedicated to the Memory of His
Worthy Friend, The Learned and Religious
Ms. John FOSTER, who Deceased in Dorchester the
9 of Septr. 1661.
Amongst the Mourners that are met
(For Payment of their last love debt
Unto the dead) to Solemnize,
With Sighs and Tears his Obsequies,
Love’s Laws command that I appear
And drop a kindly friendly Tear.
I’ll venture to bewail his Herse
Though in a homely Country verse.
To omit the same, it were
A Crime at least Piacular.
Our woful loss for to Set forth
By setting forth the matchless worth
Of the Deceased is too high
For my poor Rural Poetry,
And greater Skill it doth require
Than whereunto I may aspire.
Records declare how he excelled
In Parentage unparallell’d,
Whose Grace and Virtues very great
He did himself Impropriate
Unto Himself; improved withall
By Learning Academical.
His Curious works had you but seen
You would have thought Him to have been
By Some Strange Metempsychosis
A new reviv’d Archimedes;
At least you would have judged that he
A rare Apolles would soon be.
Adde to these things I have been hinting,
His skill in that rare ART of PRINTING ;
His accurate Geography,
And Astronomick Poetry ;
And you would say ’twere pitty He
Should dy without an Elegie.
His piercing Astronomick Eye
Could penetrate the Cloudy Sky,
And Soar aloft, ith’ highest sphere
Descrying Stars that disappear
To common eyes ; But Faith and Hope
His all excelling Telescope,
Did help his heaven-born Soul to pry
Beyond the Starry Canopy.
His excellencies here, we find
Were crowned with a humble mind;
Thus (Grace obtain’d and Art acquired
And thirty-three years near expired)
He that here liv’d, belov’d, contented,
Now dies bewail’d and much lamented.
Who knows the Skill, which to our losse
This grave doth now alone ingrosse;
Ah who can tell JOHN FOSTER’S worth
Whose Anagram is, I SHONE FORTH.
Presage was his Apoge,
By a preceding Prodigie.
Heaven’s blazing Sword was brandished
By Heaven’s enraged wrath we dread;
Which Struck us with amazing fear
Some fixed Star would disappear ;
Th’ appearance was not long adjourn’d
Before our Fear to Sorrow turn’d.
Oh Fatal Star (whose fearful flame
A fiery chariot became,
Whereby our Phoenix did ascend),
Thou art our Foe, although his Friend.
That rare Society, which forth
Hath Sent Such Gems of greatest worth,
Its Oaks and pleasant Plants by death
Being pluckt up, it languisheth ;
Thus dye our hopes, and Harvard’s glory
Scarce parallel’d in any Story.
That GOD does thus our choice ones Slay
And cunning Artist take away,
The Sacred Oracles do show
A dreadful’ flood of wrath in view.
Oh then let every one of you
His rare accomplishments that knew,
Now weep ; weep ye of Harvard Hall
With bitterest Tears ; so weep we all.
Chiefly such as were alone
Flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone,
Lament indeed, and fill the skys
With th’ echo’s of their dolefull cryes;
Let JAMES and let ELISHA too
With COMFORT,* STANDFAST weeping go,
THANKFULL, PATIENCE, MARY likewise
Like loveing Sisters solemnize
With Sighs your greatest loss, but yet
Your Thankfull, Hope do not forget
With Perseverance to fulfill.
Know your ELIJAH’S GOD lives still.
Standfast therefore with Patience,
Comfort shall be your recompence.
And as you yet survive your Brother,
So be like comforts to your mother,
Who like Naomi sad is left
Of Husband and two Sons bereft ;
So bitterly th’ Almighty one
Hath to our weeping Marah done.
Grieve not too much, the time draws near
You’ll re-enjoy Relations dear,
And all together will on high
With everlasting Melody
And perfect peace His praises sing,
Who through all troubles did you bring.
THOMAS TILESTON.”
Funeral Elegy by Joseph Capen
“FUNERAL ELEGY,
Upon the much to be Lamented Death and most Deplorable Expiration of the Pious, Learned, Ingenious, and Eminently Useful’ Servant of God,
Mr. JOHN FOSTER,
Who Expired and Breathed out his Soul quietly Into the Arms of His Blessed RE DEEMER, at Dorchester, Sept. 9th, Anno Dom 1681. Aetatis Anno 83.
HERE lye the relict Fragments, which were took
Out of Consumtion’s teeth, by Death the Cook.
Voracious Apetite dolt thus devour
Scarce ought hast left for worms t’ live on an Hour
But Skins & Bones, (no bones thou maks’t of that,
It is thy common trade t’ eat all the fat.)
Here lyes that earthly House, where once did dwell
That Soul that Scarce hath left its Parallel
For Sollid Judgment, Piety and Parts
And peerless Skill in all the practick Arts,
Which as the glittering Spheres it passed by,
Methinks I saw it glance at Mercury ;
Ascended now ; ‘bove Tide and Time abides,
Which sometimes told the world of Time and Tides.
Next to the Third Heavens the Stars were his delight,
Where his Contemplation dwelt both day and night,
Soaring unceartainly but now at Shoar,
Whether Sol moves or stands He doubts no more.
He that despis’d the things the world admired,
As having Skill in rarer things acquired,
The heav’ns Interpreter doth disappear;
The Starre’s translated to his proper sphere.
What e’er the world may think did cause his Death,
Consumption, ’twas not Cupid, stopt his breath.
The Heavens which God’s glory doe discover,
Have lost their constant Friend and instant Lover ;
Like Atlas, he help’t bear up that rare Art
Astronomy, & always took her part :
Most happy Soul who didst not there Sit down,
But didst make after an eternal Crown,
Sage Archimede ! Second Begalleell !
Oh how didst thou in Curious works excell !
Thine Art and Skill deserve to see the Press,
And be Composed in a Printer’s dress.
Thy Name is worthy for to be enroll’d
In Printed Letters of the Choicest Gold.
Thy Death to five foretold Eclipses sad,
A great one, unforetold, doth superad,
Successive to that strange .Ethereal Blaze,
Whereon thou didst so oft astonish’d gaze:
Which daily gives the world such fatal blows;
Still what’s to come we dread ; God only knows.
Thy body which no activeness did lack,
Now’s laid aside like an old Almanack ;
But for the present only’s out of date—
‘Twill have at length a far more active State.
Yea, though with dust thy body soiled be,
Yet at the Resurrection we shall see
A fair Edition and of matchless worth,
Free from Errata, new in Heaven set forth :
‘Tis but a word from God the great Creatour,
It shall be Done when He saith Imprimatur.
Semoestus cecinit.
JOSEPH CAPEN.”