Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/539

Rh FOSTER, Henry Allen, senator, b. in Hart- ford, Conn., 7 ]May, 1800; d. 12 May, 1889. He removed to Cazeuovia, N. Y., and, after receiving a common school education, entered the law office of David B. Johnson, and was admitted to the bar in 1822. He was a member of the state senate from 1831 till 1834, and again from 1841 till 1844. He was a representative in congress from 1837 till 1839, having been elected as a Democrat, and in 1844 was appointed United States senator in place of Silas Wright, Jr., serving till 1847. From 1863 till 1869 he held the office of judge of the fifth dis- trict of the supreme court. He resided for many years in Rome, where he died, aged eighty-nine.

FOSTER, Isaac, physician, b. in Charlestown, Mass., about 1740; d. in February, 1781. He was graduated at Harvard in 1758, studied medicine in this country and abroad, and settled in Charles- town, where he practised for several years. He was a delegate to the convention of the county of Middlesex in August, 1774, and to the first pro- vincial congress of Massachusetts in October of that year. Dr. Foster was appointed a surgeon in 1775, and was for some months at the head of the military medical department, while Gen. Ward commanded at Cambridge, and before the arrival of Gen. Washington. On 20 April, the day after the battle of Concord, by urgent request of Gen. Ward and Dr. Warren, he attended the men who had been wounded, and gave up his private prac- tice, which was very large. On 18 June, the day after the battle of Bunker Hill, he was appointed by the committee of safety to attend those who had been wounded there, and was afterward given the post of surgeon of the state hospital, then just opened. In October he was appointed by Gen. Washington director-general pro tempoi-e of the American hospital department. Congress shortly afterward appointed Dr. Morgan to that place, but Dr. Foster was still the oldest surgeon in the hos- pital. Again, in 1777, Gen. Washington appointed him to take charge of the hospitals in the eastern department. He retired from public life in 1780, being in feeble health, but did not resign his com- mission. Several men eminent in the medical pro- fession studied with Dr. Foster, among them Will- iam Eustis and Josiah Bartlett, the younger.

FOSTER, James P., naval officer, b. in Bullitt county, Ky., 8 June, 1827 ; d. in Indianapolis, Ind., 2 June, 1869. He removed with his family, in childhood, to Bloomington, Ind., and entered the navy in 1846. He had reached the rank of lieu- tenant in 1861, and in July, 1862, was commissioned a lieutenant-commander, and in October of the same year was ordered to the Mississippi squadron, com- manded by Admiral Porter. He was placed in command of the " Neosho," from which he was soon transferred to the iron-clad ram " Chillicothe," and in March, 1863, distinguished himself by the valuable service performed by his vessel during the Yazoo expedition. Later in the year he was placed in command of the gun-boat " Lafayette," and rendered valuable assistance during the bom- bardment and siege of Vieksburg. After the war he was ordered to the naval academy, and placed in charge of the training-ships. He was then pro- moted to commander, ordered to the " Osceola," and joined the Brazilian squadron, where he con- tracted the disease from which he died.

'''FOSTER. Jedediah''', jurist, b. in Andover, Mass., 10 Oct.. 1726; d. in Brookfield, Mass., 17 Oct., 1779. He was graduated at Harvard in 1744, studied law, and practised at Brookfield. He was a member of the Worcester county convention in August, 1774, and a delegate to the provincial con- gress in the same year. At this time he was elected one of the executive council by the house of repre- sentatives, and with several others he was nega- tived by Gov. Gage, but re-elected in 1775. He was an active and useful representative, and served on most of the committees of each provincial con- gress. In 1775 he was appointed in conjunction with others to visit Lake Champlain and vicinity as an investigating agent. In 1776 he was ap- pointed a judge of the superior court, was for some time a judge of probate and a justice of the court of common pleas in Worcester county, and a mem- ber of the convention that framed the constitution of Massachusetts. — His son, Theodore, lawyer, b. in Brookfield, Mass., 29 April, 1752 ; d. in Provi- dence, R. I., 13 Jan., 1828, was graduated at Brown in 1 77.0, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began practice in Providence, R. I. For several years, as one of the overseers of Brown, he was among its most active friends. He was a member of the state house of representatives in 1776-'82, was town clerk of Providence for many years, and was appointed judge of the court of admiralty in May. 1785. He was elected U. S. senator from Rhode Island in 1790, and was twice re-elected, his term of service expiring in 1803. He was again a member of the legislature from 1812 till 1816, from the town of Foster, which bore his name. He was an antiquarian student, and collected the materials for a " History of Rhode Island," but never com- pleted it. Dartmouth gave him the degree of A. M. in 1786. — Another son, Dwight, jurist, b. in Brook- field, Mass., 7 Dec, 1757; d. there, 29 April, 1823, was graduated at Brown in 1774, studied law with his brother Theodore in Providence, and afterward in Northampton, Mass. He was admitted to the bar in 1778, in Providence, and was commissioned a justice of the peace there in 1779. On his father's death in that year he removed to Brookfield, and, although only twenty-t^o years of age, was at once chosen to fill the former's place in the constitutional convention. He was made justice of the peace for the county of Worcester in 1781, and in 1792 was made special justice of the court of common pleas. In June of the same year he was appointed high sheriff of the county. He served in each branch of the Massachusetts legislature, and in 1793-'9 was a representative in congress, having been chosen as a Federalist. He was a delegate to the State con- stitutional convention in 1799, and in the same year was elected to the U. S. senate in place of Samuel Dexter, resigned, serving from 1800 till 1803, when he resigned. He was chief justice of the court of common pleas for Worcester county, from 1801 till 1811, and in 1818 a member of the Massachusetts executive council. Judge Foster also held other offices of public trust, but his last years were spent in retirement. Harvard conferred on him the degree of A. M. in 1784.

FOSTER, John Gray, soldier, b. in Whilefield, N. H., 27 May, 1823 ; d. in Nashua, N. H, 2 Sept., 1874. He was graduated at the U. S. military academy in 1846, assigned to the engineer corps, and served in the Mexican war under Gen. Scott, being engaged at Vera Cruz, Cerro Goido, Contreras, Churubusco, and Molino del Rey, where he was severely wounded. He received the brevets of 1st lieutenant and captain for gallantry. He was assistant engineer in Maryland in 184"8-'52, and on coast-survey duty in Washington, D. C, in 1852-'4, and after promotion to a 1st lieutenancy acted as assistant professor of engineering at West Point in 1855-'7. At the beginning of the civil war he was stationed at Charleston, S. C, and safely removed the garrison of Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter dur-