Stephen Symonds Foster
Encyclopedia
Stephen Symonds Foster was a radical American abolitionist known for his dramatic and aggressive style of public speaking, and for his stance against those in the church who failed to fight slavery. His marriage to Abby Kelley Foster brought his energetic activism to bear on women's rights
. He spoke out for temperance
, and agitated against any government, including his own, that would condone slavery.
Foster helped establish the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society, and belonged to the 'New Hampshire radicals' group within the American Anti-Slavery Society
. Foster wrote anti-slavery tracts and published in 1843 a widely-discussed book that met with protest and critical response: The Brotherhood of Thieves; or A True Picture of the American Church and Clergy: A Letter to Nathaniel Barney, of Nantucket. At Liberty Farm
where they lived, Foster and his wife formed a link on the underground railroad
, and helped fugitive slaves gain their freedom.
on November 17, 1809. His parents Sarah and Asa Foster had twelve children, Stephen was the ninth. The family attended the local Congregational church
, and took part in Canterbury's anti-slavery society.
Foster apprenticed to a carpenter but left at age 22 to study to become a missionary
. He went to Dartmouth College
where his brother Asa had graduated and studied the classics, including Greek and Latin. Foster embraced abolitionism at this time, and in his third year invited Angelina Grimké
to speak to the Young Men's Anti-Slavery Society. During his senior year, Foster was arrested and put in prison for not paying a debt of $12.14 to a local clockmaker; Foster was shocked to find that debtors were locked up with violent criminals and thieves, in common cells swarming with rats, lice and fleas. From prison, Foster wrote a letter of protest which was published in a local paper. His friends raised bail after two weeks, but Foster's letter aroused indignation among citizens who later cleaned out the jail and then passed a law which banned imprisonment for debt. Foster redoubled his efforts in school, especially his rhetoric and public speaking courses, and graduated in 1838 third in his class.
Foster subsequently enrolled at Union Theological Seminary
in New York City. There, he was forbidden by faculty to host an anti-slavery meeting he had scheduled. He was offered a scholarship if he would quit speaking of abolition, but Foster rejected this, saying he "could not be bought to hold his peace." In the spring of 1839, he left New York to take a position as traveling lecturer for the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society.
.
In Portland, Maine
in 1842, Foster was wounded in a riot outside a meetinghouse. Pro-slavery supporters wished to prevent Foster and the radical abolitionist John Murray Spear from speaking. When the mob attacked, Foster took twenty blows to the head and had his coat torn in half. He was pulled from the crowd by women of the Portland Anti-Slavery Society who helped him escape through a back window. Spear was beaten nearly to death on the front steps of the meeting house. Local abolitionists took the men in and tended to their recuperation.
In 1843, he wrote the book The Brotherhood of Thieves; or A True Picture of the American Church and Clergy: A Letter to Nathaniel Barney, of Nantucket and in 1844 Foster's fellow abolitionist Parker Pillsbury
published it through the Boston Anti-Slavery Office. The book went through twenty editions.
In 1844, Foster appeared in front of the New England Antislavery Convention holding an iron collar in one hand and iron manacles in the other. He said "Behold here a specimen of the religion of this land, the handiwork of the American church and clergy."
Foster was called a "come-outer
", a phrase which denoted a person who dissented from religious orthodoxy. More specifically, it meant that Foster would not join a church which held a neutral position on the issue of slavery, and he would not take part in a government that let slavery happen. The phrase was derived from the Bible
verse, II Corinthians 6:17 which read "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, said the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you."
At the eclectic Free Convention in Rutland, Vermont
in June 1858, Foster spoke after Pillsbury to say "any law, constitution, court, or government, any church, priesthood, creed, or Bible, any Christ, or any God, that, by silence or otherwise, authorizes man to enslave man, merits the scorn and contempt of mankind."
started in 1861. In early 1847, anticipating a family, the two bought a farm in Worcester, Massachusetts
and called it Liberty Farm
; there they lived until Foster's death in 1881. The Fosters used the farm to shelter escaping slaves on the underground railroad
.
On May 19, 1847, Paulina Wright "Alla" Foster was born at Liberty Farm, the only child that the couple would have. To care for the infant, Abby Kelley Foster stayed home at first, helped occasionally by her sister-in-law Caroline Foster. The young girl's parents soon found that they could lecture separately or together as long as Alla was being looked after; more often it was Abby Kelley Foster who left her husband watching the girl. Once when Alla was three, and her mother was out on a speaking tour, Stephen Symonds Foster was asked by Alla to buy her a harmonica and a churn, and Foster responded that he had little money, and could only buy her the necessities. Foster himself was about to leave on a speaking engagement and intended to send the girl to be cared for by her grandparents. Foster anticipated that she would be lonely and might need a toy wagon. Foster wrote to his wife, saying "I got the harmonica & wagon, & received for them a whole wagon load of kisses. She was careful, however, as she always is, to save some “for mother”. I am struck with the fact that she always insists on your right to an equal part of every thing which I possess, if she attaches any value to it. One would almost think her specially commissioned to look after your rights, in your absence..."
meeting. Afterward, Abby met with ten others including Wendell Phillips
, William Lloyd Garrison
, Harriot Kezia Hunt
, Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis
and Lucy Stone
to help plan for a women's rights convention. They determined that it would be held near Liberty Farm in Worcester. That October, both Foster and his wife were among the featured speakers at the first National Women's Rights Convention
. The two spoke again at the annual convention in Cleveland 1853 and in New York in 1856.
In 1869, amid tensions building up between factions of women's rights activists, Foster spoke out at a national meeting of the American Equal Rights Association
(AERA) to accuse Elizabeth Cady Stanton
of advocating "Educated Suffrage"—the right of upper-class white women to vote. Foster implied strongly that Stanton should step down as president of AERA. Henry Brown Blackwell tried to calm the waters by saying that all present, including Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
, believed in "negro suffrage". Frederick Douglass
widened the gap when he stood up and stated his position against Stanton's use in her address of the pejorative term 'Sambo'. The words of Foster and Douglass served to define a major split which separated women's rights activists into two camps; those like Stanton and Anthony who felt that educated women deserved the right to vote before or at the same time as uneducated men, and those like Stone, Douglass and Foster who felt that the political situation called for a drive to achieve suffrage for the African-American man, followed by a new focus on suffrage for women of all races.
. A sympathetic neighbor bid on the property and then allowed Foster to buy it back from him. This became a yearly event, as the Fosters never paid their taxes directly.
Foster died at Liberty Farm on September 12, 1881. A memorial service was held at the Worcester Horticultural Hall on September 24, with Reverend Samuel May, Jr. of Leicester, Massachusetts presiding. Tributes to Foster's life and works were spoken by Lucy Stone, Wendell Phillips, Reverend Henry T. Cheever and Parker Pillsbury.
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
. He spoke out for temperance
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
, and agitated against any government, including his own, that would condone slavery.
Foster helped establish the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society, and belonged to the 'New Hampshire radicals' group within the American Anti-Slavery Society
American Anti-Slavery Society
The American Anti-Slavery Society was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass was a key leader of this society and often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown was another freed slave who often spoke at meetings. By 1838, the society had...
. Foster wrote anti-slavery tracts and published in 1843 a widely-discussed book that met with protest and critical response: The Brotherhood of Thieves; or A True Picture of the American Church and Clergy: A Letter to Nathaniel Barney, of Nantucket. At Liberty Farm
Liberty Farm
Liberty Farm is a National Historic Landmark at 116 Mower Street in Worcester, Massachusetts.The brick house was built in 1810 in a Federal style. It was added to the National Historic Register in 1974. Abolitionists and suffragists Abby Kelley Foster and Stephen Symonds Foster owned the house from...
where they lived, Foster and his wife formed a link on the underground railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
, and helped fugitive slaves gain their freedom.
Early life
Foster was born in Canterbury, New HampshireCanterbury, New Hampshire
Canterbury is a town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 2,352 at the 2010 census. Canterbury is home to Ayers State Forest and Shaker State Forest. On the last Saturday in July, the town hosts the annual .- History :...
on November 17, 1809. His parents Sarah and Asa Foster had twelve children, Stephen was the ninth. The family attended the local Congregational church
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
, and took part in Canterbury's anti-slavery society.
Foster apprenticed to a carpenter but left at age 22 to study to become a missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
. He went to Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
where his brother Asa had graduated and studied the classics, including Greek and Latin. Foster embraced abolitionism at this time, and in his third year invited Angelina Grimké
Angelina Grimké
Angelina Emily Grimké Weld was an American political activist, abolitionist and supporter of the women's suffrage movement.- Family background :...
to speak to the Young Men's Anti-Slavery Society. During his senior year, Foster was arrested and put in prison for not paying a debt of $12.14 to a local clockmaker; Foster was shocked to find that debtors were locked up with violent criminals and thieves, in common cells swarming with rats, lice and fleas. From prison, Foster wrote a letter of protest which was published in a local paper. His friends raised bail after two weeks, but Foster's letter aroused indignation among citizens who later cleaned out the jail and then passed a law which banned imprisonment for debt. Foster redoubled his efforts in school, especially his rhetoric and public speaking courses, and graduated in 1838 third in his class.
Foster subsequently enrolled at Union Theological Seminary
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a preeminent independent graduate school of theology, located in Manhattan between Claremont Avenue and Broadway, 120th to 122nd Streets. The seminary was founded in 1836 under the Presbyterian Church, and is affiliated with nearby Columbia...
in New York City. There, he was forbidden by faculty to host an anti-slavery meeting he had scheduled. He was offered a scholarship if he would quit speaking of abolition, but Foster rejected this, saying he "could not be bought to hold his peace." In the spring of 1839, he left New York to take a position as traveling lecturer for the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society.
Abolition
Foster was known to interrupt church services to denounce organized religion's complicity in slavery. In 1841, he was expelled from his Congregationalist church in Hanover, New HampshireHanover, New Hampshire
Hanover is a town along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 11,260 at the 2010 census. CNN and Money magazine rated Hanover the sixth best place to live in America in 2011, and the second best in 2007....
.
In Portland, Maine
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...
in 1842, Foster was wounded in a riot outside a meetinghouse. Pro-slavery supporters wished to prevent Foster and the radical abolitionist John Murray Spear from speaking. When the mob attacked, Foster took twenty blows to the head and had his coat torn in half. He was pulled from the crowd by women of the Portland Anti-Slavery Society who helped him escape through a back window. Spear was beaten nearly to death on the front steps of the meeting house. Local abolitionists took the men in and tended to their recuperation.
In 1843, he wrote the book The Brotherhood of Thieves; or A True Picture of the American Church and Clergy: A Letter to Nathaniel Barney, of Nantucket and in 1844 Foster's fellow abolitionist Parker Pillsbury
Parker Pillsbury
Parker Pillsbury was an American minister and advocate for abolition and women's rights.Pillsbury was born in Hamilton, Massachusetts...
published it through the Boston Anti-Slavery Office. The book went through twenty editions.
In 1844, Foster appeared in front of the New England Antislavery Convention holding an iron collar in one hand and iron manacles in the other. He said "Behold here a specimen of the religion of this land, the handiwork of the American church and clergy."
Foster was called a "come-outer
Come-outer
Come-outer is a phrase coined in the 1830s which denotes a person who withdraws from an established organization, or one who advocates political reform.-History:...
", a phrase which denoted a person who dissented from religious orthodoxy. More specifically, it meant that Foster would not join a church which held a neutral position on the issue of slavery, and he would not take part in a government that let slavery happen. The phrase was derived from the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
verse, II Corinthians 6:17 which read "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, said the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you."
At the eclectic Free Convention in Rutland, Vermont
Rutland (town), Vermont
Rutland is a town in Rutland County, Vermont, United States. The population was 4,054 at the 2010 census. Rutland completely surrounds the city of Rutland, which is incorporated separately from the town of Rutland.-History:...
in June 1858, Foster spoke after Pillsbury to say "any law, constitution, court, or government, any church, priesthood, creed, or Bible, any Christ, or any God, that, by silence or otherwise, authorizes man to enslave man, merits the scorn and contempt of mankind."
Marriage and fatherhood
In 1845, after a four-year courtship, Foster married Abby Kelley, a more famous social activist and a dynamic speaker who had occasionally joined with him on the abolitionist lecture circuit. They continued to travel and lecture together until the Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
started in 1861. In early 1847, anticipating a family, the two bought a farm in Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....
and called it Liberty Farm
Liberty Farm
Liberty Farm is a National Historic Landmark at 116 Mower Street in Worcester, Massachusetts.The brick house was built in 1810 in a Federal style. It was added to the National Historic Register in 1974. Abolitionists and suffragists Abby Kelley Foster and Stephen Symonds Foster owned the house from...
; there they lived until Foster's death in 1881. The Fosters used the farm to shelter escaping slaves on the underground railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
.
On May 19, 1847, Paulina Wright "Alla" Foster was born at Liberty Farm, the only child that the couple would have. To care for the infant, Abby Kelley Foster stayed home at first, helped occasionally by her sister-in-law Caroline Foster. The young girl's parents soon found that they could lecture separately or together as long as Alla was being looked after; more often it was Abby Kelley Foster who left her husband watching the girl. Once when Alla was three, and her mother was out on a speaking tour, Stephen Symonds Foster was asked by Alla to buy her a harmonica and a churn, and Foster responded that he had little money, and could only buy her the necessities. Foster himself was about to leave on a speaking engagement and intended to send the girl to be cared for by her grandparents. Foster anticipated that she would be lonely and might need a toy wagon. Foster wrote to his wife, saying "I got the harmonica & wagon, & received for them a whole wagon load of kisses. She was careful, however, as she always is, to save some “for mother”. I am struck with the fact that she always insists on your right to an equal part of every thing which I possess, if she attaches any value to it. One would almost think her specially commissioned to look after your rights, in your absence..."
Women's rights
In May 1850, Abby Kelley Foster went to Boston to take part in an annual Anti-Slavery SocietyAmerican Anti-Slavery Society
The American Anti-Slavery Society was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass was a key leader of this society and often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown was another freed slave who often spoke at meetings. By 1838, the society had...
meeting. Afterward, Abby met with ten others including Wendell Phillips
Wendell Phillips
Wendell Phillips was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, and orator. He was an exceptional orator and agitator, advocate and lawyer, writer and debater.-Education:...
, William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...
, Harriot Kezia Hunt
Harriot Kezia Hunt
Harriot Kezia Hunt was an early female physician.Hunt was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1805, the daughter of Jacob Hunt and Kezia Wentworth Hunt. She and her sister, Sarah Hunt, studied medicine under Elizabeth Mott and Richard Dixon Mott...
, Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis
Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis
Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis was an American abolitionist, suffragist, and educator.Paulina Kellogg was born in Bloomfield, New York, to Captain Ebenezer Kellogg and Polly Saxton. The family moved to the frontier near Niagara Falls in 1817...
and Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone was a prominent American abolitionist and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery at a time when women were discouraged...
to help plan for a women's rights convention. They determined that it would be held near Liberty Farm in Worcester. That October, both Foster and his wife were among the featured speakers at the first National Women's Rights Convention
National Women's Rights Convention
The National Women's Rights Convention was an annual series of meetings that increased the visibility of the early women's rights movement in the United States. First held in 1850 in Worcester, Massachusetts, the National Women's Rights Convention combined both male and female leadership, and...
. The two spoke again at the annual convention in Cleveland 1853 and in New York in 1856.
In 1869, amid tensions building up between factions of women's rights activists, Foster spoke out at a national meeting of the American Equal Rights Association
American Equal Rights Association
The American Equal Rights Association , also known as the Equal Rights Association, was an organization formed by women's rights and black rights activists in 1866 in the United States. Its goal was to join the cause of gender equality with that of racial equality...
(AERA) to accuse Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
of advocating "Educated Suffrage"—the right of upper-class white women to vote. Foster implied strongly that Stanton should step down as president of AERA. Henry Brown Blackwell tried to calm the waters by saying that all present, including Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
, believed in "negro suffrage". Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
widened the gap when he stood up and stated his position against Stanton's use in her address of the pejorative term 'Sambo'. The words of Foster and Douglass served to define a major split which separated women's rights activists into two camps; those like Stanton and Anthony who felt that educated women deserved the right to vote before or at the same time as uneducated men, and those like Stone, Douglass and Foster who felt that the political situation called for a drive to achieve suffrage for the African-American man, followed by a new focus on suffrage for women of all races.
Later life
In 1874, Worcester city officials put Liberty Farm up for auction to pay back taxes. In a manner similar to prior protests made by women's rights activists such as Lucy Stone, the Fosters refused to pay taxes on the 65 acres (263,045.9 m²) farm because Abby Kelley Foster was not given the right to vote and was thus subject to "taxation without representation"No taxation without representation
"No taxation without representation" is a slogan originating during the 1750s and 1760s that summarized a primary grievance of the British colonists in the Thirteen Colonies, which was one of the major causes of the American Revolution...
. A sympathetic neighbor bid on the property and then allowed Foster to buy it back from him. This became a yearly event, as the Fosters never paid their taxes directly.
Foster died at Liberty Farm on September 12, 1881. A memorial service was held at the Worcester Horticultural Hall on September 24, with Reverend Samuel May, Jr. of Leicester, Massachusetts presiding. Tributes to Foster's life and works were spoken by Lucy Stone, Wendell Phillips, Reverend Henry T. Cheever and Parker Pillsbury.
External links
- Worcester Women's History Project. Sample of love letters between Stephen Symonds Foster and Abby Kelley
- The Brotherhood of Thieves, or, A True Picture of the American Church and Clergy (1843), by Stephen S. Foster