John Fox Slater was an American manufacturer and philanthropist.
Background
He was born on March 4, 1815 in Slatersville, Rhode Island, United States. His father was John Slater who emigrated from England to the United States about 1804 after having familiarized himself with machinery for the making of yarns and cloths. His mother was Ruth (Bucklin) Slater of Pawtucket, where Samuel Slater, an uncle, had established the first cotton mill in the United States.
Education
Young Slater received a good education and attended academies in Plainfield, Connecticut, and at Wrentham and Wilbraham, Massachussets.
Career
When he was seventeen, he began work in his father's woolen mill at Hopeville, Connecticut, of which he was placed in full charge by the time he was twenty-one. He was next entrusted with the management of his father's cotton mill in the nearby village of Jewett City.
About 1842 he removed to Norwich, Connecticut. On the passing away of his father in 1843 he came into a modest fortune. He at once formed an equal partnership with his brother William S. Slater to manufacture cotton and woolen goods. In the course of a few decades he became very wealthy. When he and his brother dissolved their partnership in 1872 he retained the Jewett City mill and also an interest in the Ponemah mill at Taftville, a suburb of Norwich. This cost $1, 500, 000 to build and when opened on November 16, 1871, was probably the second largest plant of its kind in the world.
Always interested in educational questions, he in 1868 helped to found and endow the Norwich Free Academy. Influenced by the successful working of the Peabody Education Fund for negroes he finally decided, probably without any outside suggestion. On April 28, 1882, the New York legislature passed an act incorporating the John F. Slater Fund, and in the following month he transferred the promised million to its first board of trustees, of which the president was Rutherford B. Hayes. The fund still (1935) exists and in the fifty years following its establishment it distributed nearly four million dollars, mainly in aiding the training of teachers for the colored race.
He died in Norwich, Connecticut.
Achievements
Religion
He was of a devout disposition and contributed liberally both to the erection and upkeep of the Park Congregational Church of Norwich, of which he was a member.
Personality
Slater, disliking publicity, did not even strive for the perpetuation of his own name.
Connections
On May 13, 1844, he married Marianna L. Hubbard, by whom he had six children.