Stephen Symonds Foster was a radical American abolitionist and reformer. He is known for his strong stance against those in the church who failed to fight slavery. He was aslo one of the establishers of the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society.
Background
Stephen Symonds Foster was born on November 17, 1809 at Canterbury, New Hampshire. He was the son of Asa and Sarah (Morrill) Foster. His father’s family had long been prominent in this vicinity and several of its members had been active in New Hampshire politics.
Education
Foster was the ninth child in a family of thirteen and at an early age became accustomed to hard work on the farm. Fie then learned the trade of carpenter and builder, but becoming interested in the religious life, decided to prepare himself for the ministry. In his early twenties he entered Dartmouth College and graduated in 1838. On leaving college he entered Union Theological Seminary but his stay at the institution was brief.
Career
While at Dartmouth Foster served a jail sentence rather than perform militia duty, and incidentally, started an agitation which eventually produced drastic reforms in the wretched prison system of rural New England. He had already been assailed by doubts as to whether the churches were genuine upholders of Christian principles, and when the seminary refused accommodations for a meeting protesting against the government’s course in the Northeastern Boundary embroglio, he dropped his studies, and soon after severed connections with the church and organized religion in general.
For some years he made a precarious living as an anti-slavery lecturer, and one of his associates, Parker Pillsbury, has left a vivid record of the hardships, discouragements, and persecutions Foster encountered while campaigning in New Hampshire. He was associated with the extremist group, was a close friend of Garrison, and probably second only to the latter in influence and activity in the early years of the agitation. Like Garrison he denounced the Constitution and was ready to dissolve the Union.
He accompanied his colleague on several lecture tours and became equally well known as an agitator, not only in New England, but throughout the Northern states. Eventually he settled on a farm near Worcester but continued to appear as a public speaker and lecturer.
He wrote occasional newspaper articles but only one production of note. This pamphlet, The Brotherhood of Thieves; or a True Picture of the American Church and Clergy (1843), one of the most vitriolic works of the anti-slavery era, passed through more than twenty editions and was widely circulated.
He remained with the extremists throughout the long contest over slavery but became interested in sundry other reform movements.
His refusal to pay taxes because women were denied the suffrage more than once forced his friends to bid in his farm at sheriff’s sale.
Achievements
Views
While an undergraduate he was attracted by the growing anti-slavery movement, which at that time had many supporters at Dartmouth. Such a crusade had a strong appeal for a man of his humanitarian instincts. He had formulated a creed of his own, based largely on the Sermon on the Mount, and regardless of resultant complications in every-day life, endeavored to govern himself thereby. He had formulated a creed of his own, based largely on the Sermon on the Mount, and regardless of resultant complications in every-day life, endeavored to govern himself thereby.
Foster grasped one essential principle, namely, that “slavery is an American and not a Southern institution. ” Business, politics, and religion were, he believed, committed to the maintenance of the status quo. Fie detested the attitude of religious bodies especially and, about 1841, adopted the expedient of visiting various churches, interrupting services with a polite request for a hearing on the slavery issue.
He was repeatedly ejected, several times prosecuted, and more than once roughly handled by offended worshipers, but he attracted attention to the cause which could hardly have been gained by more decorous methods. His career as lecturer was exciting, at least in the earlier years. Fearless, resolute, and gifted with an unusual command of denunciatory language, he was repeatedly jeered and pelted by unfriendly audiences.
Membership
Foster was a member of the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society.
Personality
Foster's contemporaries describe him as of rugged features, rather ungainly in general appearance, his hands hard and gnarled with labor, but he possessed a wonderful voice.
Despite the vehemence of his platform manners he is said to have been gentle and kindly in his personal relations. He seems to have suffered from an overdeveloped logical sense and a complete lack of humor.
Quotes from others about the person
Probably Wendell Phillips made as fair an estimate of Foster’s work as might be given when at his funeral he declared: “It needed something to shake New England and stun it into listening. He was the man, and offered himself for the martyrdom. ”
Interests
Foster was a successful farmer and his property near Worcester was one of the best managed and most productive in the district.
Connections
On December 31, 1843, Stephen Symonds Foster married a kindred spirit, Abigail Kelley, Abolitionist lecturer and pioneer in the woman’s rights movement.