John Foster

John Foster (1648 – September 9, 1681) was an early American engraver and printer who lived in Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when the colony was still in its infancy. He is credited with producing the first printed image in British colonial America, from a woodcut engraving of the Puritan minister Richard Mather. He also printed the first map to appear in the colonies. Foster graduated from Harvard University, but was a self-taught pioneer in American printmaking in woodcut, and also learned the art of typography from the Boston printer Marmaduke Johnson. He subsequently printed many works by prominent religious figures of the day in Massachusetts, and for a few years printed and published an annual almanac. His woodcut engravings were also used for the printing of official seals of the Massachusetts Bay Colony used by the provincial government. Early life Foster was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, which later became part of South Boston. He was the second son and fourth child of Hopestill and Mary (Bates) Foster. He was baptized in Dorchester on December 10, 1648, by the Puritan minister Richard Mather, who arrived in the British colonies in 1635. Foster's father was a brewer and a member of the Massachusetts General Court. Foster attended Harvard College and graduated in the class of 1667 with a bachelor's degree, some two years after he began teaching English, Latin, and writing in his hometown. His graduation class contained only seven students. After graduation he pursued a post-graduate course, but according to Harvard's records did not complete the course, as his name does not appear in their Quinquennial Catalogue. In October 1669, Foster replaced Rev. Hope Atherton, also a graduate of Harvard College as the teacher at the school in Dorchester, receiving a salary of £25 a year, later raised to £30 a year. He taught at Dorchester until late in 1674. Investigations by Samuel Green, once the official printer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, reveals that Foster had possessed a natural talent for drawing and sketching, and early in life was drawn to the art of wood-engraving. After securing the necessary tools, he spent his leisure hours in learning the art. The crudeness of his work indicates that he was probably self-taught, although he may have been influenced by John Hull, the mint-master, and Edward Budd, a prominent carver who was in Boston as early as 1665. Printing career