John Foster

John was a son of Capt. Hopestill Foster of Dorchester, named in his father's will, and a brother of Ensign Hopestill Foster and Elisha Foster. He was baptized at Dorchester on 10 Dec 1648 (Records of the First Church at Dorchester, p. 159) and graduated from Harvard in 1667. He cut the woodcut portrait of Rev. Richard Mather, counted the first portrait print made in the English colonies (Wikipedia), and "made the Seals or Arms of the Colony, viz an Indian with a bow and arrow" (Blake's Annals, quoted by Whitmore). In 1675 he opened Boston's first printing office.

The printer of the war. "There was then but one printer in Boston, — John Foster by name, — and he must print both Works. Dr. Mather's was first in the Hands of the Printer," as Drake, who edited both of the war's first histories, wrote (Mather, Brief History, Drake's ed. pp. vi-vii; Hubbard, Narrative, Drake's ed. 1:viii). Increase Mather, one of the Court's licensers of the press since 1674 (Mass. Bay Records 5:4), came out first: A Brief History of the Warr with the Indians in New-England, "BOSTON, Printed and Sold by John Foster over against the Sign of the Dove. 1676" (Evans, American Bibliography, no. 220), with Mather's An Earnest Exhortation (no. 221). Its page 15 carries Foster's woodcut of the colony's seal. William Hubbard's A Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New-England, licensed on 29 Mar 1677, followed: "Boston: Printed by John Foster, in the year 1677" (Evans no. 231), with "A Map of New-England, Being the first that ever was here cut," the first map cut in the colonies. Hubbard probably drew it and Foster probably cut it; a second, "Wine Hills" version was cut afterwards in London (Lincoln, pp. v-vi). Benjamin Tompson's verse New-Englands Crisis (1676) probably came from his press too (Evans no. 225). It is by his almanac for 1676 that Benjamin Church's capture of Annawon is dated, to 11 Sept 1676 (Church, Entertaining Passages, Dexter's ed. pp. 153-154 n.).

He died at Dorchester on 9 Sept 1681 ("Mr. John Foster Died Sep. 9. 81," Dorchester records, vol. 21, p. 30). His stone in the North Burying Ground reads: "The ingenious mathematician and printer, Mr. John Foster, aged 33 years, dyed Septr 9th 1681." The Court then gave Samuel Sewall "the printing press in Boston, late vnder the improovement of Mr John Foster, deceased" (Mass. Bay Records 5:323).