Lucian R. Foster

Lucian Rose Foster (12 November 1806–19 March 1876)[1] was a photographer, accountant, bookkeeper, and clerk who was a member of the Latter Day Saint movement.

Biography

Foster was born in New Marlboro, Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, to Nathaniel Foster and Polly.[1] He joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by December 1840,[1] and was appointed clerk of church conference on 4 December 1840.[1] He also became a branch president in New York City from 1841–1844.[1] He would later serve as member of the central correspondence committee for Joseph Smith's 1844 presidential campaign,[1][2] and was also admitted to the Council of Fifty on 1 March 1845.[1]

Foster moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, around 27 April 1844,[3][4] bringing the daguerreotype shortly after its introduction with him, setting up a daguerreotype studio on Fulton Street in August 1844.[5] The Mormon photojournalist and writer Nelson B. Wadsworth speculated that Foster learned how to daguerreotype under Samuel F. B. Morse, although this has been disputed for lack of evidence.[6] Foster released his first advertisement in the Nauvoo Neighbor on 14 August 1844[3][7] which said that he could produce "an image of the person, as exact as that formed by the mirror transferred to, and permanently fixed upon a highly polished silver through the agency of an optical instrument."[7] He went on to produce the first photographic images of Nauvoo and its citizens from 1844 to 1846.[8][9] However, some of the photographs attributed to him are, properly speaking, of unknown authorship.[6][8] He was present in the grand jury of Nauvoo during the May 1845 term, along with four other Mormons: Daniel Spencer, Hiram Kimball, Samuel Bent, and Peter Hawes (1796-1860).[10] He was also a member of the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge.[1]

Foster had four wives by proxy sealing: Harriet Eliza Burr, Mary Ann Graham, Ann Mariah Still, and Eliza Leeman Ulrich.[1]

In 1846, he was excommunicated by the nascent LDS Church and began affiliating with James Strang's breakaway Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite) from 1846 to 1849 after having moved back to New York City.[1] Foster was among those early Mormons who opposed the polygamous practice of plural marriage; after Parley P. Pratt took another plural wife, Phoebe Elizabeth Soper, Pratt visited Phoebe's father Samuel in Long Island, from whom he learned that Foster had reportedly told "the Old gentleman and Others that I have got Phebe and have now come for" Samuel's other daughters.[11] He also disappears from Church records after the Nauvoo era.[7] Foster moved to Brooklyn by 1870, but, curiously, apparently died in Salt Lake City, only about six years later in 1876.[1]

References
  1. "Foster, Lucian Rose". The Joseph Smith Papers. Retrieved Oct 30, 2019.
  2. Poll, Richard D.; Hickman, Martin B. (1968). "Joseph Smith's Presidential Platform". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 3 (3): 17–36. doi:10.2307/45224011. ISSN 0012-2157. JSTOR 45224011. S2CID 254398463.
  3. Holzapfel, Richard Neitzel (1990). "Review of The History of the Mormons in Photographs and Text: 1830 to the Present". Brigham Young University Studies. 30 (4): 75–78. ISSN 0007-0106. JSTOR 43041486. Contemporary documents, such as Joseph Smith's diary, indicate that Foster arrived in Nauvoo on 27 April 1844. Foster's first business advertisement appeared in the Nauvoo Neighbor on 14 August 1844, and other contemporary witnesses verify that Foster's photographic work in Nauvoo did not begin before April 1844.
  4. Tamez, Jared (2009). "Review of Millions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again: The Joseph Smith Photograph". Journal of Mormon History. 35 (3): 249–255. ISSN 0094-7342. JSTOR 23291035. The second most plausible period, Tracy posits, is when photographer Lucian Foster moved to Nauvoo two months before the death of Joseph Smith.
  5. Leonard, Glen M. (1995). "Picturing the Nauvoo Legion". Brigham Young University Studies. 35 (2): 95–135. ISSN 0007-0106. JSTOR 43042793.
  6. Walgren, Kent L. (1977). Wadsworth, Nelson B. (ed.). "Photography as History". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 10 (3): 116–117. doi:10.2307/45224597. ISSN 0012-2157. JSTOR 45224597. S2CID 254402623.
  7. Holzapfel, Richard Neitzel; Wells, Thomas R. (2005). "A Superlative Image: An Original Daguerreotype of Brigham Young". Brigham Young University Studies. 44 (2): 96–102. ISSN 0007-0106. JSTOR 43044441.
  8. Holzapfel, Richard Neitzel; Cottle, T. Jeffery (1991). "The City of Joseph in Focus: The Use and Abuse of Historic Photographs". Brigham Young University Studies. 32 (1/2): 249–268. JSTOR 43044973.
  9. Simonsen, Reed. "Daguerreotypy & Lucien Foster in Nauvoo". Photograph Found a 20 year perspective. Retrieved Oct 30, 2019.
  10. Dinger, John S. (2019). "Mormons and the Grand Jury in Hancock County, 1839–1845". Journal of Mormon History. 45 (2): 68–91. doi:10.5406/jmormhist.45.2.0068. ISSN 0094-7342. JSTOR 10.5406/jmormhist.45.2.0068. S2CID 159855993.
  11. Givens, Terryl L.; Grow, Matthew J. (2011-09-21). Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-970484-2.
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