"~  The  same  year  the  General  Court  granted  permission  to  establish  a  printing
press  in  Boston.  One  was  set  up  by  Mr.  Foster  in  1675.  This  was  the  first  print-
ing house  in  Boston.  He  also  compiled  an  almanac  in  1675-So,  and  was  author  and
printer  for  the  years  1676-7S-79-S1,  the  latter  being  the  year  of  his  decease.  Among
other  works  he  printed  Increase  Mather's  Exhortation  to  the  Inhabitants  of  New
England  ("Are  to  be  sold  over  against  the  Dove")  4  to  1676;  Hubbard's  Election
Sermon,  delivered  May  3,  1676,  4  to  1676;  I.  Mather's  Brief  History  of  the  Warre
with  the  Indians,  etc.,  4  to  :  a  relation  of  the  Troubles  with  the  Indians,  and  other
works  by  Mather;  Rev.  John  Eliot,  Samuel  Willard,  et=.
The  elegies  upon  his  death  are  printed  entire  in  Simond's  History  of  South  Bos-
ton.
In   i68i  it  is  said  the  town  of  Dorchester  lost  one  of  its  jewels  in  the  person  of
John  Foster,   Esq.      He  was  graduated  at  Harvard  College  in  1667.      Shaw,  in  his


506  FOSTER   GENEALOGY.
description  of  Boston,  says  he  opened  the  first  printing  house  in  Boston,  which  was
about  1675.  The  first  book  he  published  was  printed  in  1676,  and  the  last  in  1680.
