Lucian Rose Foster (12 November 1806 – 19 March 1876)[1] was a photographer, accountant, bookkeeper, and clerk who was a member of theLatter Day Saint movement.
Foster was born inNew Marlboro, Massachusetts, to Nathaniel Foster and Polly.[1] He joined theChurch 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 abranch president inNew York City from 1841–1844.[1] He would later serve as member of the central correspondence committee forJoseph Smith's 1844 presidential campaign,[1][2] and was also admitted to theCouncil of Fifty on 1 March 1845.[1]
Foster moved toNauvoo, Illinois, around 27 April 1844,[3][4] bringing thedaguerreotype shortly after its introduction with him, setting up a daguerreotypestudio on Fulton Street in August 1844.[5] The Mormon photojournalist and writer Nelson B. Wadsworth speculated that Foster learned how to daguerreotype underSamuel F. B. Morse, although this has been disputed for lack of evidence.[6] Foster released his firstadvertisement in theNauvoo 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 thegrand jury of Nauvoo during the May 1845 term, along with four other Mormons:Daniel Spencer,Hiram Kimball,Samuel Bent, andPeter Hawes (1796-1860).[10] He was also a member of the NauvooMasonic Lodge.[1]
Foster had four wives byproxy sealing: Harriet Eliza Burr, Mary Ann Graham, Ann Mariah Still, and Eliza Leeman Ulrich.[1]
In 1846, he wasexcommunicated by the nascentLDS Church and began affiliating withJames Strang's breakawayChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite) from 1846 to 1849 after having moved back toNew York City.[1] Foster was among those early Mormons who opposed the polygamous practice ofplural marriage; afterParley P. Pratt took another plural wife, Phoebe Elizabeth Soper, Pratt visited Phoebe's father Samuel inLong 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 toBrooklyn by 1870, but, curiously, apparently died inSalt Lake City, only about six years later in 1876.[1]
.jpg)
.png)
.jpg)
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.
The second most plausible period, Tracy posits, is when photographer Lucian Foster moved to Nauvoo two months before the death of Joseph Smith.
