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MEMORIAL

HERMAN TEN EYCK FOSTER.

PREPARED BY

Hon. Ay B. CONGER,
Ex-President of the ‘New York State Agricultural Society.
MN
PRESENTED AT THE ANNUAL MEETING
FEBRUARY 9, 1870,

AND PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY.

ALBANY:
PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY.

1870.

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—_

NEW YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY,
In Executive Committee, Feb. 10, 1869. ¢

On motion of Mr. WING:

Whereas, This Committee has received this morning the painful
intelligence of the death of our beloved and respected associate,

Herman Ten Eyck Foster,

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to prepare a suitable Minute,
in memorial of the worth and services of Mr. Foster, to be presented to

the Executive Committee and the Society, and entered upon the records

ME; MORIAL

OF

HERMAN TEN EYCK FOSTER.

Our Society deplores the loss of one, who for
many years honored its confidence in varied official
service. The social circle in which he moved,
mourns a most generous and dearly esteemed friend,
and the benevolent world an ardent and successful
fellow-laborer.

Herman Ten Eyck Foster died on the ninth day
of February, 1869. His death was a surprise, even
to those who witnessed it; without preparation to
all, save himself.

An accident early on the morning of the 27th of
January, which resulted in a fracture below the
left knee, remanded him to his couch. The injury
was not deemed serious; every symptom promised
early convalescence. While his family were rejoic-

ing in the indications of a complete restoration to

F

useful and wonted labor, and as one of his children
was reading from a recent publication, some
witty thought produced a general merriment. His
hearty laugh was quickly arrested by a sense
of faintness. The reading ceased at his request,
and his head was laid on the pillow. Consciousness
was quite suspended, and as it returned he said to
a daughter ministering to his relief, “1 was almost
gone.”—Instantly the blood surged over his riven
heart; the cord which bound him in time was
severed; and his spirit released from earth, ascended
to its eternal abode.

He was born in the city of New York, on the
Ist of March, 1822, the third son of Andrew
Foster, a merchant of Scotch birth, and Anna Ten
Eyck, an Albanian of Holland lineage.

At the age of fifteen he entered Columbia Col-
lege, and in due course received his degree as
Bachelor of Arts. Spending a winter in the trial
of mercantile life, his tastes, and perhaps also a
regard to his health, prompted him to the study of
farming, which he pursued for a year at Jackson-
ville, Tompkins Co., under the supervision of Mr.
Aaron K. Owen.

His choice of a pursuit in life was soon and wisely

determined, and Lakeland, an estate of nearly 250

od
i

acres on the east shore of Seneca Lake, was pur-
chased in June, 1843.

Two summers had passed, and when the lands-
cape was clothed in the gorgeous tints of October,
he brought to his house, to make it their home,
Pauline, a daughter of Mr. Antoine Lentilhon, a
French resident of New York City. Four and
a half years passed, and a son and two daughters
were born, the jewels which the mother wore to the
delight of the doting husband and loving father.
Then suddenly she was called to a higher home, of
which that on earth was, in the ministries and grace
of love, the type.

What was the weight of that affliction on his
heart, it is not ours to reveal. We note only its
traces in his life. The main current of his earthly
affection, thus severed, was soon observed to join
itself to its tributaries, and swelled his affection and
care for his bereaved children. From the tutelage
of grief he passed te an inward culture, which gave
him hope in his patient waiting for a blessed re-
union, took from death its accustomed horror, and led
him to express a boding joy in the day of his release.
Not that such expressions were frequent, but
rather elicited at times of rarest confidence, or

brought out in sympathy for some similar trial.

8

Only was it possible for the nicest observer, and
that on few occasions, to read in the depths of his
fixed eye, the traces of that deeply felt and long
borne sorrow ; to understand how inwoven with his
placid smile and almost gay urbanity, was that
weird, yet staunch earnestness of feeling, which
gave to his convictions of duty their true inspira-
tion.

His near neighbors best attest his love for the
highest good of their families, as they point to the
Sabbath School which he originated, and sustained
for nearly nineteen years. His assistants in his
work, and his scholars, will not soon forget his labor
of love inthe prayer meeting on the eve of prepara-
tion, which, though recently established, evinced
his intense yearning over their religious welfare.
Nor will those who shared his nearer confidence
fail to be animated by the example of fortitude,
which kept him tied to his work even in periods of
exhaustion, or of that enthusiasm which, in the
deep interest of his work, was oblivious of fatigue.

The sentiments of respect manifested in the last
tribute to his remains, the irrepressible emotion,
the quiet utterances which spoke his loss and his
worth, are the enduring evidence that his genial

nature, expressing itself in words and works of kind-

)

ness and just regard for the welfare of all of human
mould, had fully wrought out its mission, and that

in his life’s journey, he has left

‘Footprints in the sands of time,

** Footprints that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother

b

Seeing shall take heart again.’’

For such a spirit, farming was not simply a busi-
ness or the occupation of time. It was communion
with Nature in her marvelous work, not merely
a matter of study or inquisitive search into her
hidden mysteries; it was a love for her display in
the leafy garniture of her forests, in the heaving
bosom of her lakes, in the rippling courses of her
rivulets, in the rounding of her hill sides, in the
craggy summits of her mountains, not less than in
her verdant meadows, or her ripening grain. Hence
his pursuit after her rewards in the labors of the
field, or the handiwork of the garden, was ever
fresh and joyous. It was lessof a task than a pas-
time. Happiness and hope were, as they should be,
its moving forces. The methods, however, were those
which experience and science had approved, whether
in the wise adjustment of means to ends, in the
provident adaptation of every work to its season,

3 3

10

or in the plans and purpose of a steady progress.
The proof is in the result. Without any lavish
expenditure; without fretting out or vexing his
noble nature on unforeseen contingencies or petty
mishaps; with every enjoyment of life, in the rear-
ing of his children, in unbounded hospitality to
his friends; with time freely spent in works of bene-
volence, and not a little spared to his official duty
in advancing the cause of Agriculture—his farm
had, under his wise and happy management, more
then trebled its original power of production and
quadrupled its value.

We note as commendatory evidence of his suc-
cess in the management of Lakeland, that, as early
as 1848, he received at the hands of our State and of
his County Society, the first of the several prizes
offered for farms systematically and profitably cul-
tivated.

To those who had not with him looked over his con-
venient shelters for stock, produce and implements,
the plan of his buildings as given in the Transac-
tions of our Society for that year, would be ample
proof of his love of order, and skill in arrangement.

But if any should seek for a higher test of his
success as a farmer, the secret is disclosed in his

untiring industry, in his working, where need was,

1]

with his own hands, and always where the :abor
was severe and ingenuity was required in its appli-
cation, and in thus being the leader and instructor
of his farm laborers.

If we may be permitted to dwell on this phase
of his character, we will add that he never did any-

?

thing “by halves;” and in the fact that he ever
in his private and official as well as in his farming
life, carried out to the end whatever he undertook,
we find confirmation of the wonderful simplicity and
force of his mind. His directness and singleness of
purpose were as manifest, as if he had based his life
solely on the precept, (not more wisely on the
oracles from which it was taken.)

“To thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the day the night,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”’

Yes, so free was he from all that was covert in
design, from all that savored of guile and suspicion,
that it was hard for him to believe that these pests
of our nature could lodge and fructify in human
hearts, or to understand why they were not instantly
eradicated by wholesome culture.

When we approach Mr. Foster’s official relations
to our Society, words fail us. They are lost in the
emotions which his removal, from our pleasant circle

of unsought honor and proffered labor, excite afresh.

12

We have lost a companion in the work we render and
the sacrifices we make, towards the elevation of
Agriculture, to the rank of an accepted science and
honorable profession. Many of us have parted with
a very dear and intimate personal friend, with whom
in the many problems of life we took sweet counsel.
We prize the memory of his promptness, frank-
ness and courtesy in counsel and action; his readi-
ness to redress or smooth a grievance, felt in reality
or imagination, as sometimes happens in the con-
tests for the awards and testimonials of our Society;
above all, that sincere manifestation of interest in
its welfare, that uniform devotion to its contimued
prosperity, that instinct of honour which spurned
the most specious wrong and championed the feeblest
right.

We surrender to the members of the Society the
task which they can best perform, the embalming of
his memory in their hearts. Our work of tracing, in
outline, this memorial of his life and character is
submitted, in the consciousness that the life tints
will be added by many loving hearts, and with no
little misgiving that, as his merits have been poorly
scanned, his place will be tardily filled.

In an age in which vast fortunes seem to be

gained by the throw of a die; when most of our

15

youth, spurning the trodden paths of tabor, are seen
dangling after the car of Fortune; when the farm
is thrown up and the old homestead forsaken, and
its inmates covet village lots, and its young men
leave the plough for the counter; when, under an
unprecedented demand on the fruits of labor and
the products of industry to support our credit as
government and people, production in agriculture
is lessened and consumption in the luxuries as well
as necessaries of life increased; who are they,
born in cities, lapped from infancy in ease and
affluence, who will cast behind them all clogs on
noble inspiration, tear themselves from luxury and
the blandishments of frivolity and folly, resolve to
stem the tide which is hurrying our country to bank-
ruptcy and ruin, and devoting their energies to an
increased production from deserted or impoverished
farms, gladly spend their lives in the study and in
the workshop of Nature? On whom of such shall

fall the mantle of our departed friend ?

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