Stephen C. Forster, courtesy Maine State Archives
(1799-1872) a U.S. Representative was born in Machias on December 24, 1799. He attended the common schools, learned the blacksmith’s trade and subsequently became a shipbuilder.
Foster was member of the Maine House of Representatives from 1834 to 1837 and a member of the Maine State Senate in 1840, and served its president. In 1847 he was again elected to the Maine House of Representatives.
Elected as a Republican to the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1857-March 3, 1861), he was a member of the Peace Convention of 1861 held in Washington, D.C., in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war.
Foster died in Pembroke on October 5, 1872, with interment in Forest Hill Cemetery.