Randolph Sinks Foster

Randolph Sinks Foster (1820 - 1903) was an American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1872.

Born on 22 February 1820 at Williamsburg, Ohio, U.S.A., he attended Augusta College in Kentucky, but left to become a Preacher in the Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church when he was only seventeen. He was ordained to the Traveling Ministry by Bishops Waugh and Hedding. He went on to become the Pastor of the Mulberry Street M.E. Church in New York City, where he met Daniel Drew, the financier who provided the original funding for the Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, New Jersey.

Prior to his election to the Episcopacy, Foster served in pastoral appointments and in educational work. He was President of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 1857-1860. He also accepted John McClintock's invitation to become Professor of Systematic Theology at Drew. After the death of Drew's first President in 1870, Foster was elected to that post, remaining there until becoming a Bishop in 1872, when he was assigned to the Cincinnati, Ohio area.

He died at Newton Centre, Massachusetts on 1 May 1903. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.

[edit] Reference

Methodism: Ohio Area (1812-1962), edited by John M. Versteeg, Litt.D., D.D. (Ohio Area Sesquicentennial Committee, 1962).

Preceded by Edward Raymond Ames	Ohio United Methodist Bishops 1872	Succeeded by Stephen Mason Merrill

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