John Foster, first American wood engraver and Boston's first printer, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and baptized on 10 December 1648 in Richard Mather's church. He was the son of Hopestill Foster, a brewer and representative in the General Court, and Mary Foster, the daughter of James Bates, who was a Dorchester Selectman and later General Court representative from Hingham, Massachusetts. John Foster graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1667. In 1669 Foster was receiving a salary from the town of Dorchester for teaching Latin scholars in his father's house. By 1674, he is recorded as receiving recompense for teaching grammar scholars English, Latin, and writing at the schoolhouse in Dorchester.

In May 1674 the General Court decided to end the prohibition that had restricted printing at Cambridge. This action enabled Marmaduke Johnson to move his press to Boston, but he died on Christmas day 1674, without printing any work that bore a...