Born: Tennessee, 1814.
Died: Palmyra, Ill., 1875.
Mr Foster was a unique character. Small in body, he was in mind alert and quick to learn and understand. At the age of fifteen he was baptized by Philip Mulkey in Tennessee. His father was a high and stern Calvinist and drove Robert from home when he became a Christian. So he came to Illinois with Tandy Trice, a pioneer preacher. The period of his youth must have been diligently improved, for he became a successful physician and remarkable preacher. The Christian ministry was the absorbing and consuming work of his life. His labors were chiefly in central Illinois, where he was associated with D. P. Henderson, W. P. Bowles, B. W. Henry, A. J. Kane and other mighty men of that time. How much this part of the State is indebted to his zeal, toils and sacrifices, only a few know. After he was well started in the ministry, he made a visit to his childhood's home in Tennessee. While there, he conducted a meeting of days and baptized his mother, two brothers and a sister. His proud father gave him no countenance, and he came away without even seeing him. In April, 1836, he started horse-back on an evangelizing tour, and the next November reported 150 baptisms. In 1837 he was associated with B. W. Stone in a meeting in Lynnville.
In December, 1838, he was married to Miss Mary A. Burnett, near Palmyra. They began housekeeping in a log cabin on Wolf Creek, north of the site of Riverton. One of their sons, W B. Foster, became a brilliant and successful preacher, but died in his young prime. Several other children survive.
At one time, Dr. Foster had a lucrative medical practice in Carlinville, but this could not tie him to that profession His desire to preach pushed all else aside. His generosity knew no limit. It was that trait in him that led Dr. Bostick of Scottsville, to say: "Robert Foster is the smartest man I ever knew, but has the least common sense of any man I ever saw." John M. Palmer said that Robert Foster would give away the last dollar he had, then borrow another dollar and give that away.
He is said to have been the ablest and most convincing preacher in the State on the Bible way to become a Christian. Claiborn Hall, long a great man of God at Athens; Thos. E. Bondurant, first at Mechanicsburg, and M. M. and G. M. Goode, first at Chapman's Point, were turned to the Lord by Mr. Foster. He called the younger Mr. Goode his "son Timothy." Preaching on the conversion of the jailer, and replying to the contention that there were infants in this family, Mr. Foster said: "This jailer had one daughter. She married a shoemaker who was lame in one leg and blind in one eye. How did I learn this? Why, just like the preachers who say there were babies in this family who were baptized. I inferred it." His sermon on Philip and the eunuch was made very striking by modernizing the Scripture to suit the then prevalent conception for conversion.
Some amusing incidents are told of him. In those days it was the custom to have high, boxed-up pulpits. Mr. Foster was too short to see over the big Bible; so he was provided with a box on which to stand. When he began to exhort, he could not stay on the box, so his head would appear and disappear behind the high enclosure. A little girl in the audience witnessed his movements and was much troubled thereby; so she began to cry, saying: "Mother, why don't they let him o-u-t?"
Some of the good sisters somewhere had given him a stiff-bosomed shirt. They were shocked to notice at an out-of-doors baptismal occasion, when Mr. Foster removed his coat, that he had his shirt on front part behind, so occupied was he with his work. He was always himself. He did not "put on" or play a part. His eccentricities were as natural as the color of his eyes or the shape of his face.
At the close of his life, he said to George Sims, an aged comrade in the gospel: "Brother Sims, what a blessed thing it is that a Christian can die and exchange his old, wornout body for a spiritual one with Christ."