Forster, John Harris, 1822-1894

Surveyor and mining engineer, of Houghton and Williamston, Michigan.

From the description of John H. Forster papers, 1835-1891. (University of Michigan). WorldCat record id: 34420366

John Harris Forster was born in 1822 in Erie, Pennsylvania. As a civil and mining engineer and geologist, Forster served as assistant engineer U.S. survey of lakes, river and harbor improvements; assistant engineer Mexican Boundary line (1848-1849); special engineer for construction of Portage Lake and Lake Superior ship canals (late 1850s); and superintendent of the Pewabic and Franklin mines in Houghton county (1860-1865). He was the first state senator elected to represent the Michigan Upper Peninsula (1864-1865), and declined to run for a second term because he found politics too disagreeable. In 1874, Forster and his wife, the former Martha Mullett, retired to his 300 acre Spring Brook farm, located near Williamston, Michigan, where he grew a variety of crops and managed the largest herd of Jersey cattle in the state. He devoted a good deal of his time to the Michigan State Pioneer and Historical Society, of which he was a two-term president. A man of many talents, who was fond of Shakespeare, a friend of education, and highly respected by those who knew him, Forster died in 1894 at Spring Brook.

From the guide to the John Harris Forster Papers, 1835-1891, (Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan)