Plymouth County Biographies



Part of the Massachusetts Biographies Project



Foster Waterman Stearns

Foster Waterman Stearns, (1881-1956), a Representative from New Hampshire; born in Hull, Plymouth County, Mass., July 29, 1881; attended the public schools; was graduated from Amherst (Mass.) College in 1903, Harvard University, in 1906, and Boston College in 1915; librarian of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., 1913-1917; State librarian of Massachusetts in 1917; during the First World War served as a first lieutenant with the Sixteenth Infantry, First Division, and at the General Headquarters of the American Expeditionary Forces in France from November 27, 1917, until discharged August 5, 1919; assistant military attaché to Belgium in 1919; served in the Department of State, Washington, D.C., in 1920 and 1921; third secretary of the American Embassy, attached to the United States High Commission, in Constantinople 1921-1923; second secretary of the American Embassy at Paris in 1923 and 1924; librarian of Holy Cross College, Worcester, Mass., 1925-1930; moved to Hancock, N.H., in 1927; member of the State house of representatives in 1937 and 1938; delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1940 and 1948; Regent of the Smithsonian Institution 1941-1945; elected as a Republican to the Seventy-sixth, Seventy-seventh, and Seventy-eighth Congresses (January 3, 1939-January 3, 1945); was not a candidate for renomination in 1944, but was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for United States Senator; engaged in foreign educational work; in 1942 became a director of the Rumford Printing Co. of Concord, N.H.; moved to Exeter, N.H., in 1948, where he died June 4, 1956; interment in Exeter Cemetery.

Parents: Frank Waterman Stearns, Emily Williston Clark
Spouse: Martha Genung
Born: 18 Mar 1886 in Amherst, Hampshire, Massachusetts
Marriage: 22 Jun 1905

Sources:
New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957
U.S. Federal Census
Family Data Collections LDS
Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress



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