For many years, minstrels performed with circuses and traveling zoos. In the 1830s, they organized themselves into quartets, bands, and other ensembles and performed in theatres and other halls. One Nelson Kneass performed as a minstrel, but disbanded his group in Pittsburgh about 1845. He opened a hall with a stage at one end, and served refreshments for the price of a ticket.
Prizes were offered for the best riddles, etc. and a silver cup for the best African song. Foster was living in Cinncinati in 1846 and 1847, but his brother Morrison wrote him asking for a song. Stephen sent him "Way Down South, Where the Cane Grows". The song did not win the contest but set Foster on the road to minstrel songwriting.
Foster wrote 28 songs for the minstrel stage. They differ substantially in subject matter and musical style from his household songs. They are written in a negro dialect and their accompaniments suggest banjo-picking. Their musical style is sourced to African American music and the traditional and folk music of British Americans. Many of these songs were written for minstrel groups of the period such as the Sable Harmonists and the Christy Minstrels.
A typical minstrel song by Foster is set for solo voice with a four or five part chorus in the refrain and a short instrumental section intended for a dance on the stage. The best of these songs are "Oh! Susanna" (1848), "Nelly Bly" (1849), "Camptown Races" (1850), "Massa's in de Cold Ground" (1852), "Old Folks at Home" (1860), and "Old Black Joe" (1860).
Foster married Jane Denny McDowell (1829 - 1903) on July 22, 1850 in Trinity Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh. She was the daughter of Andrew N. McDowell, a Pittsburgh physician, and Jane Denny Porter. The attraction between Foster and McDowell remains a mystery: Jane was on the edge of the Foster circle of friends, and had no special musical talents or interests. She may have broken an engagement to another man to marry Foster. The couple's only child Marion, a daughter, was born on April 18, 1850.
The marriage was troubled for unknown reasons, and the couple lived apart. They had separated for the first time by the spring of 1853. Jane took Marion to Lewistown, Pennsylvania, where her mother and sister lived. Stephen went to New York City to pursue songwriting. The couple reunited within a year, but separated again and again.
Jane and Marion returned to Pennsylvania by July 1861 after a stay in New York with Stephen. He was having money troubles, and his alcoholism was worsening. Jane moved to Greensburg, Pennsylvania, where she worked as a telegraph operator for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Her daughter was probably left with relatives elsewhere. Jane visited Stephen in New York City in September 1861, and several times thereafter.
At an unknown date after Stephen's death in 1864, Jane married Matthew D. Wiley, a baggage handler and express agent. She worked as a telegraph operator at the Pennsylvania Railroad's Allegheny depot. She supported several relatives including her daughter, her mother, and her grandchildren. She died in 1903 of burns suffered when a spark set her clothing on fire while she dozed near a fireplace. By that date, she and her daughter had received more than $4,100 in royalties from Stephen's songs. She is buried in the Allegheny Cemetery.
Marion Foster (1850 - 1935) married William Welsh and had three children. After living in St. Louis and Chicago, she moved in 1914 to a mansion (as caretaker) on the site of her grandparents' home in Lawrenceville. She was poor, gave piano lessons into her seventies, and battled the government unsuccessfully for repossession of a piece of land once belonging to her grandfather.
In July 1863, the people of the United States saw the worst riots in the nation's history. In New York City, rioters protested America's first draft. They believed this draft was unfair. It weighed heavily against the poor and allowed the rich to buy their way out. Rioters destroyed several buildings, including the Colored Orphan Asylum, and lynched blacks from lamp posts. Between 105 and 128 people died during the four days of rioting.
Foster's songs had not been selling well in the months before the riots
. His best days as a songwriter were over. His audience had divided itself along political, economic, and racial lines. On Saturday 9 January 1864, Foster felt sick and went to bed early. He was staying in a poor but decent hotel on the Bowery. On Sunday morning, he spoke to a maid at his door, then turned and fell, breaking a piece of crockery that gashed his neck. His comrade George Cooper (who lived only four blocks away) was sent for. He found Foster naked in a pool of blood. The songwriter whispered, "I'm done for" and asked for a drink.
A doctor arrived and the gash was sewn up. Foster was dressed, and taken to a ward for the poor at Bellevue Hospital. He was entered in the register as a "laborer". He was uncomfortable and did not like the food. On 13 January, he was eating soup when he fainted dead away. His corpse was put in a coffin and removed to the hospital morgue. In his pocket was found a few coins and a scrap of paper reading, "Dear friends and gentle hearts".
The cause of his death is not known. It was probably a combination of alcoholism, poor diet, and loss of blood, or a heart attack or stroke. Jane Foster and Stephen's brothers Henry and Morrison claimed the body and took it Pennsylvania for burial. The funeral service was held in Trinity Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh, on 21 January. Foster's coffin was met at the Allegheny Cemetery by a brass band playing his tunes. He was buried near his father and mother.
His death was not recorded in most newspapers. The New York "Post" however compared his melodies to those of Donizetti. "The Round Table" wrote that Foster was "an amateur writer" barely familiar with the rules of musical composition. The "Table" did praise his pathos and humor though.
Many songs were promoted after Foster's death as his very last songs. "The Voices That are Gone" (published in 1865) and "Kiss Me Mother Ere I Die" (1869) are probably, indeed, his last works. In August 1864, a Prussian-born engineer bought The White Cottage and tore it down.
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