Murphy James Foster

Foster's governorship is bound up with who got to vote. Born in 1849 on a family sugar plantation near Franklin, he sat in the state senate from 1880 to 1892 and was governor from 1892 to 1900, elected as a Democrat with Farmers' Alliance support. He backed the Constitution of 1898, whose registration rules largely shut out Black voters, Republicans and white Populists. His 1896 win over John Pharr, about 116,000 votes to 88,000, came amid fraud and violence against Black Republican voters, so the true count is uncertain.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Grevemberg House Museum — 2.0 mi
  Franklin's 1851 Greek Revival townhouse, the official St. Mary Parish museum, saved from demolition by one vote and set in the Franklin Historic District on Bayou Teche.
• Chitimacha Museum — 8.2 mi
  The Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana's own museum at Charenton: the tribe's account of its territory, the French wars and enslavement, the land held in trust, and river cane baskets.
• Wedell-Williams Aviation and Cypress Sawmill Museum — 13 mi
  A Louisiana State Museum in Patterson on the world's largest cypress sawmill town and the Wedell-Williams racing planes, with a theater and changing exhibits.
• Cypremort Point State Park — 22 mi
  A 185-acre Vermilion Bay park reached by road, with a half-mile man-made beach, a marsh boardwalk, shore fishing and a boat launch, and a Chitimacha tradition of a great cypress here.

More markers nearby

• Edward V. Loustalot — 1.3 mi
• Battle of Irish Bend — 1.3 mi
• The Gunboat Diana — 1.3 mi
• Jared Young Sanders — 1.3 mi