John Fox Slater (March 4, 1815 – May 7, 1884) was an American philanthropist who supported and funded the education of freedmen after the Civil War.
Early life and career
Slater, the son of John Slater (Samuel Slater's brother and partner), was born in Slatersville, Rhode Island (now a village within North Smithfield) in 1815 where his family was active in Slatersville Congregational Church and owned the local textile mills and village. John F. Slater was educated in academies at Plainfield, Connecticut, and Wrentham and Wilbraham, Massachusetts. At seventeen he entered his father's woollen mill in Hopeville, Conn., of which he took charge in 1836. This and other mills he owned in partnership with his brother, William S Slater, until 1873, when his brother took over the Slatersville Mills and he assumed sole ownership of the mills at Jewett City. In 1842 he removed from Jewett City to Norwich; there he helped to endow the Norwich Free Academy, to which his son presented the Slater Memorial Museum.[1] Slater also endowed Park Congregational Church in Norwich and donated Slater Library. Slater died on May 7, 1884, and his funeral was held at Park Congregational Church, which he had attended.[2]