The New International Encyclopædia/Foss, Cyrus David

FOSS, Cyrus David (1834—). An American clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was born at Kingston, N. Y.; graduated at Wesleyan University in 1854, and entered the itinerant ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in the New York Conference, in 1857. From 1857 to 1859 he was a pastor at Chester, Orange County, N. Y.; from 1859 to 1865 in Brooklyn, N. Y., and from 1865 to 1875 in New York, N. Y. He was president of Wesleyan University from 1875 to 1880, and in the latter year was elected a bishop. In 1878 he was delegate to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, held in Atlanta, Ga., and in 1886 to the British Wesleyan Conference, held in London, England. He made official tours of the missions of his Church in Europe (1886), in Mexico (1893), and in India and Malaysia (1897-98).