Stephen Collins Foster
Fargo, Clinch County, Georgia
Marker Inscription
Erected in Memory of STEPHEN COLLINS FOSTER At the Source of the Stream Which he made Immortal In Song SUWANNEE RIVER
The Story
This monument honors Stephen Collins Foster (1826–1864), often called the father of American popular song, who penned "Old Folks at Home" in 1851 and immortalized the Suwannee River in its opening line — even though he chose the name for its lilting sound and, by most accounts, never laid eyes on the actual stream. It stands here in the piney lowlands of Clinch County near the river's headwaters at the edge of the Okefenokee, deep in south Georgia. Foster wrote for the parlor and the minstrel stage during the antebellum years, and his melodies became some of the first truly national songs an emerging United States shared in common.
Why it matters
Foster helped invent American popular music as a mass art form, and the song tied to this spot endures as Florida's state anthem and a fixture of the country's folk memory.
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