Charles Austin Fosdick (September 6, 1842 - August 22, 1915), sometimes known as Harry Castlemon, was a prolific writer of juvenile stories and novels aimed mostly towards boys. He was born in Randolph, New York, and graduated from Central High School in Buffalo, New York. During the American Civil War, he served in the Union Navy as the Mississippi River Squadron's receiver and superintendent of coal from 1862 until 1865. As a youth, Fosdick began writing and drew on his Navy experiences in early novels such as Frank on a Gunboat (1864) and Frank on the Lower Mississippi (1867). In the post-Civil War era, the golden age of children's literature, he quickly became the most-read author for boys. What they want is adventure, and the more of it you can cram into 250 pages of material, the better off you are." Fosdick's popular book series included the Gunboat Series, the Rocky Mountain Series, the Roughing It Series, the Sportsman's Club Series, and The Steel Horse, or the Rambles of a Bicycle. He was known as "Uncle Charlie" to noted liberal Baptist minister Harry Emerson Fosdick, whose writings reflected favorably on his childhood visits to Fosdick in Westfield, New York. Fosdick married Sarah Elizabeth Stoddard in 1873, and they lived in Westfield for the most of their marriage. They are interred in the Westfield Cemetery next to each other.
