Richmond History: A life well lived – David Fuller c. 1765-1820

by Joy Lewis –

Born in Connecticut, David Fuller was the youngest son of Matthew Fuller (1723-1790) and Joanna Root (1727-1793).  He had five older brothers – Benjamin, Amos, Lemuel, James, and Ebenezer – and a younger sister, whose name is not known.  He was in his mid-teens in 1780 when his family packed up their household and moved westward.  The Fullers settled in a township on the far western edge of Massachusetts.  A decade later, as the border between the two new states was confirmed, they found themselves living in Nobletown, Columbia County, New York.  (Nobletown is known today as Hillsdale.)

By the time of the first U. S. Census, David’s father was no longer living.  The head of the Fuller household, as so recorded, was his mother Joanna.  Ten years on, as noted in the 1800 Census of Hillsdale, David was married; the name of his young wife has not yet been discovered.  In the span of six or seven years, they became parents of four children: two sons and two daughters.

Mr. and Mrs. David Fuller were in their thirties in 1808 when their family relocated to the Genesee Country of western New York.  Their homestead was on present-day Canadice Lake Road, a bit south of the current boundary between Richmond and Canadice.  Their neighbors included the Walker brothers, John and Gideon, and their cousin Walter.  John Walker was married to Polly Jackman, whose brother Josiah also lived nearby.

In the decade from 1810 to 1820 two other families, who would play a role in the neighborhood, settled along the shores of Canadice Lake in the area where David Fuller had his farm.  The Samuel W. Ingalls family came to town from Ontario, Canada, about 1812 and five years later David’s cousin Josiah Fuller brought his wife and ten children from Columbia County.  Josiah and Martha settled just west of the town line in Springwater.

David Fuller cultivated his farm; his wife managed the household.  His children, now adolescents, attended church and school with their Fuller cousins, and with the Jackman, Ingalls, and Walker children.  A favorite wintertime pastime for these young people was sledding.  The northern end of Canadice Lake, where these families lived, is surrounded by steep hills, a perfect setting for such childhood escapades.

In her 1932 book Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder (great-granddaughter of Samuel W. Ingalls) wrote of a sledding adventure that took place about 1818 when her grandfather Lansford was six years old and his two older brothers, Sam and John, were ten and twelve.  Vividly she describes the thrill of a speeding sled whizzing down an icy slope.

The Ingalls’ home, Laura wrote, “was about halfway down the side of a steep hill.  The road went from the top of the hill to the bottom, right past the front door, and in winter it was the best place for sliding downhill that you can possibly imagine.”

The three boys made a sled: “It was the best sled they had ever made, and it was so long that all three of them could sit on it, one behind the other.”  But it was not finished until too late on a Saturday evening to try it out.  The next day was Sunday, and not a time suitable for play, according to their father.

However, temptation beckoned.  “The sun shone brightly and the snow was smooth and glistening on the road; [the boys] could see it through the window.  It was a perfect day for sliding downhill.  They looked at their catechism and they thought about the new sled, and it seemed that Sunday would never end.  After a long time they heard a snore.  They looked at their father, and they saw that his head had fallen against the back of his chair and he was fast asleep.”

Tiptoeing out the door, the Ingalls boys took their new sled to the top of the hill and climbed on.  Sam sat in front, then John, then Lansford in the rear, “because he was the littlest.  The sled started, at first slowly, then faster and faster.  It was running, flying, down the long steep hill…There was no sound except the little whirr of the runners on the snow, and the wind rushing past.”

Whether winter or summer, spring or autumn, there was time in those years for children to play, though work on the farm often kept them busy.  Two short terms of school – about four months total for a year – meant that youngsters were available to help out their elders, whether in the field or in the kitchen. Chores were sometimes traded between families, and older boys and girls might spend weeks at a time living away from home, working as hired help for a family not their own.

As the years passed and the children in this neighborhood grew up, it transpired that several marriage alliances were contracted among this close-knit group. After Josiah Jackman died in 1825, his widow Eunice married David Fuller’s cousin, Josiah Fuller.  By this time most of the Fuller and Jackman children had married and set up housekeeping on their own.  Two of Eunice’s children were married to two of her new husband’s children: Belinda Jackman married the eldest Fuller son, Benjamin, and Ira Jackman was married to Josiah’s youngest daughter Hannah.  Two of Eunice’s other daughters were married to the Ingalls boys: Roxanna to James, and Unity to Sam Junior.

The David Fuller children, too, grew up.  The youngest pair, a boy and a girl, were young adolescents and still living at home in 1820 when their father died.  Not much is known of David’s death, but a bit may be gleaned from an elegiac poem written in his honor by Samuel W. Ingalls.  The work, entitled “The Death of Captain Fuller”, was part of a collection of several poems that Ingalls wrote and published in 1835.

Most of the lengthy poem mourns Captain Fuller’s death and offers hope that he has gone to a place where he might raise “the great Redeemer’s song of praise” and then behold “my bleeding Lord…Who groaned and died on Calvary/To give me life again.”

Only one stanza speaks of David’s manner of death, suggesting that he died of a lung complaint, whether pneumonia or “consumption” – the scourge of the pioneer – is not known.

When weeping friends around me stand,

To see me take my last farewell,

And struggle now for breath,

It’s beyond their nature to reveal

The distress and pain I do feel

Now in the hour of Death.