Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 04.djvu/222

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FULLER


FULLER


(1897): aud Go<V.-< IMiH (1899); besides fiction and articles on economics in the leading periodi- cals .

FULLER, John Wallace, soldier, was born in Cambridge, England, July 28, 1827. His father, a Baptist clergyman, came with his family to Amer- ica in 1833 and located at Petersborough, N.Y. In 1840 he went to Utica, N.Y., where he entered a bookseller's shop and learned the business. He afterward established a publishing and booksell- ing business at Utica as John W. Fuller & Co. He was city treasurer of Utica for two terms. In 1858 he established a western bi-anch of the busi- ness at Toledo, Ohio, and took personal charge of the store. In 18G1 he was made chief-of staff to Gen. C. W. Hill and engaged in the western Vir- ginia campaign. On the organization of the 27th Ohio volunteers he was elected colonel of the regiment, and in February, 1862, joined the army of Gen. John Pope in his operations on the Mississippi river. He aided in the capture of Madrid March 14, 1863, and Island No. 10, April 8, 1862. He commanded a brigade at luka, Sept. 19, 1863, and with his brigade cliecked a Confed- erate charge and broke their line at Corinth, October, 1862, where both the brigade and their commander received the thanks of General Rose- crans. He met and defeated Forrest's cavalry at Parker's Cross Roads, Dec. 31, 1863; was in com- mand of Memphis, Tenn., till October, 1863, when he accompanied Sheridan's army to Chattanooga, and in March, 1864, captured Decatur. In the assignments of Sheridan's army for the Atlantic campaign he was made commander of the 1st brigade, 4th division, 16th corps, and he opened the battle of Atlanta, fought Hood at Snake Creek Gap. and commanded the first division of the 17th corps in the march to the sea and through the Carolinas. He was brevetted major- general of volunteers March 13, 1865, and resigned Aug. 15, 1865. President Grant appointed him collector of the port of Toledo, Ohio, in 1874, and he served by reappoint n\ent by President Hayes till 1S81 . He ilieil at Toledo. Ohio, March 12. 1891. FULLER, Levi Knight, governor of Vermont, was born in Westmoreland, N.H., Feb. 24. 1841; sou of Washington and Lucinda (Constantine) Fuller. He removed to Windham county, Vt., with his jjarents in 1845 and to Brattleboro in 1854, where he worked in a printing ofiice and at the same time attended the high school and learned telegrapliy. He invented an improvement for a steam engine which he exhibited at the Windham county agricultural fair in 1857. He went to Boston, Mass., in 1858, whei'e he served an apprenticeship as a machinist, acted as night telegraph operator, and took a course of study in science. Returning to Brattleboro in 1860 he was machinist and mechanical engineer in the


Estey organ company and in April, 1868, was admitted to the comp.my, ol which he was vice- president for twenty years. In 1873 he declined the appointment of commissioner to the Vienna exposition tendered by President Grant. He took out more than one hundred patents, and was made secretary of the committee appointed by the association of piano manufacturers, instrumental in securing the adoption of a uniform "stand- ard international musical pitch." He served as aide on the staff of Governor Converse; was state senator, 1880-81; lieutenant-governor of Ver- mont, 1886-87; and governor, 1892-93. He was a trustee of the Brattleboro savings bank and of the free library, and president of the board of trustees of the Vermont academy. He organized the Fuller light battery, V.N.G., in 1874, and was brevetted colonel in 1887. He was a member of the American association for the advancement of science and of the American society of mechani- cal engineers. On May 8, 1865, he was married to Abby, daughter of Jacob and Desdemona ( Wood) Estey. She is the author of Prince Esley, Stnrij i,f a I'nny: and died Nov. 19, 1879. Gov- ernor Fuller ilied in Brattleboro, Vt., Oct. 10. 1896. FULLER, Melville Weston, chief justice of the United States, was born in Augusta, Maine, Feb. 11, 1833; son of Frederick Augustus and Catherine M. (Weston) Fuller; and grandson of Henry W^eld Fuller, judge of Kennebec county, and of Nathan Weston, associate justice and


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chief justice of the state, 1820- 41. His father was a lawyer I of distinction.;^ Melville was i1 graduated at '-,♦- Bowdoin col- lege in 185:'. , studied law uii der bis ma ternal imcle, George Jlelville Weston of Bangor, Maine, and at Harvard law school; and practised his pro- fession at Augusta, the capital of the state, in partnership with his uncle, Benjamin A. G. Ful ler. 1855-56, with whom he was also associated as editor of The Arte, t\\e leading Democratic paper of Maine. He was city solicitor and president of the common council of Augusta in 1856 and tie same year removed to Chicago, 111., where l.e continued the practice of law until he entered up'in his duties as chief justice of the United States. Oct. 8, 1888. One of the many noted cases in which he was concerned was the de- fence of the Rev. Charles E. Cheney, D.D., be- fore ecclesiastical courts in the diocese of Illinois and subsequently in the state courts when prop-