ine (Sterner) Miller, and James Wheeler Fuller, Sr. (1821-1872), a native of Forty Fort, Northampton County, Pennsylvania who was another son of Chauncey Day Fuller and brother to the aforementioned Orlando and George Fuller.
Described on the 1860 federal census as a “Gentleman,” James W. Fuller, Sr. was a close friend of Andrew Gregg Curtin, 15th Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
* Note: Leader of the Keystone State throughout the Civil War, Governor Andrew Curtin later founded the Commonwealth’s system of soldiers’ and orphans’ schools to educate and care for the children of Pennsylvania’s fallen men. Camp Curtin, one of the main staging areas for Union troops in Harrisburg during the Civil War, was named for him. According to the 23 January 1911 edition of The Allentown Leader:
During the worst days of the Rebellion, when Curtin needed help, no man did more to assist him in sending soldiers to the front [than James W. Wheeler, Sr.]. Often, to get relief from the cares of office, Governor Curtin came to Catasauqua to spend Sunday at the Fuller home. James W. Fuller, the first, was one of the most active spirits in raising the 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, of which his son, James W. Fuller, second … became adjutant.
By 1863, James W. Fuller, Sr. (J.W.F., “the first”) had also enrolled for military duty, and was serving as a Private with Company B, 38th Pennsylvania Volunteers. According to Dale Charles Wint’s A History of the Iron Industry and Allied Businesses of the Iron Borough Catasauqua Pennsylvania, James W. Fuller, Sr. was also “the second highest income earner in Lehigh County” thanks to his successes as “a large-scale horse dealer with the federal government.” (Two years earlier, in 1858, James W. Fuller, Sr. had also created the Fairview Cemetery in what is now West Catasauqua in Lehigh County, and played a key role in the community’s post-Civil War efforts to raise a monument there to honor the men of Lehigh County who helped to preserve America’s Union. Prior to that, James Fuller, Sr. had been a canal boat operator in Craneville during the 1840s and canal store manager before securing employment in the 1850s with the Lehigh Crane Iron Company and the Thomas Iron Company owned by David Thomas.)
Neither James W. Fuller, Jr., nor his older brother, Orange (born 9 April 1841), were shown on the 1860 census as being employed at this time. Three other siblings (Clarissa, born 31 January 1851; Abbott F., born in 1851; and Clinton Henry, born 24 July 1858) also resided at the Fuller family home. (Employed early as a stationer, Orange Fuller eventually went on to become a realtor; Abbott and Clinton Fuller later owned the Globe Metal Works, a scrap metal firm in Catasauqua, before becoming involved in the oil business.)
1st LIEUTENANT GEORGE W. FULLER
George W. Fuller was born in Northampton County, Pennsylvania on 1 September 1839. He was a son of Sarah (Abbott) Fuller and Chauncey D. Fuller, a brother of James W. Fuller, Sr. and fellow 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Private Orlando Fuller, and an uncle of 1st Lieutenant and Regimental Adjutant James W. Fuller, Jr., also of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers.
According to Wint, George W. Fuller’s father had come “to the Lehigh Valley area from the ‘Plains’ above Wilkes-Barre soon after construction on the Lehigh Canal commenced,” worked for the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, and then later relocated to Catasauqua with his wife and children (including George Fuller). There, in Catasauqua, Chauncey Fuller’s eldest son, James Wheeler Fuller, Sr. (1821-1872), was “a large scale horse dealer with the federal government,” during the early years of the Civil War.
Civil War Military Service
George W. Fuller enrolled for military service at Catasauqua at the age of 21 on 21 August 1861, and mustered in on 30 August 1861 at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, where he was elected by his fellow Company F members to serve as a 1st Lieutenant under Captain Henry S. Harte. His brother, Orlando Fuller, also enrolled and mustered in at the same time wi