 Lt. G. W. Fuller Post No. 378. Initially organized on 19 August 1867, the first officers of this G.A.R. post were all members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: Post Commander Edwin Gilbert (former captain of F Company), SVC Spencer Tetermer, JVC William H. Myers, and Adjutant Aaron McHose. Briefly disbanded in 1869, the post was reorganized on 13 April 1872, briefly disbanded in 1876, and reorganized again on 10 September 1883.
1ST LIEUTENANT AND REGIMENTAL ADJUTANT JAMES WHEELER FULLER, JR.
James Wheeler Fuller, Jr. was born in Catasauqua, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania on 16 March 1845, the second oldest son of James Wheeler Fuller, Sr. and nephew of James, Sr.’s older brothers, Orlando and George W. Fuller, who served with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, respectively, as a 1st Lieutenant and Private.
Descended from an English pioneer who sailed for the New World aboard the Mayflower in 1620, he became a pioneer in his own right as an internationally respected inventor and business executive.
* Note: Although several sources indicate that the year of birth for J. W. Fuller, Jr. was 1843, an 1894 U.S. passport application (completed in James W. Fuller, Jr.’s own hand) indicated that his year of birth was 1845.
In 1850, James W. Fuller, Jr. resided in Hanover Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania with his parents and brothers: Orange M. Fuller (1841-1902) and William F. Fuller (1845-1852). Also living at the Fuller family home at this time were several boarders and Abbott Fuller and Ellen Caroline Tombler (1831-1914). Born in 1828, Abbott Fuller was the brother of James W. Fuller, Sr. and uncle of James W. Fuller, Jr. A native of Catasauqua in Lehigh County and daughter of Daniel Tombler (1796-1841) and Catharine (Hartzell) Tombler (1797-1852), Ellen Caroline Tombler was employed in 1850 as a servant in the Fuller family home and would, in a few short years, go on to marry the man who would later become the Fullers superior during the Civil War – Captain Edwin Gilbert of Company F, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers.
A product of the local public schools, James W. Fuller, Jr. furthered his education by attending private schools in the Pennsylvania communities of Weaversville, Norristown and Kingston.
Civil War Military Service
James W. Fuller, Jr. enrolled for military service at Catasauqua in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania on 21 August 1861. He was awarded the rank of Sergeant with Company F of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers (the same company and regiment in which his uncles Orlando and George W. Fuller served), and mustered in at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg, Dauphin County on 30 August.
Following a brief training period in light infantry tactics, he was shipped by rail with his uncles and their fellow 47th Pennsylvanians to Washington, D.C. where, beginning 21 September, they were stationed roughly two miles from the White House at “Camp Kalorama” near Georgetown. Mustered into federal service with the U.S. Army on 24 September, they became part of Brigadier-General Isaac Stevens’ 3rd Brigade. Ordered to march out once again, they headed for Camp Lyon, Maryland on the Potomac River’s eastern shore before moving on toward Camp Advance. They pitched their tents in a deep ravine near Fort Ethan Allen and Union General W. F. Smith’s headquarters. As part of the massive Army of the Potomac, they were assigned to help to defend the nation’s capital.
On 1 October 1861, Sergeant James W. Fuller, Jr. was promoted from his service with F Company to the rank of 1st Lieutenant and Regimental Adjutant with the regiment’s central command staff, a position he held for just over three months. According to James Franklin Lambert and Henry J. Reinhard in their A History of Catasauqua in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, James W. Fuller, Jr., “suffered a protracted illness, which overtook him during the first year of the Civil War in Virginia,” and “was honorably discharged from the army and returned to his home.”
An article, Big Achievements in the House of Fuller, which ran in the 27 June 1914 edition of The Allentown Leader seems to confirm Full