Timothy Fuller (1739 - 1805)

Born 18 May 1739 in Middleton, Essex, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 3 Jul 1805 at age 66 in Merrimack, Hillsborough, New Hampshire, United States

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Biography

From "Thomas Fuller and His Descendants":

TIMOTHY FULLER, the sixth child and third son of Jacob Fuller, was born at Middleton, on the 18th of May, 1739. He entered Harvard University at the age of nineteen, and graduated in 1760. His name over that date is still (1859) seen on the corner-stone of one of the college buildings. He applied himself to theology, and in March, 1767, received from the church and town of Princeton, Mass., a nearly unanimous invitation to become their pastor, having previously supplied their pulpit for two years. Here he was ordained the first minister of Princeton, 9th September, 1767. In 1770 he married Sarah Williams, daughter of Rev. Abraham Williams of Sandwich, Mass. He was successful as a preacher, and his people were united in him till the war of the revolution broke out. He declared at the time, and ever afterwards, that he was friendly to the principles of the revolution, and anxiously desired that his country should be liberated from its dependence on the British crown; but he was naturally a very cautious man, and believed this result would be certain to come, if the country reserved itself for action till its strength was somewhat matured, and its resources in a better state of preparation. Resistance at the time he believed premature, and thought that we were hazarding all by too precipitate action. Stich views, however, were by no means congenial to the heated zeal of his townsmen. He first gave dissatisfaction by a discourse he preached to the " minute men," at the. request of the town, choosing for his text 1 Kings xx.11: "Let not him that girdeth on the harness boast himself as he that putteth it off." He was not a man to swerve from his own cool and deliberate views through the pressure of public opinion; and his persistence in them led to his dismissal from the pastorate in 1776, by an ex parte council, his parish refusing to agree with him upon a mutual council. He removed soon after to Martha's Vineyard, and preached to the society in Chilmark till the war was ended. He then removed to Middleton, and brought a suit against the town of Princeton for his salary. His dismissal had been irregular, and the law of the case was in his favor; but the jury had too much sympathy with the motives that actuated the town to render a verdict in his behalf. It was supposed this result would be crushing to him, and that he would not be prepared to pay costs recovered by the town; and some were malignant enough to anticipate with pleasure the levy of the execution. But they were disappointed; for, when the sheriff called upon him, he coolly counted out the amount of the execution in specie, which, with his habitual caution, he had carefully hoarded to meet this very exigency. He soon after returned to Princeton, where he applied himself to the careful education of his children, in connection with the cultivation of a large farm, which embraced within its bounds the Wachusett mountain.

None of his children attended any other than this family school; all were carefully taught, and several fitted for college at home. Those in the town who had been opposed to him soon became reconciled and even warmly attached. He was very active in town affairs, and represented Princeton in the convention which approved and adopted the present federal constitution. He himself, with his characteristic firmness, voted against the constitution, mainly on the ground of its recognition of slavery; and he has left his reasons on record. In 1796, he removed to Merrimac, N. H., where he continued to reside till his decease, on the morning of the 3d of July, 1805, at the age of sixty-seven, leaving a wife and ten children to mourn his loss.

Sources

• Beach, Seth Curtis. Daughters of The Puritans (Boston Unitarian Association, Boston, Mass., 1905) Page 169.
• Fuller, Arthur Buckminster. Historical Notices of Thomas Fuller and His Descendants (Henry W. Dutton & Son, Boston, 1859)
• AccessGenealogy.com. Web. 14 May 2014. http://www.accessgenealogy.com/massachusetts/biography-of-timothy-fuller-sr.htm - Last updated on Aug 22nd, 2013
• http://www.geni.com/people/Rev-Timothy-Fuller/6000000004594270030