Los Angeles County
Biographies
RUTH CORNELL
FULLER
Ruth Cornell Fuller, of Los Angeles, is widely known as a lecturer on cultural subjects, including art, music and philosophy, concerning which she has addressed many clubs and other groups in California. A native of this state, she was born in San Diego and is a daughter of Henry Weaver and Clara Blanche (Hazen) Cornell. Her father is a member of the Ezra Cornell family of Ithaca, New York, that founded Cornell University. He married Clara Blanche Hazen, whose father, Hiram Corning Hazen, a ‘49er, was one of those who made history in northern California in the early days. He was the maternal grandfather of Ruth Corning Hazen. He owned and published the first newspaper brought out under American rule in this state and it still exists under the name of the Mercury-Herald, published in San Jose. He was an extensive traveler, explored the Amazon in South America, then returned to California and established his newspaper.
Hiram corning Hazen was born at Norwich, Connecticut, January 8, 1829. He was of English-German descent, his forbears being among the first settlers and founders of the Colony of Connecticut.
During the Revolutionary war his immediate ancestors fought against the British King in the cause of American liberty and independence. In one encounter alone—during a raid upon the Colony of Connecticut by the traitor, Benedict Arnold—eleven of his blood-relatives were slain while defending a rebel fort.
Hiram Corning Hazen was related by blood to the great American philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson; to the founder of the Equitable Life Insurance Company of New York, the first James Hazen Hyde; to Erastus Corning, the builder and founder of the first railroad from Albany to the city of New York; to Collis P. Huntington, the builder and founder of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and to the inventor of the diving bell.
Hiram Corning Hazen was a printer by trade, and later an editor. He sailed before the mast from his native Connecticut—around Cape Horn—and landed at San Francisco, California, in 1849. After visiting the gold fields, he settled at San Jose, California, and, in partnership with three friends, founded and edited the Santa Clara Register, which was later re-named The San Jose Mercury and still remains the leading paper of the city of San Jose.
In 1853 he sold out his interest in the Santa Clara Register and sailed for Callao, Peru. After working in the government printing office at Lima, Peru, for about a year, he joined a Peruvian expedition into the interior beyond the Andes Mountains to help establish the boundaries between Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, and Ecuador. For this service he was given a large grant of land by the Peruvian government.
At the conclusion of this expedition he and fifteen members of the exploration party decided to cross the continent of South America via the Amazon river. This they accomplished, after many exciting adventures, including Mr. Hazen’s capture and subsequent release by wild Indians and the deaths of three of the party, finally arriving at Para, Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon river.
After working for the government of Brazil in the official printing office at Para for a year, Mr. Hazen visited Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and various other South American points of interest. He then returned to his native New England, and met and married Miss Adaline Temple Bartlett, of Worcester, Massachusetts.
Mr. Hazen later returned to California, via the Isthmus of Panama, after having lived with his wife and family in Virginia, Nova Scotia, and Bermuda. His wife and three daughters followed him to the Golden State, on the first through ticket ever sold from Connecticut to California, across the plains by rail and under constant menace of attack by hostile Indians.
From thence on to Mr. Hazen’s death at the age of eighty-six, he lived in California. He founded and edited the San Juan Echo, at San Juan, California, and after selling this paper, worked as a printer. Three more daughters were born to Mr. and Mrs. Hazen in California. Most of Mr. Hazen’s descendants still reside in this state.
Mr. Hazen was the contemporary and friend of most of this state’s prominent “pioneers” and was always a loyal “Californian.” He took part in the stirring and dangerous activities of the famed “Vigilantes” in crushing the bloody criminal element that, at a certain period, nearly succeeded in destroying all semblance of law and order in this state. Mr. Hazen and the sheriff of Santa Clara county were on one occasion under fire from the notorious Joaquin Murietta and his brigands.
Hiram Corning Hazen was one of the stanchest (sic) and most courageous of those noble pioneers and founders of the glorious state of California—and to him, and to those who stood shoulder to shoulder with him, we of the present day owe a great debt of gratitude!
Among his friends was Newton Chittenden, who made his home with Mr. Hazen the greater part of the time during the last years of his life. Newton Chittenden was a noted pioneer explorer, historian, and Indian fighter.
Ruth Cornell Fuller acquired her early education through travel in company with her mother, who was a famous artist, and her father. They traveled largely through the South Seas, making their home at different times in the Hawaiian Islands, in Pago Pago, in New Zealand and Australia. Mrs. Fuller obtained a high school and college training and throughout her life has read widely and thinks deeply. She has always been greatly interested in the study of those subjects which have to do with the cultural uplift of the individual and the community. She has had comprehensive experience in drama in connection with the Players Club groups of San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego and has made a deep study of the most important philosophies advanced in the history of the world, while her wide reading has made her largely familiar with the poets, with plays and in fact with literature in general. Other members of her family are artists, poets and historians and are interested in many cultural subjects, and by reason of her comprehensive knowledge along such lines Mrs. Fuller has again and again been called upon to address clubs and other public groups upon such subjects.
On the 22d of June, 1921, Ruth Cornell became the wife of Francis Carlyle Fuyller, of Los Angeles, where she has since made her home, and she has one son, Rolf Cornell Fuller. Mrs. Fuller is a member of the Women’s Breakfast Club, the California Women of the Golden West, the Los Angeles Travel Club, the Pleiades Club and other organizations. Her avocation is the grouping of people of real achievement for informal discussion and many such gatherings take place in her beautiful home at 341 North Plymouth boulevard in Los Angeles. Her contributions to all those forces which uplift and ennoble humanity have been most valuable and have brought her wide acquaintance not only in California but among the cultured people of the entire country.
Transcribed 2-5-13
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: California
of the South Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages
613-616, Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2013 Marilyn R. Pankey.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES
BIOGRAPHIES