Santa
Clara County
Biographies
THOMAS JEFFERSON FULLER
During the course of a long and eventful
life Mr. Fuller has visited many parts of the United states
between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans and has followed varied occupations
as the need arose or the opportunity offered.
Of all the places he has seen none possesses for him the attractions of California.
During his residence in this state covering a period of more than forty
years he has felt the charm of its climate and manifold advantages to an
ever-increasing degree. Naturally, his
own home locality and homestead are in his eyes the most favored spots of Dame
Nature, and after a very industrious life he is content to pass the evening of
existence in his country home near Edenvale, where he can enjoy the society of
the acquaintances of years gone by and the comforts rendered possible by
economy and good management.
In Charlestown, a suburb of Boston, Mass.,
Mr. Fuller was born August 6, 1833, being a son of George and Louisa
(Jefferson) Fuller, also natives of that part of Massachusetts. For some years the father was employed in a
box factory at Charlestown. During 1838,
desiring to seek a home in the newer west, where opportunities were greater
than in his home neighborhood, he removed to Illinois and settled among the
pioneer farmers near Griggsville. In the
course of the ensuing years he converted a tract of raw land into a cultivated
farm, reared his family and prepared his children for positions of
responsibility. When he grew to be an
old man, in 1863, he returned to Massachusetts expecting to spend his remaining
days amid the scenes familiar to him in youth.
However, after 1870 he spent considerable time in California, finding
the winters more genial here than in New England. His death occurred in Massachusetts in 1876.
Among a family of four sons and two daughterse, [sic.] Thomas Jefferson Fuller was third in
order of birth. When a small child he
was taken to Illinois, where he grew to manhood. Conditions were not favorable for an
education, but through habits of observation and reading he has become a
well-informed man. During 1862 he became
a resident of California, where for six years much of his time was devoted to
the hunting of wild cattle in the mountains.
Those were adventurous days, and many were the daring rides that he made
down the mountain sides after the cattle, which he became very skillful in
rounding up. The life, however, was
isolated and lonely little calculated to suit one for a permanent
occupation. On abandoning the work he
went to Petaluma, Sonoma county where he was employed
in butchering cattle for beef. Two years
after going to that place he left and in 1875 settled in Santa Clara county, purchasing twenty acres of the Santa Teresa
grant. Six years later he sold that
property and in 1890 bought his present homestead on Cottle road, ten miles south
of San Jose. The place is principally
under orchard, a specialty being made of prunes, and there are also two acres
sown in alfalfa.
The marriage of Mr. Fuller occurred in
Napa, Cal., and united him with Natividad Lopez, a cultured young Castilian
lady, who was born and reared in Mexico and had a knowledge of many
languages. Mrs. Fuller died at the
family home in 1894, leaving four sons and three daughters, namely: George P.,
Natividad, Thomas R., Louisa, Regina, Phineas and Henry. While Mr. Fuller has taken no part in public
affairs nor sought any of the offices within the gift of his neighbors, yet he
has not been neglectful of his duties as a citizen, but has favored movements
for the public benefit, has given his support to philanthropic measures and has
kept himself conversant with the problems before our nation for solution, in
politics giving his support to the Republican party, whose principles he
believes to be adapted to our national prosperity and progress.
Transcribed by
Louise E. Shoemaker, August 30, 2015.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page 747. The Chapman Publishing
Co., Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2015 Louise E. Shoemaker.