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- ALDEN FULLER - CLOTHIER AND FARMER OF ACTON, MASS 1796-1875
A Yankee Heritage Beginning with John Fuller of Newton
by Bruce Faulkner White, Linda Vandegrift and Ashley A, Thorndike
Copyright 1987
Alden's childhood with his parents Ebenezer and Betsy is shrouded in uncertainty. Alden and all of his siblings were recorded, as being born in Concord yet there is sparse information about their lives there. The family never owned a home and based on the few tax records, lived meagerly at best. In the early years following the Revolutionary war the Nation was beset by economic difficulties and it was not until well into the nineteenth century that circumstances became more prosperous. And as the country prospered, so did our line of the Fuller family who we find in the neighboring town of Acton in 1822, where Alden made his home.
Acton was incorporated as a township in 1735 and in the early years it was primarily an agricultural town. However, the Nashoba river winding through Acton Center, South Acton, West Acton and on towards the town of Littleton, provided a source of water power which ensured the growth of small local industries that served the surrounding communities for years to come.
Acton in the 1800's, like so many rural New England towns, experienced the rapid changes brought about by the beginning of the industrial revolution. During the 1700's there were only two mills located in the west part of the town, owned at various times by the Faulkner family. By the nineteenth century many small industries had been established in town. Cooper shops abounded and accounted for a large share of the town's commercial revenue. In Acton Center the second meetinghouse was erected in 1807. When the decision was made to build the meetinghouse, Samuel Jones, Esq. began active real estate development to create a town center. He donated the greater part of the common as a free gift to the town; he built a hotel, a store, various shops for blacksmiths and coopers, and three houses. The several mills in Acton Center included a bellows manufacturer and a gristmill.
In 1808, South Acton was known as Mill Corner and had only three dwelling houses within a radius of one-quarter mile, as well as a saw, grist, and fulling mill. In West Acton there was Bradley Stone's Blacksmith Shop (established in 1837), the Tin Shop of Henderson Rowell (1844), Oliver Wyman's Shoemaker Shop (1850) and Page's Tavern (1848). A business that became very successful in later years was A& 0. Mead & Co. established in 1840, the first refrigerated warehouse for the commercial storage of fruit in this country. (That bbusiness grew to become a very large and lucrative conglomerate.) In addition to those enterprises the area produced lumber products such as tubs, pails and churns and the abundance of apple orchards necessitated the erection of a local cider mill.
On March 21,1822 when Alden Fuller was twenty-six years old he and Sarah Faulkner of Acton was joined in matrimony (recorded in the Harvard town records). Sarah's family was an old and respected family of Acton. The Faulkners had arrived in Acton about 1735 and were known for their early enterprises in textile manufacturing. Later local recognition was won by one Col. Faulkner's participation in the revolutionary war. Over the years the family continued to maintain an eminent position in the town. This ancestral family of ours has a very interesting history, which is presented in Chapter Eight.
Sarah proved to be an extremely dutiful wife and a very durable woman; she bore fifteen children over the next twenty-three years, the last when she was forty-three years old. The first child was named Ephraim Warren (b.1823), his Grandparent's namesake. Following Ephraim an infant was born who died unnamed in 1824. On June 6 1825 Sarah gave birth to Emerson Faulkner, our direct lineal ancestor. The choice of Faulkner for a middle name is obvious. His first name, however, comes from a less direct Sarah's brother Nathanial Sidney Faulkner married a Sophia Emerson and from that connection Emerson received his given name.* Following Emerson came Luther Farwell (b.1827), George H. (b.1828), Susan Maria Faulkner (b.1829), Alden A (b.1832), Henry Alden (b.1833), Sarah Augusta (b.1834), Caroline (b.1836), Lucy Ann (b.1838), Francis L (b.1840),Harriet M. (b.1841), Chancey Upham (b. 1843), and last Mary Sophia (b.1846).
Alden began purchasing property at the age of twenty-five. In 1821, shortly before his marriage, he purchased a fulling mill in the town of Harvard about seven miles west of Acton ( the mill was built about 1782 by Seth Gould of Sturbridge ). His older brother Ephriam, who had already established himself in the textile business in the town of Lancaster, and his association with the Faulkners, who had long been in the business, probably influenced Alden's decision. Although he did not marry Sarah Faulkner until the following year, Alden had probably developed close ties to the Faulkner family and thereby had gained a knowledge of the textile business by that time.
In 1826 Alden, "a clothier", purchased from Mary Faulkner, "single woman", eight acres of woodland and the easterly front room in a dwelling house and chamber with kitchen privileges, in West Acton for $250. In 1830 the census for Acton records that there were eight persons in his household ( the census at that time listed the number of persons by age group with no names). The Fuller family by that time had grown to seven persons including Alden, Sarah and their year old baby Susan Maria so the eighth member of the household was not family, probably a hired hand employed to work on the farm or to help with the household chores. It was also in that year that Alden dissolved his partnership with John Whitney and they sold the fulling mill in Harvard to Joseph C. Green. It is doubtful that Alden maintained any activity in the fulling business as that industry was rapidly succumbing to the large textile mills that were growing in areas with more plentiful water power. By the end of the 1850's all such mills in Acton had ceased operations or had been modified to house more lucrative local enterprises.
In 1848, Alden purchased ten and one-quarter acres of pasture and swamp in West Acton abutting land he already owned for $250. He again added to his holdings in 1850 with the purchase, from Silas Davis, of a two story house and an adjoining shed at a cost $500. In the same year he bought another half acre in West Acton for $100. In 1869 Alden bought land in West Acton from his son-in-law Frank Whitcomb for $3,000 (this transaction was actually a mortgage, a loan to Whitcomb).
By 1850 Alden's estate was worth $2,750: $1,000 in buildings, forty acres of improved land valued at $1,000, and sixty-nine acres of unimproved land worth $750. In comparison, his wife's second cousin, Winthrop E. Faulkner ( owner of the Faulkner Mills) had an estate worth $6,436. In the 11860 Census Alden, listed as farmer, had improved his holdings to include real estate valued at $4,000 and a personal estate of $1,050. Records of Alden's early activities in the town are sparse. As a young man, he sang in the choir at the new meeting house ( erected in 1807) along with several of the Faulkner girls and his wife's great Uncle, Winthrop Faulkner, who was a "Chorister". In 1833, Alden became a member of the newly established Evangelical Church, the membership consisting of the orthodox members of the old Congregational Church whose new minister had introduced more liberal Unitarian ideas. He served as Selectman in 1841-42 and in 1846 was appointed to a committee to confer with the first parish about renting space in the lower part of their building for town meetings. When that meeting ended it was recorded that: "adjournment was made to Tuttle's Tavern to count the votes for state officers." When it was decided to build a monument (still standing on the Acton common) to Capt. Isaac Davis-the first American to fall in the Revolution in the fight at Concord Bridge-Alden and Winthrop Faulkner were appointed to a committee to organize and hold a 1000 plate dinner to celebrate the completion of the giant granite obelisk. During the time of the Civil War, at the age of sixty-five, he was head of the local committee for the West school and served again as a selectman in 1861-1862 (the latter, for which he was paid $17.00.) In Apri11861 he was on a committee to prepare a reception for the Davis Guard upon their return home from their tour in the Civil war: "The committee was instructed to procure either the Lowell Brass Band or Hart's Band of Boston and arrange to entertain at a dinner, the wives of the men of company E, together with other companies formed in town."
In addition to paying it's public officials for their time and effort, the town paid its residents for necessary town maintenance as well as for other miscellaneous work. For instance, in 1861-62 Henry Hartwell was paid $3.40 for opening the Town Hall twelve times and $2.00 for tolling the bell for ten deaths. Thomas Moore was paid $26.87 for twenty-one and one half days work on the burying ground. Winthrop Conant received $4.50 for summoning thirty-seven persoons to take the oath of office and John Tenney $9.90 for digging graves and attending funerals with his hearse. Alden's son, Emerson Faulkner Fuller, and Winthrop E. Faulkner received payment for "breaking roads."
Sometime after his father-in-law, Nathaniel Faulkner died Alden and his family moved into the old Faulkner homestead (on the road from West Acton to Stow), which had been purchased by Sarah's grandfather in 1764 and recently occupied by the late Nathaniel. There he and Sarah lived until his death in 1875 from "injuries received by falling." His obituary in the Concord Freeman states only his name, date of death and his age: " 77 years 7 months 7 days."
Alden's will, written on the 15th day of July 1871, reads in part:
The Will of Alden Fuller
Flrst..l give and bequeath unto my wife Sarah Fuller if she survives
me, a sufficient amount of my property to maintain her comfortably
during her natural life...
Second..l give and bequeath unto my daughter Mary S. Preston,
wife of Oscar E. Preston, the sum of $300.00
Third...unto my daughter Francis L. Whitcomb, wife of Frank H.
Whitcomb, the sum of $200.00
Fourth...the balance or residue of my estate, both real and personal, to my children Emerson, Luther, George, Alden, Chauncey, Sarah, Lucy A. Sawyer, Caroline, Francis, and Mary, to be divided among them equally...
And I hereby appoint by son, Emerson Faulkner to be the sole
executor of this my last will...
Alden's first son Ephriam died before the making of the will and two of his married daughters passed away after the will was made but before Aldens death (their portion of the estate was divided among their heirs). His estate was worth a total of $7,222.89, most of that being in promissory notes. The estate was not settled until after the death of his wife Sarah in 1882. With expenses for both funerals, tablets and other incidentals mounting to $1,862.57, the residue, $5,360.32, was left to divide among his heirs. Those that remained of his fifteen children each received $441.85. Alden is buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery in West Acton along with his wife, Sarah. Nearby are buried Sarah's brother Nathaniel Sidney and his wife Sophia Emerson Faulkner and several of their children.
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Old Dead Relatives
1796 - 1875 (78 years)
