Rio Grande County CO Archives Biographies.....Fullenwider, John H., Sr. September 17, 1831 - ? ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/co/cofiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net February 20, 2006, 12:09 am Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado This fine specimen of the winter green, who is familiarly known as “Uncle Johnnie,” is without doubt one of the liveliest and most active men of his age to be found in Colorado. He is closely approaching the age of seventy-four, and yet his energy is still abounding, his faculties are in full vigor, and time seems to have written no wrinkles on his essential being in any way. One of the most prominent citizens of the San Luis valley, he has earned his distinction by his enterprise and public-spirit, which are great, and the general and high esteem in which he is held by his geniality and generosity, which are open to every demand and fully responsive on all occasions. His home is at Monte Vista, and he has helped to make that section of Colorado what it is by his unflagging energy and his far-seeing progressiveness. In personal appearance he bears a striking resemblance to United States Senator Chauncey Depew, whom he also resembles in his cordiality of manner and radiant good humor. Mr. Fullenwider was born in Shelby county, Kentucky, on September 17, 1831, on the verge of a season of very unusual severity, nine feet of snow falling that winter in many parts of the United States. He is the son of Henry and Henrietta (Neal) Fullenwider, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of Virginia. After the marriage of the parents they lived in block houses, in a new country full of hostile Indians. They followed farming and the communities in which they dwelt kept watchers out continually for savage attacks. One day when the brother of our subject’s father was creeping under a block house to escape Indians they reached him before he got all the way in and chopped his head off. In 1834 the family moved to Illinois, and there before the end of the year the father died, leaving his widow with nine children to provide for and rear amid the inhospitable wilds of an unsettled country. She assumed her heavy burden with fortitude and bore it with endurance and cheerfulness, although at times she suffered great privations, and was obliged to boil and grate corn for food for the family. Of the thirteen children born to the family four died before their father and were buried in Kentucky, and five others at short periods afterward, and they were buried in Illinois. Another, Solomon, died in service during the Civil war. The other three, Simon P., who lives in Iowa, Marcus L., a resident of Butler county, Kansas, and John H., are living. The last named had but limited educational advantages. He always took an active interest in the work of the home farm, and aided his mother in supporting the rest of the family. For forty-six years he lived near Springfield, Illinois, and was well acquainted with Abraham Lincoln, under whose persuasive oratory on the hustings he became a Republican. In 1880 he moved to Kansas and located at Eldora in Butler county, and in less than two years was elected to the legislature. In that body he voted for the late United States Senator Plumb for the position he so signally adorned, and in return for the favor Senator Plumb had him appointed on the United States bureau of animal industry, on which he served a year, and was then appointed a regent of the Manhattan Agricultural College, a position he filled acceptably three years. Governor Martin also appointed him a delegate at large to the Louisiana Cotton Exposition from the state of Kansas. In 1888 he came to Colorado and located a ranch in the Monte Vista section of the San Luis valley, which he still owns and has brought to a state of advanced improvement, one thousand five hundred acres of the land being under high cultivation. There were but few settlers in the valley at the time, and the conditions of life were hard and its conveniences few. His is now considered one of the best ranches in the region, and one of the most judiciously improved. On this tract he has been, from time to time, engaged in all the different elements of a general ranching industry, raising fine live stock of various kinds, and all the crops suited to the section. He has interests in Magita and Northeastern ditches. His home is at Monte Vista, and in this beautiful little city he secured the needed subscriptions for laying out and adorning the city park, which, in 1904, was named in his honor the Fullenwider Park. On September 20, 1855, he was married at Mechanicsburg, Illinois, to Miss Isabella Hall, of Sangamon county, Illniois. They have had five children, of whom two died in infancy and three are living, Mrs. William Machem, of Denver, Colorado, John G., a prosperous San Luis valley rancher and sheep raiser, and Henry A., of Center, who was elected county assessor of Saguache county in 1904. Additional Comments: From Progressive Men of Western Colorado. Chicago: A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/riogrande/bios/fullenwi152gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cofiles/ File size: 5.4 Kb