BIO: James Fulton, Cumberland County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Bookwalter

Copyright 2011.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/
______________________________________________________________________ 

History of Cumberland and Adams Counties, Pennsylvania.
Containing History of the Counties, Their Townships, Towns, Villages, 
Schools, Churches, Industries, Etc.; Portraits of Early Settlers and 
Prominent Men; Biographies; History of Pennsylvania; Statistical and 
Miscellaneous Matter, Etc., Etc.  Illustrated.  Chicago: Warner, Beers 
& Co., 1886.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cumberland/beers/beers.htm
______________________________________________________________________ 

                                PART II.

             HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

                              CHAPTER LIX.

                         UPPER ALLEN TOWNSHIP.

566  BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES:

  JAMES FULTON, mechanic, P. O. Mechanicsburg, was born in Dillsburg, 
York Co., Penn., in 1832.  His parents, Alexander and Mary (Deardorf) 
Fulton, reared a family of nine children:  John, Mary A., Jane, Thomas, 
William, Catharine, David, James and Calvin.  Of these Thomas was a 
Methodist minister, stationed at Sinnamahoning, Clinton Co., Penn., and 
while in that wild and unimproved country induced his brother David A., 
who was a carpenter, to join him, as there was great need of mechanics 
to erect homes for the pioneers then rapidly settling in the 
neighborhood.  James, who was then fifteen, accompanied his brother, 
with whom he learned the carpenter's trade.  Fully one-half the 
distance traveled was on foot, through a country without roads and very 
mountainous.  Little thought the lad that the uninviting forest to him, 
at that time, would be his home for many years, but though his labors 
at first brought him but a small income yet he 

567  UPPER ALLEN TOWNSHIP.

became satisfied with the wild life led in that rapidly improving 
country, and almost before he realized it had attained his majority and 
found himself the husband of a young wife, Margaret, daughter of Henry 
and Jane (Mason) Shaffer, one of the most prominent pioneer families in 
that region.  Her grandfather, James Shaffer, a Revolutionary soldier, 
died at the ripe age of eighty years.  Two years later James Fulton and 
his brother purchased a tract of land and erected a hotel at Wykoff's 
Eddy, then a great lumber center where all the supplies were brought in 
by boats from Lock Haven, 50 miles distant.  He was proprietor of this 
hotel for ten years, during which time the P. & D. Railroad was 
completed.  Selling his hotel property Mr. Fulton again commenced his 
trade, continuing same until 1883, when he came to Mechanicsburg and 
purchased a half interest in Miller & King's planning mill.  In October 
of the following year he disposed of his interest in the mill.  Mr. 
Fulton and wife have seven children:  Mary J., Eliza A., William A., 
Nancy E., Kate, John H. and Alice, the last two mentioned being 
deceased.  Our subject, a self-made man, acquired his money by honest 
toil and good business management.  He commenced working at his trade 
for $4 per month, increased the second year to $6, and the third to $18 
per month.  He has accumulated a considerable fortune and is a liberal, 
enterprising man.  His pleasant home is situated near the borough 
limits, convenient to business, on a site overlooking the mountain 
range and the beautiful borough of Mechanicsburg.