William & Priscilla Fuller, Early South Dedham/Norwood Farm Family

William Ellis Fuller (1816-1886)

Priscilla Sumner Fuller (1820-1898)

Abby Ellis Fuller (1845-1859)

William Ellis Fuller was born on September 7, 1816. He was the son of Ellis Fuller and Lucy Gay Fuller. William became a farmer.

On November 7, 1841, William Fuller married Priscilla Sumner, the daughter of Nathanial Sumner and Elizabeth Richards Sumner. Priscilla was born on September 30, 1820. (After the death of her husband, Nathaniel Sumner, Elizabeth Richards Sumner married Eliphalet Fuller (1796-1872), the uncle of Priscilla’s husband William. They are interred in lot 84.)

The couple had one child, daughter Abby Ellis Fuller, who was born on January 12, 1845. Abby Fuller died on February 26, 1859. Her death was attributed to consumption, a then popular word for tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was known as phthisis and consumption from the age of Hippocrates through the 18th century. During the 19th century and early 20th century, it was also referred to as the white death and the great white plague.

On January 31, 1886, William Ellis Fuller died of the same disease. He was in his 70th year.

Land was acquired from Priscilla Fuller in 1892 to alter the railroad crossing at Washington and Chapel Streets.

Priscilla Sumner Fuller died on September 22, 1898. She was 78.

For a time, Abby Ellis Fuller was interred in lot 38 with her grandparents, Ellis and Lucy Gay Fuller. Today William, Priscilla, and their daughter Abby are interred in their family lot 20 in Old Parish Cemetery as their monuments state.