page_title: Samuel Fuller (Pilgrim)
section_title: Life in Plimoth Colony
hierarchical_section_title: Samuel Fuller (Pilgrim) / Life in Plimoth Colony
caption_attribution_description: English: My 2009 photo of the Samuel Fuller home site on Leyden Street in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
context_page_description: Samuel Fuller was a passenger on the historic 1620 voyage of the Pilgrim ship Mayflower and became a respected church deacon and the physician for Plymouth Colony.
context_section_description: In the winter of 1620-1621, almost half of the Pilgrims died of starvation.   Samuel lost his brother, Edward and sister-in-law.  Samuel became the guardian of his nephew by the same name of Samuel.  In 1623, Samuel's wife Bridget arrived on the ship Anne. Also in 1623, as part of the Division of Land, Samuel received two acres of land and his wife Bridget received her share "in with a corner by the pond."
  In 1626, Samuel Fuller, along with other senior company members Bradford, Brewster, Winslow, Standish, Allerton, and others was one of the Purchasers involved with the joint-stock company.
  In the 1627 Division of Cattle, which noted settler animal distribution, Samuel and his wife Bridget  are named as heading the eighth company and receiving several animals.
  In 1629, a group of settlers led by John Endicott, the founder of Salem, arrived in need of medical care and advice on church organization. Plymouth sent Samuel Fuller to assist, and Endicott later warmly expressed his appreciation in a letter to William Bradford dated May 11, 1629. A similar situation occurred in 1630 when Fuller aided colonists at Charlestown by letting blood (a common medical practice at the time) for some twenty persons. Letters from William Bradford detail the situation at "Mattapan" and note that there were many sick and dead at his location.
  In 1637, a Plymouth resident named Thomas Morton wrote a scathing analysis of Samuel Fuller's medical abilities in his book "New English Canaan." A quite strong paragraph in his analysis is quoted here:
  "But in mine opinion, he deserves to be set upon a palfrey (horse), and led up and down in triumph through New Canaan, with a collar of Jurdans about his neck, as was one of like desert in Richard the Second's time through the streets of London, that men might know where to find a quacksalver (quack).".
  The Plymouth public in general seemed to appreciate his medical and religious abilities.
  In the summer of 1633, Samuel Fuller fell ill with a sickness ("infectious fever") that had spread through Plymouth by autumn. Nathaniel Morton wrote about Samuel Fuller's demise in his 1669 New England's Memorial:
  ".. among the rest, Mr. Samuel Fuller then died, after he had much helped others, and was a comfort to them; he was their surgeon and physician, and did much good in his place, being not only useful in his faculty, but otherwise, as he was a godly man, and served Christ in his office of a deacon in the church for many years, and forward to do good in his place, and was much missed after God removed him out of this world."
caption: Site of Fuller's home on Leyden Street in Plymouth, Massachusetts
exif: {"Image Make": "EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY", "Image Model": "KODAK EASYSHARE C433 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "480", "Image YResolution": "480", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "190", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5368", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5933", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "27/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:01:16 13:01:49", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:01:16 13:01:49", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "6", "EXIF ApertureValue": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2304", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1728", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "5232", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "100", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "36", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}