Who was Samuel Fuller?
Samuel Fuller was born in 1623. He was one of the original twenty-six purchasers and settlers of the town of Middleborough who arrived here in 1661. His father was Samuel Fuller, the surgeon and physician who came on The Mayflower in 1620. Before serving as the first pastor of the First Church of Middleborough, Samuel Fuller served as a deacon of the Plymouth church for 16 years and then preached to the people in the Middleborough area for 16 years before the church's formal organization. He was ordained minister of the First Church on December 26th, 1694 and died just seven months later, on August 17, 1695.
In 1675, during King Philip’s War, the town of Middleborough was burned to the ground, including the house in which Samuel Fuller was residing. He and the other Middleborough settlers returned to Plymouth until the war’s end. In 1680, well before the formation of the First Church of Middleborough or his ordination as its pastor, the town voted to give Samuel Fuller 12 acres of land and to “turn out and fence his field, and everyone who did not come was to pay a bushel of corn.” A house was built for him on this lot, and he was voted a yearly salary of 20 pounds in payment for his service to the town. One quarter of this sum would be paid in silver, the rest in corn and wheat.
While Samuel Fuller did not attend a classical school per se, he would most certainly have been educated for the ministry using the classical methods of the day. Equally important are the confession of faith and covenant adopted by the church, which were assuredly authored by him and reflect the beliefs and biblical worldview upon which Samuel Fuller School is founded. Because Samuel Fuller School began its life and ministry under the auspices of the First Congregational Church of Middleborough, it seemed apropos to name the school after its first pastor, Samuel Fuller.
