William G. Fulton. The opinion has been expressed that opportunities today for the farmer are just as great as they were in pioneer times when land could be obtained for little or nothing. The career of William G. Fulton furnishes testimony in point. Mr. Fulton began his career in Champaign County with hardly enough capital to buy a single acre of the high priced land of this section of Illinois. He is now one of the wealthy and most prominent farmers in the southern part of the county and his accomplishments show what a man of determination and iron will may achieve.
Mr. Fulton was born in Raymond Township, January 1, 1870, a son of Henry and Eliza (Fulton) Fulton. Both parents were born in Ireland but of Scotch ancestry. His father came to America in 1868, locating in Champaign County, and spent an active career as a farmer here. He died July 9, 1908, while the mother passed away August 9, 1905. They were laid to rest in the Woodlawn cemetery in Urbana. They were the parents of five children: George, who died in infancy; Mary, who died in 1909, married M. M. Want, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church; William G.; Jennie, widow of W. T. Gwinn, of Douglas County, Illinois; and Thomas, who died in childhood. Mrs. Mary Want was the mother of four children: Cullen, Ruth, Fulton and Mary Lewis. Her son Cullen when a young man was appointed to a cadetship in the Annapolis Naval Academy, spent four years there, and four years at sea apprenticeship, and has recently been appointed a member of the Construction Board at Annapolis and now has charge of the equipment of mine laying boats in the present war. The daughter Ruth graduated from the Woman’s College at Jacksonville and is now the wife of Charles Stewart, one of the instructors in the Agricultural College at Urbana.
William G. Fulton after leaving the district schools attended the Normal School at Danville, Indiana, where he was graduated at the age of eighteen. For two years he taught school in his home county and then began farming. Though he had a capital of less than a hundred dollars he courageously bargained for an eighty acre tract of land, and in a few years not only had that paid for but began the accumulations which are now represented by 420 acres of fine land in Champaign County and two farms in Arkansas. Mr. Fulton is both a crop and stock farmer and in an active career of about twenty-five years has achieved all the success that a man of modest ambition might crave.
On October 9, 1907, he married Miss Naomi Price, a native of Lebanon, Indiana, and a daughter of David and Ida Belle (Boring) Price. Her parents were both born in Ohio and when she was a small child moved to Champaign County, locating in Crittenden Township. Mr. and Mrs. Fulton have four children: Dale H., Idabelle, Glenn Price and Dean George, the last named having been born on the 13th of August, 1917.
Mr. Fulton is a Democrat in politics. He was formerly connected with the First National Bank at Philo. An active Methodist, he has served as superintendent of the Sunday school and was formerly superintendent of the County Sunday School Association of Douglas County for seven years. He has also been active in school work and served as trustee of his local district.