John Houghton Fuller was of a family which, during his childhood, emigrated from Lunenburg, Mass., to Walpole in this county, sometime during the last decade of the last century. He passed his youth in Walpole, and began active life in a country store, first in Chesterfield, then in Winchester, and then in Keene, where he soon engaged in wool-dealing, which became the main business of his after life. While living at Winchester, he was called to act as adjutant-general of the government forces stationed at Portsmouth during the closing season of the war of 1812, and it was then, too, that he married a daughter of Rev. Ezra Conant, by whom he bad three sons and three daughters. He was the principal promoter and first president of the Winchester bank, of the Ashuelot railway, and of the Keene Five Cent Savings bank. He reclaimed, at great expense, the large area of waste-land in Keene, lying north of Cross street, and between Court and Washington streets, laid out and built streets, located a school reservation, and aided many homeless families to secure homes upon wase and practical terms. He died suddenly in the winter of 1869, at the age of seventy-seven years, leaving a reputation denoting the highest type of the old New England character, and a well to do estate, that was in no way tainted or fused by any false rights or measures.
