Page:Representative Women of New England.djvu/477

356 forty years' faithful service for the soldiers of the Union, she having enrolled herself as a worker in the Christian Commission during the early days of the Civil War.

She was bom August 1, 1838, in Portland, Me. She is descended on the paternal side from a titled English family, whose ancestry she is able to trace back for over three hun- dred years, and on the maternal side is of Scottish extraction. Her father, Samuel Mills, was born July 23, 1804, and died January 31, 1888. He married Betsey Haines, who was born June 17, 1811, died February 21, 1886. Samuel Mills was son of Jacob Mills, Jr., born in 1763, and his wife, Sarah Taylor, born in 1765; grandson of Jacob Mills, born in 1720, and his wife, Elizabeth Cutts, born in 1729; and great-grandson of John Mills, who died in 1780. Many of her ancestors were distinguished for piety and scholarship, some being noted lawyers and two great-uncles filling the office of Secretary of State in Maine. Her grandsires on both sides fought in the Revolutionary War, also in the War of 1812.

Her father, Samuel Mills, who was an intense abolitionist and a public-spirited citizen, taught his daughter to take an interest in the leading topics of the day. When only a school-girl, she attended with him meetings which were addressed by Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, Charles Sunmer, Wendell Phillips, and other great orators of that period. These early les- sons had a marked effect upon her character. Her education was begun in the public schools of Portland, but, her parents removing to East Boston in 1849, her school studies were com- pleted in that city.

In 1855 Sarah E. Mills married George W. Fuller, of Canton, Me. In 1861 the call for seventy-five thousand men aroused a spirit of patriotism that left its shadow on her threshold. Mr. Fuller responded to the call for volunteers, but was rejected as physically unable to bear the hardships of war. In 1862 he volunteered in the naval service, on the gunboat ^' Roanoke," but his frail constitution was deemed a barrier. He ditl not, however, abandon the hope of serv- ing his country. On February 12, 1864, he enrolled his name for the third time, and was mustered into the service six days later as a member of Company C, Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry. The regiment remained in camp at Readville until April 24, when it sailed from Boston for Newport News, Va., on the steamer "Western Metropolis.'' At Petersburg in the following June Mr. Fuller was stricken with malarial typhoid fever, and was removed to the hospital at Portsmouth, Va. He died July 2, 1864, and is buried in the National Cemetery at Hampton, Va.

As stated above, from the early days of the Civil W^ar Mrs. Fuller assisted in preparing hos- pital stores and other comforts for the soldiers. She also participated in many patriotic con- certs given in Maine and Massachusetts for the hospital fund. The day after the news of the battle of Antietam was received at the North, she arranged with the help of a few others a concert from which four hundred dollars were realized. This money was converted into ar- ticles which were forwarded to the front in less than two days after the concert wa*s given. For seventeen years Mrs. Fuller was a faithful member of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston.

Remembering with gratitude that one of the noble band of army nurses minist^re^l to her husband in the hospital, she has consecrated her life to the soldiers' cause. She represents! Ward One of Boston on the Executive Com- mittee of the Christian Commission. When the Grand Army of the Republic was fonned, its objects enlisted her sympathies. In 1871 she assisted in forming a Ladies' Aid Society, auxiliary to Joseph Hooker Post, No. 23, of East Boston. She served as secretary, vice- president, and president) also as a delegate to the Stat-e convention of Ladies' Auxiliary So- cieties, held at Fitchburg, February 12, 1879. At this convention the Woman's Stat-e Relief Corps of Massachusetts was formed. Mrs. Fuller was chosen president, and was the first signer to its constitution. She was re-elected to this office in 1880 and in 1881. That she won the support of many who were at first sceptical in regard to the success of the move- ment is now a matter of record. There were not a few discouragements, but voice and pen unitenl to surmount them; for, eloquent in speech and convincing in argument, Mrs.