George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives

Melville Weston Fuller Collection, 1879-1910

0.5 linear feet

Catalog Number: M215

Series List:

• Correspondence, 1888-1906
  16 folders.
• Diaries, 1879-1882
  3 volumes
• Memorial materials, 1910
  2 volumes
• Addresses and clippings
  

Agency History / Biographical Note:
Melville Weston Fuller was born in Augusta, Maine, on January 11, 1833, to Frederick and Catharine Fuller, who divorced soon after his birth. Fuller entered Bowdoin at the age of 16 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with the class of 1853. After graduation he studied law at Harvard Law School and was admitted to the bar in 1855, after which he began working for a Chicago law firm.

In 1862, Fuller served as a delegate to the Illinois constitutional convention. He was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1863 to 1865 and was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions of 1864, 1872, 1876, and 1880. In 1888 Fuller was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court, a position he held until his death in 1910.

He received L.L.D. honorary degrees from both Bowdoin and Northwestern in 1888. He served as a member of the Bowdoin board of trustees, as well as chairman of the trustees of the Peabody Educational fund and chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution. He died at his home in Sorrento, Maine, on July 4, 1910.

Scope and Content:
 Contains correspondence mostly between Fuller and George T. Little, professor at Bowdoin College, during the years after Fuller's graduation from Bowdoin, as well as diaries and addresses given by Fuller. Also contains clippings and memorial materials on his death in 1910.

Provenance:

Cite as: Melville Weston Fuller Collection, George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library
Access Restrictions: None.