Samuel Fuller (Mayflower Physician) - Life in Plymouth Colony

Life in Plymouth Colony

In 1623, the arrival of the ship Anne would bring Samuel’s wife Bridget.

In the 1623 Division of Land, Samuel received his two acres of land and his wife Bridget received her share “in with a corner by the pond.”

In 1626 Samuel Fuller was one of those Purchasers involved with the joint-stock company along with senior company members such as Bradford, Brewster, Winslow, Standish, Allerton, and others.

In the 1627 Division of Cattle, which noted settler animal distribution, Samuel and his wife Bridget are named as heading he eighth company and receiving several animals.

In 1629, a group of settlers arrived, led by John Endicott, who founded the town of Salem. There were many sick persons and also those who needed advice on how their church should be organized, and Plymouth sent Samuel Fuller to assist them. Endicott later sent a warm letter to William Bradford dated May 11, 1629 which expressed his sincere appreciation for sending Samuel Fuller to them.

In 1630 Samuel had a similar situation for colonists who had settled at Charlestown. On June 28, 1630, he wrote to Governor William Bradford regarding the situation at “Mattapan” and the medical services he provided which included the letting of the blood of some twenty persons, which was a common practice at the time. In another letter, dated August 2, 1630 he reported there were many sick and dead at his location.

In 1637, a Plymouth troublemaker by the name of Thomas Morton, wrote a scathing analysis of Samuel Fuller’s medical abilities in his book New English Canaan”. A quite strong paragraph in his analysis is quoted here: “But in mine opinion, he deserves to be set upon a palfrey (horse), and led up and down in triumph through New Canaan, with a collar of Jurdans about his neck, as was one of like desert in Richard the Second’s time through the streets of London, that men might know where to find a quacksalver (quack).”.

The Plymouth public in general seemed to appreciate his medical and religious abilities.

In the summer of 1633, Samuel Fuller fell ill with a sickness (“infectious fever”) that had spread through Plymouth by autumn. Nathaniel Morton wrote about Samuel Fuller’s demise in his 1669 New England’s Memorial: “.. among the rest, Mr. Samuel Fuller then died, after he had much helped others, and was a comfort to them; he was their surgeon and physician, and did much good in his place, being not only useful in his faculty, but otherwise, as he was a godly man, and served Christ in his office of a deacon in the church for many years, and forward to do good in his place, and was much missed after God removed him out of this world.”