Richard Fuller

Richard Fuller (April 22, 1804 – October 20, 1876) was an American Baptist minister and one of the founders of the Southern Baptist movement.

Early life

Richard Fuller was born on April 22, 1804, in Beaufort, South Carolina. His great-grandfather William Fuller arrived in Yorktown from Wincanton, South Somerset, England in 1702 and settled in Edgecombe County, North Carolina in the 1720s. His grandfather moved to Beaufort, South Carolina in the 1780s. He received his early instruction from Dr. William T. Brautly. At the age of seventeen, Fuller entered Harvard University in Massachusetts. Despite health problems, he graduated with his class in 1824.

He then studied law in Beaufort, was admitted to the bar, and soon rose to eminence in his profession.

Career Despite his success, during a period of great religious interest in Beaufort he felt it his duty to abandon the law and devote himself to the Christian ministry. At the same time, he decided to leave the Protestant Episcopal Church in which he had been brought up.

Personal life Fuller married a wealthy widow whose affairs he attended to as an attorney.