Allen Fuller (1798–1864) was a Massachusetts Universalist minister who responded to an 1830 request from South Carolina’s Universalists to assist in the organization and spread of Universalism in the South. Fuller labored for 30 years for the cause of Southern Universalism.
Education Although no information has been found regarding Fuller’s education, he received sufficient education to offer his services as a teacher. In 1822, he advertised his ability to tutor geography, mathematics, and English grammar. He also sold his textbook entitled Grammatical Exercises; being a plain and concise method of teaching English grammar. Original and selected.
A testimonial to Fuller's teaching skills appeared in the Old Colony Memorial and Plymouth Advertiser.
Marriage and children In 1832, Fuller, 34, married Tabitha Worthington née Summers (1797–1861) in the Newberry District of South Carolina with Rev Elijah Linch officiating. Fuller had moved from Massachusetts to South Carolina a year earlier.
Information on the number of Tabitha’s children is inconsistent. One account indicated that she had five children; another listed ten children with her first husband. Fuller’s last will, written in June 1863, listed just three living stepchildren: John R. Worthington, Marcus A. Worthington, and Amelia A. Truss. No information has been found regarding children that may have resulted from her second marriage to Fuller.
Northern ministry In 1828, Fuller, 30, was officially welcomed into fellowship in the Old Colony Association. Established in 1817, the Old Colony Association was one of many associations providing an organizational structure for Massachusetts’ Universalist churches. Although Fuller was not a parish minister, he was active in the Association’s ministry. He preached, for example, at the dedication of the First Universalist Church in Essex and participated as a minister at the Association’s 1830 yearly assembly.
In 1830, he was listed as an itinerant preacher in New York State. In that capacity, he delivered the introductory sermon at the 1831 dedication of a new Universalist society in Cedarville, Herkimer County, New York. This dedication was among the last acts in his Northern ministry.
In November 1831, Fuller moved to South Carolina, citing health reasons. His destination was influenced by a call from South Carolina Universalists for “brethren in the Northern States” to relocate to the South and assist in the spread of Universalism.
Southern ministry Fuller labored for 30 years in the cause of Southern Universalism as a circuit rider, organizer, and spokesperson.
German Baptist Brethren to Universalist As noted earlier, Fuller’s marriage to Worthington, née Summers, connected him to the families that nurtured Universalism from preaching within the German Baptist Brethren community.
In 1892, sixty years after Fuller’s arrival, a historical reflection in the Annals of Newberry: in two parts included this observation, “we meet with only the relics of the Dunkers or Dunkards...of this persuasion were originally the Chapmans, Summers, Lynches, Prathers, and Martins” from the Brethren community.
David Martin (1737–1794) was a preacher to these families and others in the Beaver Creek area near the Broad River. In 1772, the Baptist minister and historian Morgan Edwards recorded an observation of Martin in his history of South Carolina’s Baptists, saying he had “an excellent character.” Martin’s work was prodigious. Morgan recorded that Martin's Beaver Creek congregation included 25 families and 50 baptized members. Martin also preached to non-German-speaking settlers. For 14 years beginning in 1780, Martin gradually turned the Brethren in South Carolina toward universal salvation.
Although the preaching of universal salvation was not generally part of the Brethren’s religious practices, Roger E. Sappington observed in The Brethren in the Carolinas that the “Brethren’s emphasis on the New Testament and its pattern of God’s love through Christ had made the Brethren susceptible to the wiles of Universalism in the first place.”
Elijah Linch (1773–1842) (alternatively Lynch) next took up the leadership in preaching Universalism. Linch was also the transition agent for the Brethren in their evolution from a private to a public embrace of Universalism.
South Carolina Convention of Universalists These early South Carolina Universalists observed that “the doctrine of universal benevolence has been dispensed among us, for the last age, with but little success.” This lack of success was attributed to the absence of a body to govern church affairs.
Thus, in November 1830, South Carolina Universalists gathered at the Hartford meetinghouse in the Newberry District and organized the South Carolina Convention of Universalists. The Convention organizers paid homage to Martin, referring to him as “the father of the cause in this vicinity.”
Like the Old Colony Association in Massachusetts, the South Carolina Convention enabled the state’s Universalists to grant letters of fellowship, ordain preachers, admit societies, and perform other administrative duties.
The leadership of the South Carolina Universalist Convention welcomed Fuller into their ranks. Fuller brought with him direct experience working within an organized regional structure. Fuller was also an institutionalist who believed that supporting organizational structures was vital to the spread of Universalism. Fuller expressed this view in an article entitled “Church Organization” in the Evangelical Universalist. He wrote
At his first South Carolina Convention of Universalists in 1832, Fuller served as the Convention’s clerk. He was also assigned administrative duties, including oversight of record keeping, harmonizing the church membership requirements, and publishing the post-convention circular letter.
This Convention met at a propitious time. The national General Convention of Universalists was on the verge of reorganizing its administrative structure, moving from regional associations to one based on state conventions. At that time, only eight state conventions existed: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and South Carolina.
Fuller was nominated as South Carolina’s delegate to the 1883 national convention in Stafford, Vermont, but did not attend.
Despite Fuller’s absence, the General Convention of Universalists read into the record South Carolina’s Universalists’ caveated support for forming this new national organization. (Italic in the original) The newly adopted Constitution of the General Convention of Universalists also included similar language that limited its powers to only advisory. However, in less than a decade, the General Convention would clash with Southern Universalists over the issue of slavery. Fuller was among the leading spokespersons for the South, urging their Northern brethren “to heed the admonition” not to interfere on the subject of Southern slavery.
Continued involvement in the South Carolina State Convention Fuller remained committed to the South Carolina State Convention for many years. He frequently offered a sermon at this annual event and served in official capacities. Fuller served as the Convention’s moderator (1836, 1838, 1859) or the clerk/standing clerk (1832, 1833, 1834, 1835, 1837, 1840, 1841, 1845, 1846). He frequently authored the post-convention circular letter.
The South Carolina Universalist Convention of Universalists continued for more than 30 years. It ceased due to the onset of the American Civil War (1861–1865).
Circuit riding Immediately upon his arrival in November 1831, the Convention recruited Fuller to be the Convention’s circuit rider. Like his Northern ministry, he did not seek a parish ministry. This decision was based on the situation in South Carolina, where the churches were too small to afford a permanent minister. Consequently, the South Carolina Convention undertook the responsibility of providing preaching services through its circuit rider program.
Fuller outlined the scope of his preaching circuit in a letter to Thomas Whittemore, the editor of the Trumpet and Universalist Magazine. He recounted that his circuit included his hometown, Newberry District and churches in Lexington, Laurens, Fairfield, and Edgefield districts. He continued in his letter that he had also preached once in the Union District and Columbia, the state’s capital.
Although the Convention undertook the responsibility to provide preaching services, shortfalls in securing required revenue were a recurring problem for the Convention. After completing his first year of circuit riding, the Convention’s Corresponding Committee, which had made the original call for “brethren in the Northern States” to relocate to the South, reported that they had failed to raise the compensation promised to Fuller. Despite this failure, Fuller continued circuit riding.
Despite these difficulties, Fuller remained an advocate for the circuit-riding program. At the 1834 State Convention, he lamented the lack of action when the circuit riding subject was discussed. He warned
In 1834, Fuller briefly received assistance from Rev. L.F.W Andrews. Andrews, another Northern-born Universalist minister, had come South on a request to become the minister of a newly formed church in Montgomery, Alabama. Andrews was temporarily in Georgia for the dedication of the new Harmony Church in the Anderson District.
The Harmony Church dedication contributed another minister, James Mullikin, to the small pool of the Convention’s circuit riders, consisting of the aging Rev. Elijah Linch, Fuller, and the occasional visiting minister. Fuller and Mullikin shared administrative duties at the 1837 annual Convention, with Mullikin as moderator and Fuller as clerk. Mullikin was officially ordained at the 1838 State Convention in a ceremony conducted by Fuller, Linch, and Andrews.
Andrews exerted influence beyond South Carolina. After his one-year pastorate in Montgomery, he assumed the pastorate the Universalist church in Charleston, South Carolina in 1835. Andrews’s wider influence came from his publication of the Southern Evangelist (the paper would undergo several names and publication locations). With his move from Montgomery to Charleston, Andrews relocated his paper to that city and recruited Fuller as an associate editor along with Rev. H.F. Stearns and Rev. S.J. McMorris, both from Alabama. Fuller continued his editorial assistance when the ownership of this paper passed to Rev. Philo Brownson and was renamed the Southern Universalist in 1840.
Due to health issues late in 1835, Fuller paused his circuit riding. He reported that his eyesight had temporarily failed due to an inflammation in one of his eyes. He would recover and resume circuit riding, but health problems would continue to plague him.
Three years after Fuller’s plea to improve the circuit riding program, the 1837 State Convention acted. It placed renewed focus on circuit preaching and appointed Fuller as the Convention’s agent with oversight powers for this endeavor. The Convention also designated representatives from all churches within the Convention to assist Fuller.
Improvements resulted from this renewed focus on circuit riding. At the next State Convention in 1838, it was reported that $250 had been raised. That Convention also addressed the instability that local societies had on the program. The societies in Lexington and Laurens Districts had faltered that year and thus could not be relied upon to be preaching stations. To provide more structure to the circuit riding program, 13 permanent “preaching stations,” a collection of meetinghouses owned or open to Universalists, courthouses, and private homes, were identified. A circuit rider would visit each station four times a year.