University of Virginia - Corks and Curls Yearbook (Charlottesville, VA)

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llllll CORKS AND CURLS 3 s-' . 53,1 V. X -el if V V SU I Ziff'-'IT-ii..gii.?f?1.LL3lT'-.iitimx151.1IDF-ffrgirz....-1-'I.'.f-',,a.4'fr? ' s e W W F Eh P . 5:,f 'i,, lp , Y inx , i +?iTji,,T52Q-, 1 :,?1-i.QL:g.'-..'r1rt-...fri-q5,Q.-1-1: 113,11 - i 1.14.9 f ,x-.'-xy' if---'ri-2 -L Q , 1 1 l l f all C56 1zff?l'p?7l' i a' , YOB-th yZ9.75:Z':l. - . , ' s4 ji 1 -. U32 fi . 'Q ssiifrflr eff ' -V -ii, f-',f,.,. - 'N' Q -' A 1' Z - I '-Lirszzaf'wjfzffifi-M , f N ---fi gf? 5- isL2if!.Z'fTf1! '5'. g,.Q' ti f S 1 -5' ff , ns1,g':2, H ier' Q 455' ' ' ?'7f4f ,. .- . f . Cn L ' rw ,Cf .f Williamson Whitehead Fuller ,,.. . . . ... .Xl l, X is the people whose lnstory is short: and happy is the nnlividual whose hiography is hrief. XYilliamson XX'hitehead lfuller is sueh an individual. lrle was well horn: well eclueatedg well equipped when he began his life workg he has been eminently successful in praetieing lawg he was happily married while still a young mang his children were a joy to him in their childhood, and are still a joy to him in their young manhood and womanhood. It is not only the poor, it is more frequently men whose lives are well ordered, simple and industrious-and therefore prosperous- whose biographies are 'fshort and simple annals. Wlilliamson Wlhitehead Fuller was horn in Fayetteville, North Carolina. on August 28, 1858. His father was Judge Thomas C. Fuller, who ended his eareeri with distinction as a Judge of the United States Court of Private Land Claims, but whose greatest distinction was that he was for many

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-l CORKS AND CURLS VOLXXIH years, in the opinion of everybody, one of the two greatest legal practi- tioners in North Carolina-Qludge Thomas Ruihn was the other-and in the opinion of many the greatest trial lawyer North Carolina ever produced. His mother was Caroline Douglas XYhitehead. Through his fatherls, family he is related to the XVinston family and the Cooke family-both of them of past and present distinction in North Carolina attairs-and through his mother's family he is direct in his descent from as interesting and romantic an emigration as ever came to the United States-the emigration of the Scotch Highlanders, including among them Flora McDonald, who were loyal to Bonnie Prince Charlie, and left the old land for the new, after the disaster to their cause at the Battle ol Culloden. In the fall of 1876. alter preparation in the schools of North Carolina, including the Horner School at Qxford, he entered the University of Yir- ginia, and was there two years. He joined the XYashington Society and the Zeta Psi Fraternity. and had his room. at first, on East Range' and later on XYest Lawn, occupying one of the very many rooms at the University which have cut into their mantels the magic initials .-X. P, and of which the modern occupants take joy in believing that Edgar Allan Poe was once an occupant. His course at the University was distinctly creditable, but it was not conspicuousg he was temperate in all things-even in his hours of labor over text-books, There was one distinction he had, though, that has been characteristic ol his life: He was said to have a pleasant. personal acquaintance with more ol his fellow students than any other one then at the University. After leaving the University he studied law at what was then the well known law school of Dick K Dillard, at Greensboro, and in 1880, imme- diately after obtaining his law license, engaged in practicing law with his father's firm in Raleigh, and in l88l opened his office in Durham, N. C.. the prosperous county seat of the county ol Durham, just then established. After getting his license to practice law, and before opening his own law office, he married Miss Annie M. Staples, of Greensboro. He had talent and inherited Etness for the law, industry. character, and popular manners-and he had the stimulus of the necessity of supporting a family-therefore it is not remarkable that he succeeded, and that he was the leading lawyer of Durham from very soon after he opened his oiihce. His reputation grew, and, much earlier in life than most lawyers achieve such, he was recognized as one of the leaders ol the North Carolina Bar.