The people who passed through the Fuller House

A local tradition placed a secret hiding room in the cellar of the James and Lydia Canning Fuller House in Skaneateles. The house's 2002 National Register nomination recorded that story and said that no such room had been found.

Its Section 8 narrative offered other reasons to recognize the house. Letters, newspapers, correspondence, and later archival research connected the Fuller household with several episodes in Central New York's antislavery history. Those records lead to people whose lives reached well beyond Skaneateles.

Darlene Bailey and Judith Wellman prepared the nomination for the Preservation Association of Central New York. They identified ethnic heritage, social history, and architecture as areas of significance, with a period running from 1834 through 1857. Within it, they marked 1841, 1843, 1851, and 1852 as significant dates.

One 1841 episode concerned a family of seven. Drawing on a September letter from Lydia Fuller and correspondence involving Gerrit Smith, the nomination says James Fuller traveled to Kentucky and paid to obtain freedom for a man, a woman, and their five children. It identifies them as “probably” Samuel and Harriet Russell and their family. That identification is still qualified: the nomination has been inspected for this account, but the identities in the underlying letters have not all been independently resolved.

The family's story continued after the payment. The nomination describes Smith offering housing and support while they established a new life. Their own lives and efforts toward self-sufficiency deserve further research; they should not appear here only as evidence of an abolitionist's work.

The same year, according to the nomination, James Fuller contributed $800 to the Dawn Community near Chatham, Ontario, a settlement associated with freedom seekers. He agreed to serve on a six-person board described as three Black and three white men. The connections ran through Skaneateles, Syracuse, Auburn, Kentucky, and Canada.

Another episode comes from an 1843 letter Martha Wright wrote to her sister Lucretia Mott. The nomination's summary describes a Black freedom seeker arriving at Wright's Auburn home with a note. Wright sheltered him and directed him onward to the Fullers in Skaneateles. The passage does not give his name.

James Fuller died in 1847. Lydia continued the household's antislavery work. The nomination places Jermain Wesley Loguen in her home in 1851 and again in 1852, describing his movement between Syracuse, Skaneateles, and routes toward Canada during the years of the Fugitive Slave Law. Loguen, who had escaped slavery, was a leading Black abolitionist, organizer, and speaker involved in resistance.

The nomination brought these episodes together: the Russell family, the Dawn contribution, Wright's referral, and Loguen's stays. It also argued for the house's architectural significance. The National Park Service's weekly list records the James and Lydia Canning Fuller House's National Register listing on July 3, 2003, within the broader Freedom Trail, Abolitionism, and African American Life in Central New York context.

Each episode leaves a path to follow: a letter to reopen, an unnamed person to investigate, a family whose later life deserves attention. The house's documented connections provide plenty to pursue without treating the cellar tradition as an established fact.

About this account

The 2002 nomination is a research synthesis. Its nineteenth-century letters, newspaper accounts, deeds, reminiscences, and printed sources have not all been independently inspected for this account. The episodes are therefore presented as the nomination records them, including its probable identifications and other limits.

Source note

The nomination criteria, period, dates of significance, and preparer information appear on pages 3-4 of the Preservation Association of Central New York's hosted National Register registration form. The 1841 Russell-family account, Dawn contribution, 1843 Wright referral, 1851-1852 Loguen account, “blind room” boundary, and nomination conclusion appear on pages 1-4 of its hosted Section 8 significance narrative. The official listing action appears on PDF page 78 of the National Park Service's 2003 weekly-list compilation. This article uses original synthesis and paraphrase only; it excludes nomination images, photographs, maps, legacy contact fields, and present-day access claims.