Biography

Laura Thorpe Fuller’s early years must have been tumultuous. She was born in Granville County, North Carolina just before the Civil War began and was likely enslaved from birth. The war and Reconstruction shaped her childhood and the Jim Crow era of segregation and discrimination no doubt molded her early adulthood. She went on to survive both world wars and the Great Depression and still have land to pass on to her children when she died at 86 years of age. She converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1898, at the same time as her husband John, and remained committed to her new faith for decades thereafter.

Born on 17 September 1860, Laura was likely born into slavery in Granville County, on North Carolina’s northern border.[1] A preponderance of Black people in Granville County were enslaved in 1860. In fact, the county included 11,086 enslaved people that year and only 1,123 free people of color. Laura does not appear in the historical record as a child and little is known about her early years. She did not list the names of either of her parents on her baptismal record when she joined the LDS Church and her daughter Irene, the informant for her death certificate, could only described Laura’s father’s name as “Don’t Know.” Laura’s mother, however, is listed on Laura’s death certificate as Sallie Thorpe.[2] “Thorpe” is the surname Laura used when she married her husband in 1882, the first time she enters the written record.[3] The fact that she does not appear in any known source until then and that she did not know who her father was or her exact place of birth, offers additional evidence that she was likely born enslaved.

There were six enslavers with the last name of Thorpe living in Granville County in 1860, and it is possible Laura’s mother, Sallie, took her last name from one of them.[4] Given such context, Laura likely grew up immersed in the difficult work of tobacco farming which dominated life in Granville County. She was likely familiar with the cultivation process even before she married John Fuller, a likely tobacco farmer.[5]

Laura married John Fuller on 19 December 1882 at Walnut Grove in Granville County.[6] Laura listed her age as 18 on the marriage license even though she was twenty-two according to other documentation.[7] John was twenty-four when a justice of the peace wed the couple. Their oldest son, Conway, was born nearly two years before they married.[8] They would go on to have ten children together, seven of whom would survive to adulthood. Laura gave birth to their first daughter, Mamy, a year after their marriage, and a daughter, Gracey, followed in 1890. Tom, Harrietta, Irene, and Iola were all born after that.[9]

Laura raised her young family in the context of the racial terror which ran rampant in the Jim Crow era South. Granville, the county where she lived her entire life, had a higher number of lynchings than most other counties in North Carolina. In fact, six lynchings took place there between 1877 and 1950. It is the second highest number in North Carolina behind the twenty-two that took place in New Hanover County on the state’s southern border. It is not difficult to imagine that Laura might have heard about some of these public spectacles and worried about their ramifications for her own children, especially given the fact that such violence was meant to intimidate Black people and reassert white supremacy.[10]

There is no indication how or when Laura first encountered Latter-day Saint missionaries or what may have attracted her to their message. Laura and John were nonetheless baptized on the same day, August 9, 1898, in Berea, an unincorporated community in Granville County.[11] Their youngest child, Iola, was born just four months before the couple's baptism. Having such a young family might have influenced Laura and John’s feelings about religion and affected their conversion to the LDS faith. John passed away just two years after their baptism, leaving Laura a single mother. Laura never did remarry; she thus faced the challenge of raising seven children and managing the family’s farm alone. It is possible that Laura found solace in her new religion. She appears to have stayed connected to the LDS faith for at least the next thirty years. Her appearances on LDS Church censuses in 1925 and 1930 indicate a level of connection to her faith community that must have sustained her.[12] There is no indication that any of her children followed her into the faith. Laura and John appear to be the only LDS converts in their family.[13]

Despite the social and economic hurdles that served as context for Laura’s life, she and John experienced some mobility as they were able to purchase farm property by the time John died in 1900. Following John’s death, the farm passed into Laura’s hands and she maintained it for the rest of her life.[14] The turn of the twentieth century in fact marked the height of Black land ownership in the South despite the limitations put in place through Jim Crow laws and extralegal intimidation. Laura and John appear to have been a part of this increase in land ownership among Black farmers. Later, Black farmers would experience a significant loss of land, especially as farming underwent substantial changes fueled by mechanization and the Great Depression.[15] The fact that Laura had land to pass on to her children after her death demonstrates her ability to keep her farm viable despite such difficult circumstances.[16]

Laura appears to have stayed geographically close to four of her children until she died in 1947. In 1930, Laura’s daughter Irene and five grandchildren lived with her and the two women ran the farm together.[17] By 1940, Laura stepped back from farm labor and her son Tom moved in to help Irene care for the farm.[18]

Laura eventually died due to complications related to high blood pressure. She probably suffered a stroke from a condition affecting her arteries.[19] She died on 7 March 1947, when she was 86 years old. Thomas, Harrietta, Irene, and Iola are listed as beneficiaries in Laura’s will, alongside seven of Laura’s grandchildren. Irene, who had lived and worked on her mother's farm, was trusted as the executrix and she placed a notice for creditors and debtors to settle their accounts with the estate.[20] In total Laura left $705 worth of land and property “consisting of real estate of the value of $600.00, and personal property of the value of $105.00 as follows: 19 acres of land, in Walnut Grove Township, some household goods, a mule, a plow and a harrow.”[21] It was a substantial legacy to leave to her children considering her meager beginnings and the historical circumstances that shaped her long and productive life.

By Drew Holley

[1] Laura’s birthdate comes from her baptismal record. See, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, North Carolina (State) Part 2, CR 375 8, box 4727, folder 1, images 58-59, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[2] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, North Carolina (State) Part 2, CR 375 8, box 4727, folder 1, images 58-59, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; North Carolina, State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death, Registration Dist. No. 39-00, Certificate No. 67, Laura Fuller, North Carolina State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina.

[3] North Caronlina, Granville County, Marriages, 1762-2011, John Fuller and Laura Thorpe, 19 December 1882.

[4] Barnetta McGhee White, “1860 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedule Granville County, NC,” There are a couple of enslavers with infants listed in the slave schedules. However, the schedule was enumerated in the summer, so Laura would not have been any of these infants if the September 17, 1860 birthdate she offered at her baptism is to be believed.

[5] Drew Holley, “John Fuller,” Century of Black Mormons.

[6] North Caronlina, Granville County, Marriages, 1762-2011, John Fuller and Laura Thorpe, 19 December 1882.

[7] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, North Carolina (State) Part 2, CR 375 8, box 4727, folder 1, images 58-59, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. There are more discrepancies than just these two documents. Her death certificate lists her birth year as 1876, and one census indicates she was born in 1870. Again, the lack of consistency seems to indicate she did not know her precise birth year. Despite the discrepancies over her birth year, September 17 is listed a few times as her birthdate.

[8]North Caronlina, Granville County, Marriages, 1762-2011, John Fuller and Laura Thorpe, 19 December 1882; United States, 1900 Census, North Carolina, Granville County. Laura and John were married December 19, 1882. The 1900 census puts Conways birth as April 1881, twenty months before Laura and John’s marriage. However, it is uncertain whether this was the case, as the census taker may have made an error with the birth dates. For example, they made a mistake with Laura’s birth and listed it a whole decade later than it was, and the ages of other siblings across documents are inconsistent. Still, there is little ability to verify the correct date of Conway’s birth besides the census.

[9] United States, 1900 Census, North Carolina, Granville County. Conway, Mamy, and Gracy don’t appear on any other record including a list of Laura’s beneficiaries. It could be that they moved away or lost contact with the family or died early.

[10] “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, Lynchings by County,” Equal Justice Initiative, eji.org.

[11] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, North Carolina (State) Part 2, CR 375 8, box 4727, folder 1, images 58-59, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[12] “George W. Fuller,” Worldwide census, 1925, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; “Laura Fuller,” Worldwide census, 1930, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[13] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Record of Members Collection, North Carolina (State) Part 2, CR 375 8, box 4727, folder 1, images 58-59, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; “George W. Fuller,” Worldwide census, 1925, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

[14] United States, 1900 Census, North Carolina, Granville County.

[15] Waymon R. Hinson, “Land Gains, Land Losses: The Odyssey of African Americans Since Reconstruction,” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, vol. 77, no. 3/4 (2018), 916-917.

[16] North Carolina, Granville County, Wills and Probate Records, Wills Vol. 30-31, 1942-1954, Laura Fuller, 10 May 1947.

[17] United States, 1930 Census, North Carolina, Granville County.

[18] United States, 1940 Census, North Carolina, Granville County.

[19] North Carolina, State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death, Registration Dist. No. 39-00, Certificate No. 67, Laura Fuller, North Carolina State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina.

[20] “Notice of Administration,” The Oxford Public Ledger (Oxford, North Carolina), 27 May 1947, 7.

[21] North Carolina, Granville County, Wills and Probate Records, Wills Vol. 30-31, 1942-1954, Laura Fuller, 10 May 1947.

Documents

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