AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAWYERS

Company E, 21st Missouri Infantry
Photo and obituary donated by Amy Jensen Great -Great -Great Grand daughter of George W. Fulton.
Kinsley Banner Graphic
24-Jan-1890

AT REST

Major George W. Fulton died at 7:30 on Saturday evening of last week

“The Lord’s will must be obeyed”

Major George W. Fulton, Mayor of this city, died at his residence on North Colony Avenue Saturday evening, January 18th, 1890 at 7:30 o’clock. The cause of death was from a complication of diseases of the liver, kidneys and bowels. He had been suffering since last July, but until a short time ago his physician and all friends entertained hopes of recovery.

The funeral was conducted by the Masonic Lodge, services were held at the Congregational church Monday afternoon at 2 o’clock, which were very impressive and largely attended by Masons and friends of the family. The G.A.R. also participated in the march to the cemetery.

The following brief biography was read by Rev. Wilson:

BIOGRAPHY

The subject of the following sketch is of German extraction, his great-grandfather coming to this country and settling in Virginia and, during the Revolution being a soldier in the colonial army. His son David, was born in Virginia and settled in Pennsylvania, and served in the war of 1812. Levi Fulton, the father of our subject, was a native of Pennsylvania, and in 1832 moved to Perry county, Ohio, and afterword to Knox county, Missouri, where he died in 1867.

Major George W. Fulton was the eldest of four children, and was a native of Fayette county, Pennsylvania, being born November 23rd, 1821. He was educated in the common schools of Pennsylvania and Ohio up to his sixteenth year, when he attended three terms of the Academy at Athens, Ohio, and then returned to his labors on his father’s farm until he became of age. He then served, first as an apprentice and afterward as a journeyman, at the carpenter’s and joiner’s trade, finally entering the mercantile profession, and, at the expiration of two years, moved to Keokuk, Iowa, then to Hannibal, Missouri, then to Louisville, Kentucky, and thence to Edina, Knox county, Missouri, where he continued the mercantile business, and also engaged in building and contracting. In 1861 he took an active part in organizing the Home Guards, and was elected captain of one of the companies. Disposing of his business he enlisted in Company E, 21st Regiment Missouri Volunteer Infantry, was elected captain, and, in the Army of the Tennessee, participated in the battle at Pittsburg Landing, the series of engagements culminating at the capture of Corinth. Marching to Memphis his company was in the engagement against Forrest, after which they went to the relief of General Banks in the Red River Campaign.

Returning from thence to Missouri the regiment fought against Price in his raid of 1864, and in the summer of that year he was commissioned Major. On his return home from the army he was elected sheriff and collector of Knox county, re-elected in 1866, and held the position for two years, meanwhile resuming his former profession as merchant and also becoming extensively engaged in shipping grain, wood and stock. He likewise owned and operated the Edina flouring mills.

In 1872 he disposed of his entire business and removed to Rice county, Kansas, when the country was but thinly settled, where he began operations in farming and stock raising, in which he was very successful. In 1878 he erected the Anchor Steam Flouring Mills at a cost of $20,000, in Kinsley, where he has since resided.

Mr. Fulton was married May 2, 1847, to Miss Hannah Sycks, daughter of John and Mary Sycks, of Greene county, Pennsylvania, by whom he had twelve children, eight of whom are now living and named respectively: John A., Francis E., Phoeba S., Dora A., George W. Jr., Margaret W., U.S. Grant and Charles L. All married except the three latter named boys.

After reading the above, Rev. Wilson made a few remarks concerning the deceased, the points were: Mr. Fultonh was 68 years, 1 month and 26 days old when he died; twice elected mayor of this city; he was a Mason in good standing; a member of the G.A.R; you will miss him from your midst; there is a vacant seat in these organizations; there is a vacant chair in the home; who will miss him most; the wife will miss him in her counsel; the children will miss father on returning home.

Though not a member of any church Mr. Fulton was a close student of the Bible, and died as he had lived, and when appraised of the fact that death was inevitable he remarked, “The Lord’s Will Must be Obeyed.” Through his long suffering and illness he never complained or found fault with his lot, but bore it all patiently and with Christian resignation.

At the city election held in this city last April Mr. Fulton was elected mayor by a fair majority, although one of the strongest men of the opposition headed the ticket. In private life Mr. Fulton was a pleasant, affable gentleman, and those who have worked

A National Historic Landmark
Hillsborough County, FL
Listed: 08/28/1974
Designated an NHL: 12/14/1990

Situated a short distance northeast of Tampa's main business district, the Ybor City Historic District includes more than 1,300 buildings, nearly a thousand of which are historic, in three major enclaves. Constituting the most outstanding collection of such structures associated with late 19th- and early 20th-century Cuban and Spanish settlement in the United States and with strong Italian and other ethnic associations it contains buildings that illustrate the key aspects of those immigrants groups' experience.

The rich ethnic mosaic that is Ybor City has been characterized as "unique in America," in that "it was conceived by a Spanish promoter, born of men's craving for good cigars and spanked into robust hectic life by the war that made the United States a world power." Founded in 1886, by Vincente Martinez Ybor, Ybor City was "a company town" whose "foundation was based upon immigrant ideas, capital, and labor." Although it contained numbers of Italians as well as a sprinkling of Germans, Rumanian Jews, and Chinese, the area's cultural tone was set by the overwhelming preponderance of persons of Cuban, including Black Cubans, and Spanish origin. In fact, Tampa historian Karl H. Grismer has described Ybor City as "a city within a city, a city as truly Latin-American in the customs of its inhabitants as though it had been in the heart of Cuba."

The lifeblood of this Latin island that grew and prospered in the segregated Deep South was the cigar industry, and, during its heydey from the 1890s until World War II, Ybor City made Tampa "the leading cigar manufacturing city of the world." [5] Tampa cigars became famous all over the world because of the skilled Latin craftsmen who made them by hand. At its peak, the industry in Ybor City employed 20,000 persons who handcrafted cigars in 36 sizes and shapes. The cigar factories of Ybor City are also notable as a nursery for the Cuban Revolution from Spain. The city's Cuban population helped promote the revolutionary activity in Cuba in the late 19th century that culminated in the Spanish-American War and Cuban independence. Jose Marti, the poet-patriot commonly referred to as the "George Washington of Cuba," delivered some of his most significant speeches to the Cuban populace here. As a result of the activities of Marti and other revolutionaries, Tampa became "the principal port through which arms and ammunition were sent to Cuban insurgents" in the 1890s. Also, fittingly perhaps, the U.S. invasion of Cuba in 1898 was launched from Tampa.

In addition, Ybor City's ethnic clubs were the scene of "a progressive scheme of co-operative medicine ... which was to thrive and outlive any similar plan in the United States." In addition to their usual functions, these immigrant social and benevolent organizations contracted with physicians and medical personnel to provide care to their memberships at set rates included in the clubs' dues. Despite the opposition of organized medical groups, these plans prospered and are still offered in Ybor City.

Lastly, Ybor City, as a multiethnic and multiracial community in the American Deep South, is particularly illustrative of the multi-faceted history of ethnic and race relations from shortly after Reconstruction until the 1960s; the association of late 19th- and early 20th-century immigration with industrial communities is not unusual, but it is exceptional in the South, which historically has had relatively little industry and few immigrants. Tampa's ethnics formed a distinct enclave socially and politically. The city's Afro-Cubans, in addition, formed a community within this enclave. Segregated by law, they were long excluded, in many ways, from both the Latin and Black communities in Tampa.

The Ybor City Historic District, situated a short distance northeast of Tampa's principal business section, retains historic commercial and commercial-residential edifices; industrial buildings, mainly cigar factories; ethnic facilities, and early examples of worker housing that powerfully illustrate all these aspects of the community's history. Most of the buildings have architectural features or other characteristics that display their unity with the distinctive ethnic traditions of the city.