San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
FULTON HILL FAMILY NEARS END OF A 128-YEAR LEGACY
Seventy years before there was a city of San Marcos, there were Fultons living in its fertile hills. But come December, the Fulton family’s long chapter of San Marcos history will come to a close.
For 128 years, four generations of the family have lived continuously on a hilltop property known as Fulton Hill at the northeast corner of Fulton Road and Woodland Parkway in east San Marcos.
The original redwood-frame house and barn that John Fulton built after arriving on the 60-acre property in 1893 still stand. But all of the Fultons who farmed the land during the first half of the 20th century are gone.
Now, the last of the local Fultons, John’s great-granddaughter Merry Williams, 78, is ready to sell the property and move on.
Williams has lived on the property as family caretaker for the past 21 years. But
in January, she lost her husband of nearly 55 years, Roger, who died from complications of multiple sclerosis at age 80. She has decided to clear out by the end of November for a move to Nebraska, so she can live closer to her daughters and grandsons.
The 2.58-acre farmhouse property will be sold, most likely for real estate development. Williams’ mother, Madelaine Fulton, sold all of the 60-acre property in 1969 to a developer with a lease/ buyback option for the small lot on Fulton Hill that Madelaine eventually bought back. The other 57.4 acres were developed in the 1970s into the the 330-unit Madrid Manor mobile-home park, which surrounds the farm on three sides.
Williams said she’ll miss many things at Fulton Hill, particularly the enormous 120-year-old, twin-trunk pepper tree that survived a lightning strike in 1980. But fortunately her memories can travel with her.
“I was determined to stay for the rest of Roger’s life, but now that he’s gone, there’s no need to stay,” she said. “I will miss it here, but I’m taking my pictures and my family history with me.”
Historian Linda Dudik has lived in San Marcos for 44 years, and she taught history at Palomar College for 34 years. Dudik said she always enjoyed looking up at the barn on the hill whenever she drove down Woodland Parkway. She said losing the Fulton family presence and property marks the end of an era for San Marcos.
“When Merry Williams moves to Nebraska, a part of San Marcos history leaves with her,” Dudik said. “The hilltop and all of its buildings remind me of our local history. More than one member of the Fulton family worked to preserve San Marcos’ past. The Fultons saw something of value in our community, even when it was in its infancy. They had faith in San Marcos decades before it was a city.”
Tanis Brown, president of the San Marcos Historical Society, said the Fultons were among several founding families who came to the region, mostly for farming, in the late 1800s. Some of these families’ names are still represented on city street signs, including Fulton, Nordahl, Borden and Cox roads and Barham Drive. Brown said most of these early settlers still have many descendants living in the San Marcos area, but besides Williams, all of the Fultons have either died or moved away.
Brown said most of what is now San Marcos was part of a 9,000-acre Mexican land grant owned by early North County settler Cave Couts. When he died in 1887, his widow sold the property to the San Marcos Land Company, which broke the property up into smaller parcels for sale. Three small communities sprung up in the area in the 1880s: Twin Oaks Valley to the north, Barham Township to the south and Richland Valley in the middle.
John Wilson Fulton and his wife, Ida Curtis Fulton, were descendants of families that had traveled west from
Ohio by wagon train in the mid-1840s. The Fultons moved from Colusa County in Northern California to the San Marcos property to farm drought-tolerant oat hay. They raised five children on the property: Charles, Albert, Grace, Sadie and Bluebell.
In 1909, eldest son Charles married Helena, a schoolteacher at the old Richland schoolhouse. They moved to a house on a nearby hill and had five children: Louise, Floyd, Madelaine, Theodore and Leroy (“Lee”). Theodore died of blood poisoning at age 13. When John Fulton died in 1947, Charles and Helena moved back to Fulton Hill with their children to take over the farm, Williams said.
Charles and Helena’s second-eldest daughter, Madelaine, left Fulton Hill after high school to attend nursing school. She got a job at a hospital in San Francisco, where she met her first husband,
George C. Mcfarland. They had four children: Donna, Merry, George (“Packy”) and John, but divorced after 13 years. Madelaine moved with her children back to Fulton Hill in 1953. She spent the rest of her life on the property, dying at age 91 in 2006, the last six years in the care of her daughter, Merry Williams.
While Fulton Hill was beloved for its cool afternoon breezes, shade-producing pepper trees and breathtaking 360-degree views of Richland Valley, it wasn’t always an easy life. An old twoseat outhouse still sits, unused, on the property, because indoor plumbing didn’t arrive until the 1950s. A “tank house” captured rainwater and stored homecanned vegetables since electricity came late, as well.
Although the house was expanded to add a third bedroom in the 1960s, it was still tiny for a large family. Williams said the Fulton children were expected to pitch
in on the farm, hauling hay bales with iron hooks, slaughtering rabbits for their meat and skins, feeding the livestock and being as selfsufficient as possible.
“Mom gave us a love of learning and ethics and also the determination, stamina and motivation to work,” Williams said.
To support her children, Madelaine worked graveyard shifts for 17 years at Palomar Hospital. She was also a school PTA president, a Cub Scout den mother, an avid photographer and, with her brother, Leland, and retired teacher Ruth Lindenmeyer, she co-founded the San Marcos Historical Society. In 1977, the San Marcos Chamber of Commerce named Madelaine “Woman of the Year.”
“She was such a charmer and was so anxious to share the history, and her family’s history,” said Brown, who met Madelaine in 1984. “Leland and Madelaine were the backbone of the historical society. They had the photos and knew who to call and Ruth got the historical library started.”
Unlike many North County cities, San Marcos remained a small town for many years. Brown said that when the city incorporated in 1963, it had fewer than 4,000 residents. That neighborhood feel appealed to the Fultons, many of whom moved away from the city for school and careers but returned to retire. Madelaine and her siblings often ate dinner together regularly at Pegah’s Kitchen restaurant, and they’re all buried together in the family plot at San Marcos
Cemetery.
Williams’ life followed the same path, leaving Fulton Hill after high school and returning to stay in her late 50s. In between, she made a life with the Rev. Roger Williams, a Presbyterian minister originally from Escondido. For 31 years, they lived in the Midwest, where he served at churches in Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri, and they had three children: Shawn, who died from a heart defect at 18 months, and daughters Michelle Phillips of Kansas and Colleen Schukei of Nebraska. In 2000, Roger retired from the ministry following his MS diagnosis. A few months later, Madelaine’s husband of 10 years, her first cousin Fred Fulton, died, so the Williamses moved to Fulton Hill to be Madelaine’s caregivers.
Williams said she’s planning a moving and estate sale on Sept. 4 to clear out the barn, which has become a local landmark for the illuminated word “JOY” on its back wall. Her brother Packy created the sign in his mom’s honor because she was such a joyful person. Williams said she’s not too sentimentally attached to the barn or the house, but she’s sad to leave the hilltop view, the sunny Christmas mornings and the trees.
“What I’ll miss most,” Williams said, with tears in her eyes, “is the aroma of the pepper trees, the smell of geraniums and honeysuckle, the sound of the bees humming in the trees, the mourning doves, crickets, and the fresh ocean breeze.”