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John R. Fulton, the efficient Station Agent of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad, and also agent for the American Express Company, at Ray, Ind., first settled near this place in 1854.  After a residence of some years in Kansas he returned to Ray about twelve years ago, since which time he has been employed in his present business.

The subject of this narrative was born in Logan County, Ohio, Nov. 11, 1837, and is the son of Henry and Catherine (McBeth) Fulton, natives of Pennsylvania.  During their youth they removed with their respective parents to the Buckeye State, where they subsequently became acquainted and were united in marriage.  Induced by the glowing accounts which reached them from this partially developed State they removed to Michigan in 1854, and settled on a farm in California Township, Branch County, where they resided, laboring in its improvement and cultivation until their decease.  They became the parents of five children, one of whom, Sarah J., died in early womanhood.  The other four are:  David, a carpenter of Bellefontaine, Ohio; Joseph, a farmer of Jackson County, Kan.; William H., who is engaged in the insurance business at Indianapolis, and our subject, who was the youngest of the family.

Mr. Fulton was reared on the farm and received his education in the district schools of his township, and was thus engaged until the removal of the family to the West.  Upon their settlement in Michigan he continued to reside with the family, assisting in improving the land, and thus passed his life uneventfully until his marriage, which took place in 1860, Ellen L. Reynolds, who was born in Califonria Township on the 4th of September, 1842, becoming his wife.  She was the daughter of Thomas H. and Olive (Lane) Reynolds, the former of whom was born in the Empire State, and migrated westward when young, with his parents, Joseph and Ruth Reynolds, and in 1836 the family settled in California Township, this county.  Mrs. Reynolds was born in Illinois, and died in California Township, in 1856, leaving five children -- Ellen, Elizabeth, Rosaline, H.T. and W.M. Thomas.  H. Reynolds was married a second time, to Elizabeth Schattuck, who bore him one child, Ira.  The father died in 1876.

Mr. Fulton followed agricutural pursuits in California Township until 1867, and then removed to Jefferson County, Kan., and purchased an unimproved farm of eighty acres.  After a residence there of seven years, during which time be suffered much from the depredations of grasshoppers, he determined to try some other locality, and disposing of his property at a sacrifice, returned to Michigan, and has since been engaged in his present employment.  Mr. Fulton has also been engaged, for about eight years, in buying grain at Ray Station, and does considerable business, affording a medium of exchange between the grower and the shipper.

Mr. and Mrs. Fulton have been blessed with a family of four children, one of whom, a daughter, died of that terrible scourge, diphtheria, in 1886, at the age of six years.  The names of the three children living are Edith O., Thomas H. and Ethel J.

In religion Mr. and Mrs. Fulton are members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, in which they take an active and leading part, and always extend their hearty co-operation in any measure inaugurated for the good of the community.  In politics Mr. Fulton is a Prohibitionist.