James Wheeler Fuller, Jr. (March 16, 1843 - January 15, 1910) was an American industrialist known for manufacturing railroad axles and wheels. The town of Fullerton, Pennsylvania

Fullerton, Pennsylvania

Fullerton is a census-designated place in Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Fullerton is a suburb of Allentown, in the Lehigh Valley region of the state.The population of Fullerton was 14,268 at the 2000 census....

 was named in his honor.

Civil War service

At the age of eighteen he enlisted in the Union Army as a member of Company F, 47th Regiment, Pennsylvania Infantry, under the command of Captain Henry S. Harte. He was promoted to Sergeant on August 30, 1861. On October 20 of the same year, he was elevated to the rank as Adjutant. After a protracted illness which overtook him during the first winter of the Civil War in Virginia, he was honorably discharged from the army and returned to his home.

Lehigh Car, Wheel & Axle Works

In 1867, he organized the firm of McKee, Fuller & Company; proprietors of the Lehigh Car, Wheel & Axle Works. Beginnings of the plant had been made during the year preceding by Charles D. Fuller, an uncle and William R. Thomas. The capacity of the shop at this time was fifteen car wheels per day. The new firm at once commenced to enlarge the plant. They bought the defunct concern of Frederick & Company, built a forge and added an axle department. Since then the firm was known as the Lehigh Car, Wheel & Axle Works, and developed an enterprise of much benefit to the business prosperity of the community. So devoted was Mr. Fuller to his charge that he made daily trips to the works, personally superintended the mixing of irons for the casting of the wheels and made the rounds among his men in whose individual welfare he was vitally concerned.

He was president of the Catasauqua Manufacturing Company, a director in the Thomas Iron Company

Thomas Iron Company

The Thomas Iron Company was a major iron-making firm in the Lehigh Valley from its organization in 1854 until its decline and eventual dismantling in the early 20th century. The firm was named in honor of its founder, David Thomas, who had emigrated to the United States in 1839 to introduce hot...

, the Wahnetah Silk Company, and the Ironton Railroad

Ironton Railroad

The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20th century...

. At the time of his death he was vice-president of the Empire Steel and Iron Company (successor to the Lehigh Crane Iron Company

Lehigh Crane Iron Company

The Lehigh Crane Iron Company was a major ironmaking firm in the Lehigh Valley from its founding in 1839 until its sale in 1899. It was founded under the patronage of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, which hoped to promote the then-novel technique of smelting iron ore with anthracite coal...

) and a director in the Lehigh Foundry Company.