Fulkerson Family Tree

Our Family History

Early History

The New Amsterdam Days

New Amsterdam is too often overlooked or overshadowed in American colonial history — by the earlier Virginia settlement which gave birth to the Southern plantation economy, and by the Massachusetts Bay Colony which bred religious extremism that rivaled today’s Islamic radicalism.  New Amsterdam, in fact, contributed far more to the American culture than either of them.  New Amsterdam gave us bowling, Christmas and New Year celebrations, cookies, coleslaw, the first organized church in America, ice skating, log cabins, magicians, pancakes, property ownership for women, public education for both sexes, religious tolerance, the right of dissent, the rule of law, street paving, and tennis.

Maps

The Colonial Period

A Quaker man and wife are led to execution in Boston.

The Pilgrims gave us Thanksgiving. For many of us, that’s all we know about Colonial American history.  But the good Pilgrims also spent decades persecuting peaceful Quaker men and women – hanging some from an elm tree on Boston Common, others at Gallows Hill.  On occasion the Pilgrims were merciful – they merely escorted the Quakers to the Connecticut border….but at every little town along the route, they stripped them naked and whipped them in the public square. That part of Massachusetts history never got into our school books, and so we spent every November during our childhood idolizing the Pilgrims.

In the meantime, our Fulkerson ancestors labored to create more progressive and democratic colonies in New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Virginia.

The American Revolution

Revolutionary War Pension Document Images

[NOTE: Most of the images are reduced to fit your computer screen, but retain a high quality resolution for printing.]

A New Nation

Civil War

The Wild West

Pure Gold