Photo courtesy of
Montgomery County Historical Society

The Somerset Historic District

Fuller House (formerly 4723 Dorset) - 1893-1965

Virtual House Tour

You can only tour this Queen Anne style Victorian house 'virtually.' It was demolished in 1965. It was one of the original five houses built by the Town's founders and was built for Miles Fuller and his wife Nora in 1893-94. Mr. Fuller was the business manager for the Somerset Heights venture, and as did the Town's other four founders, he owned many building lots, and built many houses in the Town of Somerset.

Like the other founders, Mr. Fuller worked for the Department of Agriculture: he was Chief Clerk in the Bureau of Animal Industry. He was an attorney and was said to be a direct descendent of Edward and Samuel Fuller who came to Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower. He married Nora Swing and they had four children, three girls and a boy. Miles Fuller left the Department of Agriculture in 1899 to open a school for secretaries, called "The Drillery," at 11th and New York Avenue in Washington, D.C. He sold his Somerset home in 1900, and died two years later at the age of 44. His wife carried on the sales of his other Somerset houses.

One of Fuller's daughters, Mary Claire, born in 1888, became one of the most popular stars of the silver screen staring in, among other silent movies, the 1912 Edison series "What Happened To Mary?" and its follow up "Who Will Marry Mary?" But by 1920 Mary Fuller disappeared from the limelight. She had given up film making to pursue other interests in music and painting. Mary never wed and after the death of her mother in 1940 she suffered a breakdown. Her sister, Mabel Fuller McSween, cared for her until 1947 when Mary was admitted to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. where she remained for the rest of her life. She died in 1973 at the age of 85 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Congressional Cemetery. *

The Fullers sold their Somerset home in 1900 to Edwin and Ann Howell. For many years it was rented to the DeCoursey family who purchased it in the 1940's. Mr. DeCoursey was a Harvard Law graduate who became a volunteer ambulance driver in World War I. He later practiced law and taught at Georgetown University. The DeCourseys had four children: Betty, Harold, John and Pattie. The house was sold in 1950 to Fred W. Turnbull, a patent attorney in private practice. Mr. Turnbull was a longstanding member of the St. Andrew's Society and often could be seen and heard playing the bagpipes on the verandah and lawns of his property. He served as the Town's Mayor from 1956 to 1958. The Somerset Woman's Club met in the house at times and one member remembers that "the living room floor sagged frighteningly!" In 1965, the Fuller house was sold to a developer, was demolished, and three new houses were erected on its grounds.

*Robert S. Birchard, What Happened To Mary?
www.hollywoodheritage.org/newsarchive/Fall99/Mary.html

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