Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 3
1830-06-30
Morning fine, but it seems now hardly possible to go through a day without some rain. I went to town as usual, and passed my morning in making out my Accounts against the different Tenants and preparing my receipts as usual. This occupied much time. I have had little leisure to read any thing this season. My time seems short, and what 272with interruptions and small necessary jobs, I get on but indifferently in any studies I choose to lay down to myself. My intention was to have read Hutchinson and Minot, but I have not been able as yet to touch them. Returned to Medford to dine. Afternoon taken up with Company. Mr. Frothingham’s relations, his Mother and sisters came to see him and the place. And they took tea.
Mr. Fuller the receiving Teller of the Branch Bank has gone off with forty thousand dollars—A Circumstance that produced considerable excitement here.1 I saw him there so often that I had formed a kind of idea of his honesty which it seems circumstances prove very absurd. Every body now cries out how extravagant he was. The Bank would have thanked them perhaps if they had done it sooner. Evening at home. Winthrop.
On the evening of 28 June, John Fuller, second teller in the Boston branch of the U.S. Bank, settled his accounts and handed over to the cashier his locked trunk, supposed to contain his balance of cash. The trunk was placed in the vault until morning. On the 29th Fuller did not appear; the trunk was opened and found empty. Reward was offered and a wide search begun. A week later he surrendered himself, returning all but $600 of the $40,000 taken. (Boston Patriot, 30 June, p. 2, col. 2; 10 July, p. 2, col. 3.)