'True-blue horseman' Percy Fuller of Westhampton dies at age 88
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WESTHAMPTON - Percy Fuller, a man whose talents training horses and young riders were legendary up and down the Pioneer Valley, died in Northampton on Tuesday. He was 88.
On Wednesday, family and friends remembered Fuller as a "true-blue horseman," whose gift for training, breeding and showing horses was matched only by his passion for teaching generations of young riders and pairing them with prospective horses.
"He was a true horseman through and through. I think he really loved working with horses, he loved making horses available to people," his daughter, Carolyn Fuller Coggins, said in a phone interview Wednesday. "He was a character. People enjoyed him because he had a lot of charm. They liked being around him."
Coggins said her father had been diagnosed with a heart condition 13 years ago, a condition that ultimately claimed his life this week.
Fuller's death leaves a large hole in the Valley's equestrian community. He was a longtime member of the Hampshire County Riding Club, the Massachusetts Morgan Horse Club and ran the Massachusetts Morgan Horse show during the 1980s. He was a 4-H leader for a number of years and ran the horse programs for Camp Sandybrook Girl Scout Camp in Huntington and Camp Howe 4-H Camp in Goshen. And he was a renowned breeder who sold horses to many throughout the Valley and beyond.
He was particularly fond of offering his services driving newlyweds to their weddings in his elegant, white horse-drawn carriage, Coggins said.
At a party honoring his life's work this summer, 200 people showed up at the family's Westhampton farm.
But most famously, he founded the Fuller Country Horse Camp for Girls in 1963 with the help of his first wife, Marilyn. The overnight camp ran for 30 years before being taken over by Coggins, who now runs it as a day camp.
"There are a lot of people who go through their lives wondering if they made a difference. I don't think Percy had that problem," said John Cowley, owner of Hampton Veterinary Services in Easthampton. "I think he made a difference in a lot of lives.
"He was a true-blue, old-fashioned horseman," Cowley said.
Cowley became Fuller's veterinarian soon after he started practicing in the Pioneer Valley in 1986. And although the two became close over that time, Cowley said he always called his friend "Mr. Fuller."
"I don't know why I did that," Cowley said. "He didn't demand it, but his presence did."
Beth Brogle, 50, of Holyoke, attended the Fuller Horse Camp as a teenager. She and her sister Lori learned of the camp in a small advertisement in the paper.
"We were both scared our first day," Brogle recalled. "It was a small farmhouse and the bunkhouses were actually a two-car garage. And we thought, oh boy, we're really in for it."
Instead, the camp changed the trajectory of the two sisters' lives, Brogle said. On the first day, Fuller would watch the 20 or so campers ride in the riding ring. The next day he would match each camper with a horse for a week.
"He was just truly gifted," Brogle said. "He was a great teacher. He had a wonderful sense of humor and never showed disrespect to any person or animal."
When she struggled during her freshman year in college, Brogle said she would seek solace riding at Fuller's Southampton Road farm. Today, her sister Lori lives in Westhampton and rides at Fuller's farm every day, Brogle said.
It is perhaps one of the great ironies of Fuller's life that one of the Valley's best riding teachers never once took a riding lesson. Growing up on his parents' dairy farm in Granby, he began working with his father's draft horses from an early age and taught himself to ride, Coggins said.
"I started riding when I was 10 or 12," Fuller told the Gazette in an interview this past July. "I liked that instead of walking I could ride a horse. I rode two or three times from Granby to Westhampton - about 22 miles. That's the longest I ever went."
His talents training animals were apparent early on, his daughter said. A photo of a 16-year-old Fuller shows him seated upon his horse, waving his hat above his head, his horse's hooves lifted high in the air before him. Family legend has it that Fuller trained two cows to ride on a seesaw together.
After graduating from Ludlow High School and attending some short courses at Cornell University, he got a job at the Morgan Horse Farm the federal government set up to promote the Morgan breed.
"I liked the Morgans," Fuller told the Gazette. "They were stylish and pretty. Still, I found the quarter horses were more gentle."
After the University of Vermont took over the Morgan farm, Fuller moved back to Westhampton with his first wife, Marilyn, and set up Fuller's Country Horse Camp on what had been his father's land. The couple raised five children together before Marilyn's death in 1980. He married a second time, to Barbara (Devine) Fuller. Besides his five children, he leaves four stepchildren, nine grandchildren, three-great grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.
"He loved and took pride in his family," Coggins said.
Calling hours will be held on Friday, from 5 to 8 p.m., at Mitchell Funeral Home at 15 Park St. in Easthampton. There will be a prayer service at the funeral home at 7 p.m.. A funeral service is planned for the spring.
Gazette staff writer Owen Boss contributed to this story.
