Dr. Levi J. Fulk: New Kingston Physician

Dr. Levi Fulk’s ledger, covering the years 1882-1901, is in the collection of the Cumberland County Historical Society.¹ The ledger’s 193 pages contain the names of Dr. Fulk’s patients, the dates that he visited them, their ailments, the medicines given and the amount that he charged them. When he delivered a baby, he noted the sex of the child and the date of its birth. The ledger is not only helpful for those tracing their ancestors, but provides an insight into the work of a village doctor in the last two decades of the twentieth century.

Dr. Levi J. Fulk was born in Pennsylvania on March 25, 1840 to Joseph Fulk and his wife Elizabeth Conrad.² By 1880, Fulk had set up practice in New Kingston, a village in Silver Spring Township on the turnpike from Harrisburg to Chambersburg.³ The 1880 U. S. Census of New Kingston records Dr. Fulk’s household as consisting of Fulk aged 37, his wife Sarah J., aged 39, step-son William R. Bell, aged 12, and step-daughter, Maggie J., aged 9.⁴

In 1900, Fulk’s neice, 21-year old Elizabeth J. Hays, was living with them. Dr. Fulk and his wife, Sarah, nee Cornman,⁵ were married for 25 years at the time of her death in 1902.

Dr. Fulk died on August 9, 1909. His obituary appeared in the Harrisburg Daily Independent on August 10, 1909.  “Dr. Levi Fulk, a well-known physician of New Kingston died at his home in that place yesterday. Death was due to a complication of diseases and the infirmities produced by advancing years. The deceased was sixty-nine years of age and had been a resident of New Kingston for thirty-one years. He retired from the active practice of his profession about ten years ago and has since lived retired.” Dr. Fulk and his wife are both buried at Silver Spring Presbyterian Church.