Lyman B. Lull Jr.

Lyman B. Lull Jr. was born in 1842 in Beverly (?), Canada, the son of Lyman B. Sr. (b. 1801) and Harriet (Patrick, b. 1803).

His parents were both born in Vermont and probably married there. They eventually settled in New York sometime before 1833 and by 1836 had moved to Canada where they remained for at least six years before moving to Michigan. By 1850 the family had settled in Vergennes, Kent County, and Lyman was attending school with his siblings. By 1860 Lyman Jr. was a farm laborer working for and/or living with Edwin Will, a wealthy farmer in Cannon, Kent County, while his father and stepmother Amy were living in Lowell, Kent County where Lyman Sr. worked as a farmer.

Lyman Jr. stood 5’5” with blue eyes, dark hair and a fair complexion and was 19 years old and may have been residing in Muskegon County when he enlisted with his parents’ consent in Company H on May 6, 1861. He had been promoted to Corporal by the time he was shot in the left thigh on May 31, 1862, at Fair Oaks, Virginia.

On June 8 Lull was hospitalized, and by the first week in July he was a patient in Buttonwood Street hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and as of July 26, he was in the Fifth Street hospital in Philadelphia and reported to be “doing well.” It was noted in his medical records that “The gun-shot ball passed on right hip -- 1 inch above troc. major and directly backwards, was extracted 1 inch from anus.” He remained hospitalized until he was discharged for gunshot wound of the left thigh on December 20, 1862, at Germantown near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

It is not known if Lyman ever returned to Michigan.

In fact, it appears that he remained in Philadelphia while he applied for a pension in late 1863. In his pension application statement of November 7, 1863, he claimed that “pieces of bone still continue to come from the wound.” (He was granted pension no. 104,119.) (His father and stepmother Amy were living in Lowell and Vergennes, Kent County in 1870.)

He was still living in Philadelphia when he reentered the service in Company B, One hundred ninety-eighth Pennsylvania infantry on August 15, 1864, at Philadelphia for 1 year, listing his occupation as dentist, and crediting Philadelphia, Fourteenth Ward. He was detailed as a provost guard in September of 1864 and was the left general guide of the Regiment with rank of Sergeant on October 18, and was absent sick in Jarvis hospital in Baltimore, Maryland from November through February 1865. In fact he was in the hospital from December 5-6, 1864, no diagnosis given; and was reported as a Sergeant from December 7 to 25, 1864, suffering from acute rheumatism, and again from December 26, 1864 to January 9, 1865, and January 9 to February 23, when he was returned to duty. In January and February of 1865 he reportedly owed the sutler $8.00, and in March and April owed $15.00 to the sutler. He was mustered out on June 3, 1865 in the field, still owing the sutler $15.00.

Lyman returned to Philadelphia where he lived out the rest of his life.

He was married twice, first to Grace Edgar Jones (d. 1879), and second, in October of 1881 to Sarah Amanda Strunk, both in Philadelphia.

In late November of 1892 he was seriously injured in an explosion of illuminating gas at the S. S. Shite dental supply company, Twelfth and Chestnut Streets in Philadelphia. In 1900 Lull reported to the Medical Division of the Pension Department that at the time of the explosion he had his “ribs and wrist broken and spine injured [and] was confined to my bed for several months then, and in very poor health for several years after. In 1898 I commenced to grow much worse and in October and for several months after was almost entirely helpless. I finally went to the ‘Howard Hospital’ [in Philadelphia] and was treated for spinal trouble there by Dr. J. Madison Taylor who said he had no doubt it was caused by an injury and the above injury is the only one I ever received, except [for the] gunshot wound while in the army. I am obliged to wear an iron frame now and the Dr. gives me no hope of ever being able to go without it.”

Lyman was living in Philadelphia in 1890 and in June of 1898 he was living at the southeast corner of Twelfth and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia, the following year he was residing at 853 Perkimonen or Peckromen Street, Philadelphia, and in May of 1912 he was residing at 976 North Sixty-sixth Street in Philadelphia.