Melville Weston Fuller was born in Augusta, Maine, on February 11, 1833. Fuller graduated from Bowdoin College in 1853 and studied law at Harvard for six months. In 1855, he began to practice law in Augusta and a year later moved west to Chicago, where he had a successful law practice and entered politic. On April 30, 1888, President Grover Cleveland nominated Fuller to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and he held that position until his death almost 22 years later. Fuller was a conciliator who was instrumental in issuing decisions that weakened the Sherman Anti-Trust laws.