Van Fuller was born around 1857 in North Carolina. Fuller was a striker who resided in Pleasant Grove (Alamance County), North Carolina. Fuller was charged with larceny on May 22, 1878, and sentenced to two years in the North Carolina State Penitentiary. Fuller was recorded in the North Carolina State Penitentiary's Descriptive Register for the Years 1869-1884 as prisoner number 2705. In the descriptive register, Fuller's race is noted as Black. Fuller was twenty-one years old when he was arrested. Fuller was noted as possessing no formal education, meaning he could not read or write at that time. During his incarceration, Fuller was leased to the Western North Carolina Railroad Company to work on railroad construction. He was discharged on March 15, 1880. In 1902, Fuller was arrested and convicted of arson for burning two barns in Hillsborough (Orange County), North Carolina, and was sentenced to thirty years in prison. Fuller’s sentence was commuted by the governor in 1917, when he was around seventy years old.