Santa
Clara County
Biographies
WALTER G. FITZGERALD
Prominent among the clever and promising exponents of legal science in Santa Clara county is Walter G. Fitzgerald, a member of one of the most numerously represented pioneer families of this part of the state. Mr. Fitzgerald was born near New Almaden, Santa Clara county, August 30, 1873, and is the oldest of five children born to Thomas and Mary A. Fitzgerald, both natives of the province of Quebec, in the Dominion of Canada.
Walter Fitzgerald, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Wexford county, Ireland, about the close of the eighteenth century, and at an early age left his native land and settled near Quebec, Canada, where the father of the young attorney was born about 1840. Walter Fitzgerald, Sr., was the father of seven sons and one daughter, and while a resident of Canada followed the occupation of a farmer and lumberman. Before the discovery of gold in California, reports of the great mineral wealth and the richness of the soil of that country reached the family of the Fitzgeralds in their quiet home among the pines on the St. Lawrence, and they at once resolved to go west. In order that the truth or falsehood of the story might be learned, arrangements were immediately made to send two sons of the family to investigate, and in 1851 James and John arrived in California. They were satisfied with the climate and wealth of the state and with its future prospects, and sent word to the remainder of the family requesting that they also come to the state.
Upon receipt of the information confirming the truth of the report, Walter Fitzgerald, Sr., sold out his possessions in Canada and with the balance of his family left for California by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and arrived at San Francisco in 1853. Proceeding at once to Gilroy, Santa Clara county, he was joined by his sons James and John, and the entire family settled at that place and started to work, to build a home. The sons of Walter Fitzgerald, Sr., secured a contract from Daniel Murphy, an old friend and acquaintance of the family who had come from the same part of Canada a few years previous, to split redwood rails in the mountains west of Gilroy, and as a compensation for their labors in making rails and hauling them to the valley, secured from Mr. Murphy a thousand acre tract of valley land near Madrone. The rails taken from the virgin forest by the Fitzgeralds over fifty years ago may still be seen forming the heavy post and rail fences which enclosed the possessions of the Murphys between San Jose and Gilroy.
Walter Fitzgerald, Sr., came of a hardy and long-lived family and he himself attained the age of ninety years. All of the seven sons succeeded well in California, and James, John and Michael, together with their sister Mary, are still living on the farms near Madrone. Four of the sons, Gregory, Thomas, Patrick and William, have died in recent years. The latter were all married and reared families and have descendants living in the county.
Thomas Fitzgerald, the father of the young attorney, accumulated his earnings and purchased a ranch of about eight hundred acres between Madrone and the New Almaden mines, and thereafter devoted his time and energies to stock raising and dairying until 1884. At that time he disposed of his ranch and purchased a farm of two hundred acres near Gilroy, where he engaged in farming until his death, which occurred in 1890. He was married in California to Mary A. Cullen, a daughter of Thomas Cullen, who came to California from the same part of Canada as did Mr. Fitzgerald in 1867. Mary A. Fitzgerald, his wife, is now living on the farm near Gilroy, having with her her three youngest children, Nellie, Katie and William. Her second son, John P. Fitzgerald, also a lawyer, is residing in San Jose, where he is following his profession.
On his father's farm, near Gilroy, Walter G. Fitzgerald acquired a sound constitution and sane views of life, ambition eventually creeping in and suggesting talents and inclinations for which the farm had no need. His preliminary education was practical and thorough and was acquired in the country schools and at the grammar and high school of Gilroy. In 1895, he began the study of law in the law-office of W. A. Johnston, an able and prominent lawyer of San Jose, and after unremitting application to his studies, was admitted to the bar in December, 1897.
After being admitted to practice law, Mr. Fitzgerald followed his profession in San Jose until 1903, at which time he removed to Gilroy, and is still engaged in his profession, a general practice of the law. Full of energy and determination, and having a thorough knowledge of the theory and practice of the law, Mr. Fitzgerald is destined not only to maintain the dignity and high standing of his family, but to add to its laurels as an influential member of the bar. Politically he is a stanch Democrat, the party which has been supported by practically his entire family. Mr. Fitzgerald adds to his other desirable characteristics a genial and tactful personality, great consideration for the feelings and interests of others, and a nature admittedly sincere and straightforward.
Transcribed
7-17-15 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 692-697. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2015 Marilyn R. Pankey.