Lincoln County, SD Biographies.....Fitzgerald, William 1845 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 February 12, 2022, 6:42 pm

Source: MEMORIAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF Turner, Lincoln, Union and Clay Counties, South Dakota. (1897)
Author: Geo. Ogle & Co.

WILLIAM FITZGERALD. Among the men who are conducting the farming interests of
Lincoln county are many old soldiers who helped save the Union in the late war. Our
subject occupies an honorable place as one of this class, and the farm on section 3
of Perry township, compares favorably with others in its vicinity.

Mr. Fitzgerald was born in Wayne county, N. Y., in 1845, and when a lad, with his
parents located in Greene county, Wis., where he passed the boyhood days and in the
common-schools of his district, acquired the rudiments of an education. He was one
of a family of thirteen children born to Michael and Ellen (Corcoran) Fitzgerald,
both the latter being natives of Ireland and born near the city of Dublin, where
they grew to mature years and were married. They came at once to America after this
event and settled in Wayne county, N. Y., where the husband and father was engaged
in railroad contracting, assisting in the construction of some of the first railways
in this country. Of the children born to Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald, we note the
following: Maurice, served in the Civil war, and during an engagement at Mobile,
Ala., was wounded, from the effects of which he died in 1866, he left two sons and
one daughter, all residing in Philadelphia; Elizabeth, married Alfred Clark, of
Monroe, Wis.; Ellen, married George Degroth, of Whitewater, Wis.; Stephen also
served in the late war and now lives in Butler county, Iowa; Mary, is the wife of
Washington Lenhart, of Minneapolis; Michael lives in North Dakota; Sylvia resides at
Lake Geneva, Wis.; and the balance of the family died in infancy.

Our subject was the fourth child in the order of their birth and was just in the
opening years of a vigorous manhood when the war broke out. In 1862 he offered his
services to his country and enlisted in the Twenty-eighth Wisconsin regiment,
infantry, which regiment was transferred to the front and attached to the western
army. Mr. Fitzgerald served under Gen. Banks in the Red river campaign, participated
in the engagements at Helena, Pine Bluff and other small battles in Arkansas and
vicinity, and fought in his last engagement at Spanish Fort, Ala. In 1865 he was
mustered out with an honorable discharge and immediately returned to his home in
Wisconsin to follow the occupation of a farmer. Shortly after, however, he removed
to Butler county, Iowa, and while attending to his duties as an agriculturist found
time to woo and win Miss Sarah, a daughter of Winfield and Elmira (Calkins)
Sutherland, both natives of Genesee county, N. Y. With his young wife, in 1877, Mr.
Fitzgerald took up his residence in Lincoln county, Dak. Ter., where he now owns a
half section of land. He cleared the ground, turned the first furrows thereon,
planted crops and in the course of time fertile fields were yielding abundant
harvests. In 1878 his labor was expended for the benefit of the grasshoppers, and
all the hardships and privations that settlers in the county experienced fell
equally hard on the shoulders of our subject. It will thus be seen that Mr.
Fitzgerald had his share of adversity; but he was a hard worker and an industrious
man, and has met, by perseverance at his labor, with unqualified success in his
business as a farmer. He belongs to the G. A. R., and in the companionship of his
comrades lives over again the excitement and trying experiences of war times. In his
political views he is a decided Republican, and has been ever since he became a
voter. Mrs. Fitzgerald is a member of the Woman's Relief corps.

The family of the gentleman of whom this sketch is written consists of Albert M.,
Earl W., Fred, Nellie, George D, and Sylvia M. Earl W. was the first male child born
in Perry township.


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