BENJAMIN RUFUS FITZGERALD

(From the History of Callaway County Missouri, 1884, page 589-590)
Transcribed by Kris Breid, 29 March 2008

BENJAMIN RUFUS FITZGERALD, farmer. The Fitzgerald family is an old one in the history of the country and an energetic one, and no less honorable in America than it is ancient and noble in Great Britain, whence the American branch is descended. There was a Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Duke of Leinster, whose wife, Pamela, was a half sister to the last king (Louis Philippi) of the French; and then there is Lord John D. Fitzgerald, present member of the House of Peers of England. And in our own country was Hon. William Fitzgerald, who defeated Davy Crockett for Congress in Tennessee, and Hon. Thomas Fitzgerald who served under General Harrison in the War of 1812, and subsequently becoming a citizen of Michigan, succeeded General Cass in the United States Senate from that State. Many other distinguished members of the family might be mentioned.

Benjamin R. Fitzgerald, the subject of the present sketch, was born in Callaway county on the 13th of March, 1846, and was a son of William Fitzgerald, born September 9, 1814, originally of Virginia, where the American branch of the family first settled, and Mary J. Corley, born February 26, 1820, in the same State, who were married in 1841. Immediately after their marriage they immigrated to Missouri in 1842, locating on Grand river, in Livingston county, where he [sp?] lived for two years, moving from there to Callaway county where they reared their family and lived until their deaths. The father died July 27, 1851, and the mother died in widowhood, March 7, 1879. They reared a family of five children: Margaret B., born April 1, 1843, wife of Samuel H. Day; Marcella, born September 4, 1844; Benjamin R., born March 13, 1846; William T., born November 19, 1848, and Mary E., born October 26, 1851, wife of Robert T. Hayse. Of the Corley family, of whom Mrs. F. was a member, there was William H., born October 17, 1807, died August 11, 1882; Nancy R., born March 26, 1809, died October 1, 1875; Susan S., born October 9, 1810; John N., born December 14, 1811, died in Virginia in 1882; Daniel S., born February 26, 1814; Edmund B., born November 18, 1815; Austin B., born October 5, 1817; Mourning M., born November 4, 1821; Eliza H., born January 26, 1823; Elizabeth F., born June 22, 1826; Samuel H., born October 12, 1828; Martha A., born October 4, 1830. Benjamin R. Fitzgerald was reared on the farm of his uncle, Edmund B. Corley, and has followed farming from boyhood. He is still unmarried. He is one of the energetic, industrious farmers of the township, and is well respected.

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