Tribute to Richard Burton Fitzgerald  

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Richard Burton Fitzgerald was a brickmaker and prominent businessman in Durham, NC. Born free in New Castle County, DE in 1843, Fitzgerald’s parents moved their family to Chester County, PA in 1855 to reduce the risk of being taken by slave catchers and sold into slavery under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

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At the beginning of the Civil War, Fitzgerald joined the Quartermaster Department as a civilian contractor in Philadelphia, as blacks were not yet allowed to serve in the military. In 1862, he was transferred to the Army of the Potomac's Washington supply base, where he drove mules for the Union army, spending most of 1862 at Harrison's Landing and the Fort Monroe area. The United States Colored Troops were founded the following year, and Fitzgerald later in the war served as a merchant seaman.

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In 1869, Fitzgerald and his brother joined their family on a farm east of Hillsborough, North Carolina, where they had settled and purchased the land. The brothers set up a brickyard at the family farm, aided by their father and another brother. However, a financial crisis gripped the country and locally a bad drought occurred. The Fitzgerald brick business had produced 40,000 bricks but had no buyers. The brothers made several trips to Raleigh, NC to try to sell their bricks, but to no avail. The Fitzgerald brothers were able to subsequently secure an order for 4,000 bricks for state railroad improvements, and a contract to make 4,000,000 bricks for construction of the new state penitentiary in Raleigh.

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The brothers began the contracts in the spring of 1870, hiring a crew to assist with production. They soon traveled to Raleigh and began setting up the brick production site, however, a flash flood destroyed several thousand bricks. They salvaged some of the bricks, and produced 525,000 more, for which they were paid eighty-five cents per thousand. After paying off their business debts and their laborers, they came away with a net profit of $83.10 for four months' work.

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Fitzgerald moved to Durham, NC building his business and becoming a major figure in the city's black community. He married Sarah Ann Williams in 1870 and they had 12 children together. Fitzgerald and his brother began manufacturing bricks in Durham’s West End neighborhood in 1879 to meet the booming Bull City’s growing demand for building materials. Within several years, he was the leading brickmaker in Durham and his bricks were used for major construction projects in the state's largest cities, including the capital. Fitzgerald then expanded his business to include real estate and banking. Through his investments and business leadership, Richard Fitzgerald became Durham’s first African American millionaire and a generous philanthropist.

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After building his enterprise, he became president of Mechanics and Farmers Bank in Durham (now the second oldest black-owned bank in America) and was involved in other business ventures throughout North Carolina. He also served as the first president of Coleman Manufacturing Company, the first cotton mill in the United States to be owned and operated by blacks established in 1897. Additionally, the Fitzgerald family had a hand in most of what came to define the West End community - including their brickyard along Kent St., the office building they constructed at the corner of Chapel Hill St. and Kent St. (still standing), and the land they donated for St. Emmanuel AME church (still standing).