Thomas Fitch (politician) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Thomas Fitch
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| Member of the California State Assembly from the 15th district |
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| In office 1862–1863 |
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| Delegate to the Nevada Constitutional Convention | |
| In office July 4, 1864 – July 28, 1864 |
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| Washoe County District Attorney | |
| In office 1865–1866 |
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Nevada's at-Large district |
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| In office March 4, 1869 – March 3, 1871 |
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| Preceded by | Delos R. Ashley |
| Succeeded by | Charles West Kendall |
| Delegate to the Utah Constitutional Convention | |
| In office February 19, 1872 – March 2, 1872 |
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| Delegate to the United States Senate from the Utah Territory | |
| In office March 18, 1872 – 1872 |
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| Arizona Territorial Legislature | |
| In office 1879–1879 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | January 27, 1838 New York City |
| Died | November 12, 1923 (aged 85) Decoto, California |
| Resting place | Chapel of the Chimes Memorial Park, Hayward, California |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Annie M. Shultz |
| Profession | U.S. Congressional Representative; lawyer; writer and newspaper editor; district attorney |
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Thomas Fitch (January 27, 1838 – November 12, 1923) was an American lawyer and politician. He defended President Brigham Young of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other church leaders when Young and his denomination were prosecuted for polygamy in 1871 and 1872. He also successfully defended Virgil, Morgan, and Wyatt Earp along with Doc Holliday when they were accused of murdering Billy Clanton, and Tom and Frank McLaury during the October 26, 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Fitch wrote for and edited a number of newspapers during his life and served in multiple political offices. He was a stout Republican and campaigned for Abraham Lincoln across Nevada. He developed a reputation as a capable lawyer and a terrific speaker and was nicknamed the "silver-tongued orator of the Pacific." He was a member of the California State Assembly in 1862 and 1863. In 1864, he was living in Virginia City, Nevada, where he edited the Virginia Daily Union. He became friends with Mark Twain who credited him with improving his writing. Fitch was a delegate to the Nevada state constitutional convention and also served as a member of the Utah state constitutional convention. He was a member of the Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1879.
He witnessed the laying of the first rail at the western terminus of the Overland Route in Sacramento and the last one at Promontory Point in Utah. He practiced law, mostly in Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, moving frequently during his life among these states. He also briefly practiced law in Minnesota and New York. According to one obituary he was one of "the three great orators who kept California loyal to the Union during the Civil War".
Family life
Fitch was born in New York City on January 27, 1838. His father Thomas was a merchant and he attended public schools. His family had lived in New England for six or seven generations. One of his ancestors, Sir Thomas Fitch, was Governor of Connecticut when it was a colony. At age ten years he "made the struggle of life alone," "when a young man" and until the age of 21 "was engaged in merchandising."
Thomas married three times His first wife was Mary H Wainright. They married in 1858 in San Francisco, California. They had two sons Francis born 1859 & Thomas born 1862. Mary died giving birth to Thomas. His second wife was Anna Mariska Shultz. They married in 1863 in San Francisco, California. Anna died in 1904 in Los Angeles California. His third wife was Serena (Rena) Fitch née Dodds.They married 28 Mar 1905 in San Bernardino, California
Move west
He moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1855, and then to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1856, where he started work as a clerk. In 1859, he found a job as local editor for the Milwaukee Free Democrat where he worked for one year before moving to San Francisco, California, in the summer of 1860.
Upon arriving in San Francisco, he campaigned across the state for the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin for U.S. President and U.S. Vice President "with telling effect".
He wrote for the San Francisco Gazette and became editor of the Times. While in San Francisco he married his second wife Anna Mariska Shultz in 1863. He read law at the firm of Shafter, Heydenfeld & Gould in San Francisco.
In 1862, he moved to the California foothills and El Dorado County, where he wrote for the Placerville Republican. He was elected to the California State Assembly as the representative for the 15th District in 1862 and 1863.
Association with Mark Twain
In 1863 he went to Nevada where he was named editor of the Virginia Daily Union. On August 1, 1863, Samuel Clemens (who also wrote under the nom de plume of "Mark Twain") was writing for the Virginia City newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise, and reported that Fitch had challenged Joseph T. Goodman, the editor of the competing newspaper, the Enterprise, to a duel. Goodman wrote an insulting article about Fitch, and Fitch impulsively challenged Goodman to a duel. Goodman had not written the article, but stood behind it and accepted the challenge. Before the duel commenced, Goodman learned that Fitch was unfamiliar with guns and at the first shot, deliberately wounded Fitch below the knee. Goodman instantly ran to Fitch's side and apologized, and insisted on taking care of Fitch until he healed. The two men became friends.
Clemens reported the duel differently: "They went out to fight this morning, with navy revolvers, at fifteen paces. The police interfered and prevented the duel." Fitch, his wife, sister-in-law, and mother-in-law occupied a suite of rooms across the hall from Clemens and Dan DeQuille in the Dagget Building in Virginia City. Fitch started his own eight-page weekly literary journal, The Weekly Occidental, in which Clemens was very interested. Fitch planned to publish a novel in serial form, with successive weekly chapters contributed by Fitch, his wife Anna, J. T. Goodman, Dan De Quille, Rollin M. Daggett and Clemens. The Occidental was published from October 29, 1864, until April 15, 1865, but ceased publication before Twain could contribute.
Clemens credited Fitch with giving him his "first really profitable lesson" in writing. In 1866, Clemens presented his lecture on the Sandwich Islands to a crowd in Washoe City. Clemens commented that, "When I first began to lecture, and in my earlier writings, my sole idea was to make comic capital out of everything I saw and heard." Fitch told him, "Clemens, your lecture was magnificent. It was eloquent, moving, sincere. Never in my entire life have I listened to such a magnificent piece of descriptive narration. But you committed one unpardonable sin—the unpardonable sin. It is a sin you must never commit again. You closed a most eloquent description, by which you had keyed your audience up to a pitch of the intensest interest, with a piece of atrocious anti-climax which nullified all the really fine effect you had produced."
Admitted to bar
Fitch kept up his law studies and in 1864 was admitted to the bar by the Nevada Supreme Court. In the same year he was elected from Virginia City as a delegate to the Nevada State Constitutional Convention. He was nominated by the Union Party and unsuccessfully campaigned for the role as territorial delegate to Congress from the Nevada Territory in 1864. He also campaigned across Nevada for Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. In 1865 Fitch moved to Washoe County and soon after was appointed county district attorney. When his term as district attorney expired in 1866, he moved to Belmont, Nevada, and practiced law there until 1868. He was elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives and the Forty-first Congress of the United States, serving from March 4, 1869 – March 3, 1871, and opened his first law practice.
In December 1869, he spoke against the pending anti-polygamy Cullom Bill, which would strip the Utah territory's residents of local authority. It proposed instead to outlaw the Utah Territorial Legislature, eliminate the offices of the territorial marshal and attorney general and transfer their authority to federal officers, give the federally appointed Governor the authority to appoint all officers in the territory, excluding constables, and place all local and territorial matters in the hands of federally appointed officials. Fitch attempted to persuade Congress that they should avoid the prospect of another Mormon war.
His opposition to the bill may have cost him votes at home, and he was not reelected in 1870 even though he represented the dominant Republican party. In 1870, his wife published her first novel, Bound Down: Or Life And Its Possibilities. Tom and his wife published Better days: or, A millionaire of to-morrow in 1891, and she wrote two more books in 1891 and 1893.
Later career
After his time in Arizona, Fitch spent two years traveling through Europe, the Southern United States, and California, after which he lived in Arizona for four years where he practiced law. In 1880 he removed to Minneapolis and formed a partnership with Mr. Morrison, which took the title of Morrison and Fitch.
In 1884 he left Arizona and for the next eight years resided part of the time in San Diego, and some time in San Francisco County. In 1891, he defended Ed Tewksbury who was accused of murdering Tom Graham in one of the final acts of violence growing out of the Pleasant Valley War in central Arizona. He settled in New York City in December 1892 for a period before he returned full-time to Arizona in 1893. He briefly moved to Utah in 1894 when the territory was granted statehood and announced his candidacy for United States senator but failed to receive the nomination. Fitch returned to Arizona and settled in Phoenix where he remained through at least 1896.
Later in his life he credited his oratorical skills to the influence of Col. E. D. Baker and Thomas Starr King and to the time he spent with Mark Twain and Joaquin Miller. He also said he was influenced by the friendship of Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker. He spoke in Phoenix in 1906 in support of the territory's desire for dual statehood with New Mexico. He lived at different times in San Diego and in Honolulu. While in Hawaii, he represented sake manufacturers who were attempting to have their product classified as a beer instead of a liquor for customs purposes. In 1909 moved to Los Angeles where he became a writer for the Los Angeles Times, a position he held through 1916. He died at a Masonic home in Decoto, California, on November 12, 1923. He was interred in Cypress (later renamed Chapel of the Chimes) Cemetery in Decoto (later Hayward), California.
