Dr. Charles Fitzpatrick : Short Biography

I'm hoping that someone can provide me with more information about the Fitzpatrick family that this Charles Fitzpatrick came from.

Charles was born on a small farm in Aghaveans Townland, Scrabby Parish, County Cavan, in May 1800.  His father, William (born about 1775) can be found there in the 1824 Tithe Applotment books for Aghaveans (attached), holding 4 acres of 3rd quality land. 

By 1822 Charles is signing an apprenticeship contract (attached), to serve under Terence Lynch, a surgeon / apothecary in Castlepollard, Westmeath, for seven years, to learn the trade. For this, he promised Terrence that he will not "contract matrimony, ...play at cards, dice, tables... and haunt or use taverns or ale-houses" for the seven year term. The handwitten portion of the document identifies his father (who gives permission) and his home.

After the seven years, he must have almost immediately emigrated to New York City, because he first appears in the New York City 1829/1830 directory, listed as a physician.  There might have been some issue with his practicing in New York, since in 1833 he applied to the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University (which had just been founded about 20 years earlier). He married Margaret McBarron (b. 1817) on Aug. 21st, 1834 at the Church of the Transfiguration (attached).

He received his medical degree in 1838 (attached, p10), and for the next fourteen years, until 1852, he worked as a physician at 82 Sheriff St., in Ward 11, the heart of the recent Irish and German immigrant community. Other than his city directory listings, there is little other record of him at this time.  An article in the New-York Tribune from 1841 (attached) lists him as presenting a petition to get compensation for medical aid provided after a distillery fire down the block from his office.

In 1860 he, his wife, and four children (Mary (b. 1843), Bridget (b. 1845), Betsy (b. 1848) and John (b. 1850)) appear in Mount Pleasant Township, Wayne County, Pennsylvania. The 1860 federal census shows them living next to two other houses of Fitzpatricks.  Indeed, Fitzpatricks are present at this location from 1840, when Mathew Fitzpatrick (profiled separately on this site) and his wife first appear, through 1880. I presume that they were all part of one large extended family that emigrated in successive waves from the area around Lough Gowna, the early ones helping the later ones. Mount Pleasant Township, and Wayne County, were focal destinations for Irish emigration, since they were centers of lumbering, canal building and farming.

Charles and his family are still present in Mount Pleasant in the 1870 census.  A detail of a period map (attached), with his house labeled "Doctor C. Fitzpatrick" suggests he was still practicing medicine at age 70.  After this, there is no record of him, or his children, that I can find.

My 2nd great grandfather, Daniel Fitzpatrick (profiled separately on this site), stayed for a year with Charles, in 1846 at 82 Sheriff St (from city directory records).  Family legend has it that Daniel stayed with an uncle when he first came to the city. Daniel and his family also appear in the 1850 Mount Pleasant Census, at the same location that Charles would occupy ten years later.  Because of this, I have trying to trace the members of this extended Fitzpatrick family, and think that they all originated from the same part of Ireland that Charles did, the Lough Gowna area (on both the Cavan and Longford sides of the border).

Possible other Fitzpatrick relatives based on proximity in New York City and Mount Pleasant, PA (all born in Ireland):

1) Elizabeth (b. abt. 1790)- aunt or mother

2) John (b. abt. 1810) and James- cousins or brothers

3) Ellen (b. abt. 1815)- cousin or sister