Newspaper obituary clipping: W. Huger FitzSimons of Charleston, lawyer
Book 1, Page 481 ·1939
Transcription
A single newspaper clipping. The headline is set in bold:
W. Huger FitzSimons
Not only one of the ablest and most accomplished lawyers of Charleston passed when W. Huger FitzSimons died. He was more than that. He was a pattern of what a lawyer should be in conception of the profession. One hears of “professional ethics”, and so much abused have been practices of many lawyers with clients that sometimes the public sneers at the phrase. Huger FitzSimons illustrated it in its truest and purest significance — he was the nephew of Major Theodore G. Barker and was like him. The News and Courier can think of no higher word of praise to print.
Mr. FitzSimons served his people in other than professional ways. We have heard him stand up and speak with power after the fashion of the man that he was in the face of an intolerant and angry majority of overwhelming numbers in a state convention. With brave fidelity he spoke for Charleston — not only for Charleston but for the people of South Carolina.
A long time ago Mr. FitzSimons lost his health and retired to Flat Rock where he died. There he suffered uncomplainingly, a gentle spirit, loving his friends and lovable to all who knew him. Not many of the present later generation in Charleston well remember him. There are those of us who do, and we call it a privilege that we knew him and were counted among his friends.
AI Notes
A single newspaper clipping mounted alone on the album page — an editorial tribute to William Huger FitzSimons, attorney of Charleston, S.C., who retired in declining health to Flat Rock, N.C., where he died. Almost certainly cut from ‘The News and Courier’ of Charleston in 1939, the year of his death. The clipping is in clean condition and the column heading ‘W. Huger FitzSimons’ is set in bold. It identifies him as a nephew of Major Theodore G. Barker (one of his mother Susan Milliken Barker’s brothers) and praises his fidelity to Charleston and to the people of South Carolina.
William Huger FitzSimons (8 Jan 1861 – 16 Sept 1939) was a Charleston attorney and eldest of Dr. Christopher FitzSimons (3rd)'s surviving sons. His uncle Major Theodore G. Barker (1832–1917) was a prominent Charleston lawyer who served as a Confederate officer in Hampton’s Legion and led the postwar Charleston Bar. The condolence letter from Nathaniel B. Barnwell mounted on page 484 is from the same week as this obituary.