Edward Fitzgerald Sr., George Fitzgerald's father

An obituary for George's father, appearing in the April 1857 Monthly Nautical Magazine and Quarterly Review, got his date of death wrong, but otherwise summed up his life well: "He entered the navy in 1810, served with Perry on Lake Erie, and been at sea seventeen years. As officer, husband, father and gentleman--he was in every sphere a noble specimen of man."

The fictional purser in Herman Melville's novel White Jacket may be based on Edward Fitzgerald, who was purser on the USS United States at the same time Melville was on board. Melville wrote, "the florid old Purser of the [fictional ship] Neversink--never coming into disciplinary contact with the seamen, and being withal a jovial and apparently good-hearted gentleman--was something of a favourite with many of the crew." More parallels between the purser of the Neversink and Edward Fitzgerald are noted below.

Officers of the U.S. Navy, 1854,  states that Edward entered the service March 22, 1811, and was commissioned a purser April 25, 1812. He was born in Pennsylvania and appointed from there, but by 1854 was a citizen of the District of Columbia. Though he owned property in the District of Columbia which passed to his oldest son when he died, he resided in Norfolk most of his life.

He served on the frigate Java under Oliver Perry in the Mediterranean after the War of 1812, and is mentioned by name in connection with an anecdote about a man falling overboard, in Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry: Famous American Naval Hero, by Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, published in 1840.

It reveals that Edward went by the same nickname on board the Java as his son George did in prison at Ft. Pulaski: Fitz. When Lieut. Forrest falls overboard, he calls out to Purser Fitzgerald, "Tell them the officer of the deck is overboard, Fitz!" However, he also may have gone by the nickname "Edie" [Eddie], since a statement was signed "April 23rd, 1817 for Edie Fitzgerald Purser."

Edward continued to serve as purser on various Navy ships until his death in 1855.

A few mentions of him, in connections with naval matters, appear in various records. For example:

He gave testimony in a trial about his time as purser aboard the Franklin. In the early 1820s, the USS Franklin was part of the newly-formed Pacific Station, serving off the coast of South America.

From the records of the House of Representatives: "By Mr. -- Holmes: A petition of Edward Fitzgerald, a purser in the navy of the United States, praying payment for certain extra services performed while purser of the United States ship Java, from September, 1833, to July, 1840."

At this time, the Java would have been the receiving ship at Norfolk, from 1831 until she was broken up in 1842. According to Wikipedia, a receiving ship "is used in harbor to house newly recruited sailors before they are assigned to a crew."

One notable incident occurred in 1844, when Edward was purser on the USS United States. According to Wikipedia, "United States was repaired at Norfolk in 1841 and was designated the new flagship of the Pacific Squadron in January 1842. She left Hampton Roads on 9 January, bound for the Pacific via Cape Horn. Herman Melville, the future author of Moby Dick, enlisted as an ordinary seaman on board United States at Honolulu, Hawaii, on 17 August 1843. His novel White-Jacket, published in 1850 is a fictionalized account of his experiences on board, highly critical of the captain of the United States and of naval customs in general. The vessel returned to the United States in 1844 and was placed out of commission at Boston on 14 October."

Soon after the ship's arrival in Boston, "a writ of habeas corpus had been issued by a judge of the court of common pleas in behalf of a slave, Robert Lucas, who had come into the jurisdiction of Massachusetts by arriving on the United States and was being held in custody. The purser, Edward Fitzgerald, a Virginian, had enlisted his slave Lucas as a landsman drawing nine dollars a month during his service on the United States, wages that, by common usage, Fitzgerald collected. Shaw promptly returned to Boston, heard the case, and rendered his decision on 11 October: the moment the frigate went out of Virginia, the slave became free, and since Lucas now found himself in Massachusetts as an employee of the government, and not as a runaway, he was a free man. The sailors still on board the frigate witnessed the purser's quiet acceptance of the decision, a decency that helped confirm Herman's sense of identity with the aristocrats of Virginia." (From Herman Melville, a Biography by Hershel Parker)

Parker suggests that the purser in Melville's novel White Jacket is based on Edward Fitzgerald. The text of White Jacket is available online.

Melville describes the slave which the purser brought on board the  fictional ship USS Neversink:





































In the 1850 census, Edward was listed as a resident of Norfolk:

Edward Fitzgerald, age 65, purser USN, born PA $8000
Mary, 56, born VA
William, 28, Pas[sed] Mid[shipman] USN, born VA
Francis I, 18, student, born VA
Thomas, 12, student, born VA
Emily, 22, born VA
Ann Maria Fitzgerald, 60, F, born PA

In 1850 he was also listed as the owner of two female black slaves, ages 70 and 20.

In the 1852 Norfolk City Directory, he was listed as residing at 131 E. Main. If he moved soon after, it may have been the home described in Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Norfolk, 1853, as the place where Lafayette stayed during his American tour: "Mrs. Hansford's boarding-house, a fine building then, but recently erected by Capt. Robert E. Steed, at the west corner of East Main and East Streets, subsequently owned and occupied by Purser Fitzgerald, U.S.N., and now by H. B. Grigsby, Esq."

[D]uring the present cruise, there was a Virginian slave regularly shipped as a seaman, his owner receiving his wages. Guinea--such was his name among the crew--belonged to the Purser, who was a Southern gentleman; he was employed as his body servant. Never did I feel my condition as a man-of-war's-man so keenly as when seeing this Guinea freely circulating about the decks in citizen's clothes, and through the influence of his master, almost entirely exempted from the disciplinary degradation of the Caucasian crew. Faring sumptuously in the ward-room; sleek and round, his ebon face fairly polished with content: ever gay and hilarious; ever ready to laugh and joke, that African slave was actually envied by many of the seamen. There were times when I almost envied him myself. Lemsford once envied him outright, "Ah, Guinea!" he sighed, "you have peaceful times; you never opened the book I read in."

One morning, when all hands were called to witness punishment, the Purser's slave, as usual, was observed to be hurrying down the ladders toward the ward-room, his face wearing that peculiar, pinched blueness, which, in the negro, answers to the paleness caused by nervous agitation in the white. "Where are you going, Guinea?" cried the deck-officer, a humorous gentleman, who sometimes diverted himself with the Purser's slave, and well knew what answer he would now receive from him. "Where are you going, Guinea?" said this officer; "turn about; don't you hear the call, sir?" "'_Scuse_ me, massa!" said the slave, with a low salutation; "I can't 'tand it; I can't, indeed, massa!" and, so saying, he disappeared beyond the hatchway. He was the only person on board, except the hospital-steward and the invalids of the sick-bay, who was exempted from being present at the administering of the scourge. Accustomed to light and easy duties from his birth, and so fortunate as to meet with none but gentle masters, Guinea, though a bondman, liable to be saddled with a mortgage, like a horse--Guinea, in India-rubber manacles, enjoyed the liberties of the world.

Though his body-and-soul proprietor, the Purser, never in any way individualised me while I served on board the frigate, and never did me a good office of any kind (it was hardly in his power), yet, from his pleasant, kind, indulgent manner toward his slave, I always imputed to him a generous heart, and cherished an involuntary friendliness toward him. Upon our arrival home, his treatment of Guinea, under circumstances peculiarly calculated to stir up the resentment of a slave-owner, still more augmented my estimation of the Purser's good heart.