 "In Durham Richard Fitzgerald bought a large tract with a good vein of clay for brick in the vicinity of later Gattis and Wilkerson streets... here he began a brickyard and built an eighteen-room house shaded by a grove of maples and magnolias".According to his grandniece Pauli Murray, "Within the next fifteen years Uncle Richard became Durham's leading brick maker.By 1884, he had a large brickyard on Chapel Hill Road and orders on hand for two million bricks".