 He served as first president of Coleman Manufacturing Company, established in 1897 as the first cotton mill in the United States to be owned and operated by blacks.His bricks were used for major construction projects in the state's largest cities, including the capital.Born free in New Castle County, Delaware to a white mother and mixed-race father freed from slavery, Fitzgerald and siblings moved with their family in 1855 to Chester County, Pennsylvania to reduce the risk of being taken by slave catchers and sold into slavery under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.