He served as California Superintendent of Public Instruction (1867–1871) and was elected a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1890.

He was born August 24, 1829, in Caswell County, North Carolina, near Ruffin, the son of Richard and Martha Jones Hooper Fitzgerald.

His first real educational opportunity came at the Oak Grove Academy in Rockingham County, North Carolina.

He was on the eve of taking the editorship of a journal when in 1853 a great change in his plans took place and he entered the ministry of the M.E.

He entered the Traveling Ministry of the Georgia Annual Conference, appointed to Andrews Chapel in Savannah.

Fitzgerald also filled the Chair of Homiletics in the Pacific Methodist College, and was for a time the President of that institution.

In 1867, Fitzgerald was originator and treasurer of a movement in California for the relief of sufferers in the South following the American Civil War.