William Samuel Fitzpatrick, lawyer, who for six years held one of the most important offices in the state, that of president pro tempore of the senate, was born in Shelby county, Illinois, Sept. 14, 1866. He is the son of Bird and Jennie (Freeman) Fitzpatrick. The father was born in West Virginia and the mother in Illinois, where the family lived on a farm. The father died when the son was very small, and the widow and her boy came to Kansas in 1872, and located at the now extinct town of Boston in Chautauqua county, then Howard county, where they lived until 1875. Mrs. Fitzpatrick married M. G. Miller in that year, a lawyer of Sedan, and removed there to establish a home. William S. grew up in Sedan, and attended the public schools and completed his education, later in that more strenuous but excellent institution, the school of life. Mr. Miller died and some time later William's mother married Charles Peckham, a lawyer of Sedan, under whom Mr. Fitzpatrick began to read law. The second preceptor of his professional training was John W. Shartel, now a well known attorney of Oklahoma City, Okla. After most careful preparation, Mr. Fitzpatrick was admitted to the bar in 1888. The following year he received an appointment as commissioner of the United States circuit court, with his office at Pawhuska, I. T., now Oklahoma, and remained there until President Cleveland's second inauguration, when he resigned the position in March, 1893, and returned to Sedan to begin the active practice of his profession. For fifteen years he remained there, but desired a wider field for his activities, and removed to Independence, in May, 1908, where he has since continued to reside. Mr. Fitzpatrick is a Republican, and has given unfaltering loyalty and allegiance to the doctrines and principles of that party, and in 1900, was elected state senator from Elk and Chautauqua counties; in 1904 he was reëlected and served two terms, during six years of this time he held the important office of president pro tempore of the senate, probably the longest time the position was ever held by one man since Kansas was admitted to statehood. He is now the general counsel for the Prairie Oil & Gas Company, having been appointed in August, 1908. Mr. Fitzpatrick is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, a member of the Wichita Consistory and of Abdallah Temple, Ancient Arabic Order, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Leavenworth, Kan., and is also a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

In 1890 he was married and has one son, Horace C., who is a student at the University of Chicago. Mrs. Peckham, the mother of Mr. Fitzpatrick, now makes her home with him, being a woman of sixty-two years. Since coming to Kansas she has seen the "Great American Desert," as western Kansas was called in the early '70s, blossom, and become some of the finest agricultural land in the world. She is a lady of rare qualities of heart and mind.