My Genealogy Hound

FITZWILLIAM & SONS, dealers in dry goods, Bloomington; and one of the very foremost houses in Bloomington. All the advantages that intelligence, business education and financial ability give a merchant, are possessed by Messrs. Fitzwilliam, and account for their large trade. William M. Fitzwilliam, senior member of the firm, is a native of Pennsylvania having moved to Ross Co., Ohio, at an early day; here he was engaged in the dry-goods business, in Bainbridge, for a number of years. Francis J. Fitzwilliam, a native of Ohio, has had almost a lifetime experience in the dry-goods business. He was a soldier of the late war, having enlisted in Co. G, 33d Ohio V. I., as 1st Lieutenant, and participated in some of the most severe battles of the war, as Perryville, above the clouds at Lookout Mountain, Mission Ridge, in the campaign to Atlanta, and other battles; after his muster-out he returned to his home in Ohio, where he remained until 1866; he then came to Bloomington and opened a dry-goods store on Main street, with a very valuable stock; from there they moved to a room in Schroeder’s Opera House; thence to their present commodious building, which is 25x105 feet, three stories high with basement, and a stock of dry goods the largest in the city, valued at $75,000. Their motto is excellence in quality, integrity in transactions, one price to all, and quick sales and small profits.