Bio-Sawyers
SURNAMES:  PINEDO, BERRYESSA, POLLARD, SHERBURNE, EYSELEE, PLASS, WALKER

Photo of Encarnacion Pinedo

A pioneer family whose paternal and maternal branches both reach back to historic periods and touch some of the earliest and most interesting families long identified with California is well represented by William L. Fitts, the plumbing contractor of 51 West St John Street, San Jose, who was born in Santa Clara, June 25, 1865. His father, William Fitts, came to California by way of the Isthmus in 1852 and married Dolores Pinedo, a member of a well-known Spanish family. who was educated at Notre Dame College. The old Pinedo estate at Santa Clara, recently sold by the family was a Pinedo possession for a hundred years. Our subject's Grandfather Pinedo was a merchant tailor at Santa Clara in the early days and his great-grandmother was a Berryessa.

William Fitts, Sr., ran a bus between San Jose and Santa Clara before the era of horse cars, and when they were built, he went to work for the car company. Then for six or seven years he was town marshal of Santa Clara, and when he removed to San Jose in 1881, he was appointed jailer under Sheriff Williams. After his term of four years he entered the employ of the horse-car line as superintendent, continuing about ten years until it was changed to an electric line. He then was employed by the city until his death, March 14, 1916, aged almost eighty years. His wife had preceded him in 1910. Eight daughters and three sons were born to this worthy couple and William L. was the eldest; Laura is Mrs. George Pollard, the wife of the assistant manager of the gas company; Charles, Lena, Carmelita, Ida and Minnie; Grace is Mrs. Sherburne; three of the children died.

William L. Fitts attended the primary department of the College of the Pacific and then completed *the grammar schools; when sixteen years old he went to work at the plumbing business, joining John Corcoran on January 23, 1882, and serving a three-year apprenticeship. Then he entered the service of John Stock and was with him for three years, and in 1890 opened a shop for himself. For thirty years or more his well-known plumbing and repair headquarters were at 107 North First Street, but he is now comfortably established at 51 West St. John Street, where two of his sons are associated with him; thus he has followed plumbing in San Jose for forty years.

At San Jose, January 1, 1889, Mr. Fitts was married to Miss Katie Eyselee, a native of Gilroy, Cal., the daughter of Albert and Sarah (Plass) Eyselee, the father one of the early-timers at that place having come from New York.  Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Fitts; William is a plumber, working with his father; Emery is an auto trimmer; Walter is also in business with his father; Dolores is Mrs. Walker; Katherine is head nurse at the State Hospital at San Francisco, and the youngest is Evelyn.  Mr. Fitts belongs to the Red Men and the Eagles at San Jose.

Transcribed cferoben, from Eugene T. Sawyers' History of Santa Clara County,California,  published by Historic Record Co. , 1922. page 633
SANTA CLARA COUNTY PIONEER BIOGRAPHIES

SANTA CLARA HISTORY