His father, Abraham Fitton, went to
Boston from
Preston, England; his mother, Sarah Williams Fitton, was of
Welsh origin and a Catholic convert. Abraham Fitton was a wheelwright. He became an altar boy at
Holy Cross Cathedral where
Bishop John de Cheverus encouraged him to enter the priesthood. In 1828, he was sent as a missionary to the
Passamaquoddy people. He subsequently labored among the scattered Roman Catholics of
New Hampshire and
Vermont, and soon the territory between
Boston and
Long Island was placed under his charge, with
Hartford, Connecticut, as the center of his district. There he edited a Catholic newspaper. In 1840, while pastor of the
church at Worcester, he purchased the site of the
College of the Holy Cross, and erected a boarding school for the advanced education of Catholic young men. In 1842, he sold the grounds and building to
Bishop Fenwick, who placed it under the care of the
Jesuits. In 1848, he erected the
Church of the Holy Name of Mary, Our Lady of the Isle at Newport. The church was designed by noted Brooklyn architect
Patrick Keely. While serving at
Fort Adams in Newport, Officer
William Rosecrans, of the
Corps of Engineers, volunteered his services as the engineer for the construction. Rosecrans had converted to Catholicism in 1845 while at
West Point. St. Mary's was one of the largest churches constructed in the United States at that time, and is the oldest Catholic parish in the state. In 1855 he was appointed by Bishop Fenwick pastor of the church of the Most Holy Redeemer in East Boston. Here he worked for the remaining twenty-six years of his life, and built four more churches. ==References==