- OBITUARIES -

Percy and a group of local Scouts circa 1918

(End papers of Tom Slade on a Transport)

THE BERGEN COUNTY RECORD, Friday, July 7th 1950

Fitzhugh, Author, Is Victim Of Stroke At Oradell Home

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Listed As Hugh Lloyd, He Wrote For Boys; Some Stories Laid In Hackensack’s Vicinity

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Oradell-Percy Keese Fitzhugh, 73 Author of many boys’ books, died Wednesday at 6P.M. following a stroke. He had lived at 283 Maple Avenue for the past 23 years.

BORN IN BROOKLYN

Born in Brooklyn Sept. 7 1876, the son of William Wyvill Fitzhugh and Mary Keese Fitzhugh, he was educated in public schools and the Pratt Institute there. July 13 would have been the golden wedding anniversary of his marriage to Harriett Lloyd LePorte.

Listed in Who’s Who with the pseudonym of Hugh Lloyd, Mr. Fitzhugh wrote many boys’ books including the Tom Slade, Pee-Wee Harris, and Roy Blakeley series. He also wrote several history books, contributed to magazines, and edited several libraries and a biographical dictionary. All told, it is estimated that his books written between 1906 and 1935 sold over a million copies. During the First World War, Mr. Fitzhugh’s “For the Honor of Uncle Sam” was translated into Braille for blind solders. His popularity with boys’ books began with the forming of the Boy Scouts Organization in this country. The young male public wanted books about Scouts and scouting. Replete with accounts of camping and set against a backdrop of woods and lakes, Mr. Fitzhugh’s books caught on immediately.

A resident of Hackensack for 25 years, Mr. Fitzhugh liked to tell of boating trips on the Hackensack River Some of his stories are laid in Hackensack, to witch he gave the name Bridgeboro.

Pre deceased by a daughter, Millicent Alden Fitzhugh, Mr. Fitzhugh is survived by his wife, Mrs. Harriet Lloyd Fitzhugh; a son Lawrence Fitzhugh both of Oradell; Two brothers, John Lawrence Fitzhugh of Mt. Vernon, N.Y., and William W. Fitzhugh of New York and Stamford Conn.; and a sister, Mrs. Norman T. Boggs of Woodstock, N.Y.

Funeral services and burial will be private.

THE NEW YORK TIMES, Friday, July 7, 1950

PERCY K. FITZHUGH,

AUTHOR, 73, IS DEAD

Wrote More Than 100 Books

For Youngsters, Including

The Tom Slade Series

Special to the New York Times.

ORADELL, N.J., July 6 – Percy Keese Fitzhugh, author of more than 100 juvenile books, died here yesterday in his home, 283 Maple Avenue, after a long illness. His age was 73. He often used the pseudonym Hugh Lloyd.

Born in Brooklyn, Mr. Fitzhugh attended Pratt Institute there. His best-selling books were a series on a fictional character he created named Tom Slade. He wrote frequently about the Boy Scouts of America and had been credited by Scout leaders with having greatly aided in the growth of the movement.

Mr. Fitzhugh’s other books included, “The Golden Red Storybook,” 1906; “The Galleon Treasure,” 1908; “Along the Mohawk Trail,” 1912; “For Uncle Sam, Boss,” 1913; “The Boys’ Book of Scouts,” 1917; “The History of the United States from Appomattox to Germany,” 1918; “The Winning of the Golden Cross,” 1920; “Roy Blakeley’s Funny Bone Hike,” 1922; “Pee-wee Harris,” 1922; “The Hermit of Gordon’s Creek,” 1931; “The Mysterious Arab,” 1931, and “Out West With Westy Martin,” 1933.

With his wife, Mrs. Harriet Lloyd LePorte Fitzhugh, he wrote “The Concise Biographical Dictionary” in 1935; He wrote “The Walrus in the Barber Shop,” in 1947, for adults. In 1909 appeared the ten-volume, “Every Girl’s Library,” edited by him. He had been co-editor of Lossing’s “History of the United States.”

Besides his widow, a son, Lawrence Stetson Fitzhugh, survives.

PUBLISHERS’ WEEKLY

August 5^th, 1950 Vol. 158, Number 6

PERCY K. FITZHUGH, author of more than 100 juveniles including a number of highly successful series books for boys, died on July 5^th at the age of 73. The Tom Slade, Roy Blakeley, Pee-Wee Harris and Westy Martin series, which were all about Boy Scouts and Scouting, sold several million copies over a number of years. Interest in the books began to drop off during the early 1930’s and Grosset and Dunlap, which had published them for about fifteen years, allowed them to go out of print.

LOS ANGELES TIMES, Jul. 7, 1950

Fitzhugh, Author, Dies

ORADELL, N.J., July 6 (AP)- Percy K. Fitzhugh, 73 whose books for boys sold more than 1,000,000 copies, died last night.

NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, Friday, July 7, 1950

Percy Keese Fitzhugh, 73 Dies; Wrote Boy Scout Book Series

Special to the Herald Tribune

ORADELL, N.J. July 6- Percy Keese Fitzhugh, seventy three, author of the Tom Slade, Roy Blakeley and Pee-wee Harris Boy Scout books for boys, died last night at his home, 283 Maple Avenue.

A prolific writer, Mr. Fitzhugh turned out more than 100 books between 1906 and 1933, producing some of the Tom Slade, Roy Blakeley and Pee-wee Harris stories concurrently. His works sold more than 1,000,000 copies.

Mr. Fitzhugh wrote his first Tom Slade Book in 1915. Entitled “Tom Slade Boy Scout of the Moving Pictures,” it was based on the scenario of a silent film Mr. Fitzhugh was commissioned to write by the Boy Scouts of America.

This was followed by “Tom Slade at Temple Camp” and “Tom Slade on the River. Then Mr. Fitzhugh took Tom Slade to World War I with “Tom Slade With the Boys Over There” and “Tom Slade With the Flying Corps,” and brought him safely home with “Tom Slade on a Transport.”

In 1918 Mr. Fitzhugh began the Roy Blakeley Series and in 1920 Tom Slade became a Scout Master. The Pee-wee Harris series began in 1922, and for the next ten years there came a succession of such titles as “Roy Bllakeley’s Bee Line Hike,” “Pee-wee Harris as Good as His Word,” “Roy Blakeley on the Mohawk Trail” and “Tom Slade in the Haunted Cavern.” In 1924 a forth series, with the West as its local and featuring Westy Martin was started. Mr. Fitzhugh also wrote a number of adult books, including “The Concise Biographical Dictionary,” in 1935 and “The History of the United States From Appomattox to Germany” in1918

In the middle 1930’s Mr. Fitzhugh’s output declined because of his failing health. For a time during the early years of his Boy Scout books, the book’s jacket bore the official seal of the Boy Scouts of America. Some of his works were published under the pseudonym Hugh Lloyd.

He was borne in Brooklyn and educated at Brooklyn public schools and the Pratt Institute. His first work, “The Golden Rod Story Book ,” was published in 1906. He had lived in Oradell for twenty years and for twenty three years before then in Hackensack, N.J. the latter city serving as a model for the Bridgeboro of his Boy Scout Books.

Surviving are his wife, Mrs. Harriet Lloyd Fitzhugh; a son, Lawrence Fitzhugh; two brothers, John L. Fitzhugh and William W. Fitzhugh and a sister, Mrs. Norman P. Boggs.

Chicago Tribune July 07, 1950
Deceased Percy K. Fitzhugh

Oradell, N. J., July 6 (AP) -- Percy K. Fitzhugh, whose books for boys sold over
a million copies, died last night at the age of 73. Among his books for boys
were the Tom Slade, the Pee Wee Harris and Roy Blakely series.

The Mohawk Trail circa 1920

Location for Roy Blakeley on the Mohawk Trail

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