He will be greatly missed because he was such a clear thinker and because he was such an articulate speaker, Brown Morton said when I called to ask him to assess Fitch's contribution to the field of historic preservation. Morton, a professor of historic preservation at Mary Washington College, was a friend of Fitch's for many, many years. The thinking and expertise of people from a variety of disciplines should be brought to bear when deciding what to save and how to save it, Fitch believed. He was one of the first people who adopted a conservation ethic that grew out of the museum world. Fredericksburg's Architectural Review Board pursues its responsibilities in the spirit of Jim Fitch.
Details are important.
He was a great and steady voice for vernacular architecture, Morton said. That is to say that Fitch saw value in buildings that had not belonged to the rich and famous. The last thing Jim Fitch was was a snob. He valued the contributions of all segments of society. In 1964, Fitch co-founded a graduate school of historic preservation at Columbia University.