Biography of GEORGE ALBERT PITTS

                                                                    (transcribed by: L. Johnson)

 

     The record of George Albert Pitts, a leading farmer of Isabella township is that of an enterprising gentleman who worthily upholds an honored family name and whose life, for many years, has been very intimately associated with the material prosperity and moral advancement of the locality where he resides, and, during the most progressive periods of the history of this vicinity, he has always been found on the right side of questions looking to the development of the same, and he has at the same time won an enviable reputation for honesty and wholesome living.

     Mr. Pitts was born in Grandville, Washington county, New York, on January 12, 1857.  He is the son of John and Mary (Wright) Pitts.  The father was born in Connecticut in 1825 and died in 1860, and the mother was born in Rutland county, Vermont, in 1829, and she and Mr.Pitts were married in Washington county, New York.  Their children living are James W., of Nottawa township, this county:  John, a soldier in the Union army, died at the battle of Resaca, Georgia;  Rosann, who married R.J. Skinner, lives in Gilmore township;  Elizabeth, who married Thomas License, lives in Vermont;  Amanda married Jerry Fuller and lives in Rutland, Vermont;  George of this review.  The parents of these children spent most of their lives in the state of New York.  They were excellent people and highly respected by all who knew them.

     George A. Pitts was nine years of age when he accompanied his parents from his native community to Oswego county, New York.  He had attended school some in the former place and he grew to manhood and finished his education in the latter, remaining there until he was twenty-seven years of age.  The subject’s mother was twice married and George A. worked on the farm of his step-father.  He learned the trade of stone mason and worked at that practically all the time while he lived in Oswego county when he was not farming, and he was married while living there, choosing as a life partner the daughter of a good old family, Mary Seymour, who was born September 6, 1862, at Constantia, Oswego county, New York.  She is the daughter of George and Harriet (Clock) Seymour and was married to Mr. Pitts on May 9, 1879.

They lived in their home country five years after their marriage, Mr. Pitts working at his trade he made money and saved it, so that when he moved to Isabella county, Michigan, and settled in Gilmore township, he was enabled to buy forty acres of good land in section 35, nearly all of which was timbered, of which he cleared five or six acres.  He kept the place about three years, then sold out and began preaching, going on a tour to Gladwin and Midland counties, remaining away three years and doing a great amount of good in his work.  His health failing, he finally, in 1896, came back to Isabella county and settled on his present place on section 23, Gilmore township, buying twenty acres at first, then twenty acres more in 1900.  He has cleared most of this and made all improvements, bringing it up to a high standard of efficiency and causing it to rank with the leading farms of the community.  He first lived in a log house, but this was burned on September 5, 1903, losing heavily and having no insurance.  He then remodeled an old store building and has made a very comfortable home out of it.

     The following children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Pitts;  Albert E., born in 1887, married Gertrude Teachout and they are living in Gilmore and have one child;  Bertha May, born in 1885, married W.W. McNeill and they are living in Gilmore township;  John L., born  in 1888, married Bessie Robinson and is living in Centralia, Washington;  Blanch B., born in 1890, is unmarried and she is employed in an insurance office in Saginaw;  Walter C., born in 1896, is living at home.

     Mr. Pitts made himself a preacher, having devoted a great deal of home study to the Bible and such other literature as would be of service to him.  He still does a great deal of work as a mason, in fact, he has done more building than any other one man in the township, both as a brick and stone mason and as a carpenter, and his work, always being of a very high grade, is in great demand.

     Religiously, Mr. Pitts is a Free Will Baptist, and in politics he is a Republican.  He is at present serving his fourth term as a supervisor of Isabella township.  That he is popular in this office and has done his work well is shown by the fact that at the election in the spring of 1910 he received a much larger majority than he had ever been given before.   Mr. Pitts has a house-moving outfit and he does a general contracting business.  This takes most of his, so that he farms but little.  He has always taken an interest in township affairs. He has been a member of the Grange for five years and is a charter member of the local arbor of Gleaners, No. 457, at Stony Brook, having been chief of the same two and one-half years, and he has also held office in the Grange.