Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 372
ALEXANDER J. PITTS

Alexander J. PITTS, a farmer, whose well-tilled lands may be found on section 11, Douglas Township, has been a resident of Harrison County two decades, coming as he did in the spring of 1871, and purchasing two hundred and forty acres of wild land, which had never felt the keen edge of the plowshare until his coming and laying bare its virgin sod. The first year he built a small frame house in which he lived that summer, and then constructed a barn which he used for residence purposes for two years, at the end of which time he built the house in which he now lives, the same being 30 x 34 feet on the ground, by fourteen feet in height. His present farm contains a half section of land, provided with a good well-cared for tenant house.

When he first came to the county there were but two houses between his place and Dunlap, one of these being a "dug-out". There were thirty-two votes cast in Douglas Township at the fall election after he came. Our subject was born in that banner county of the Empire State � Orange County, N. Y., June 3, 1819, which makes him seventy-two years of age at this writing. He was left an orphan, both parents dying by the time he was eleven years old, and from this time on he knew what it was to battle in life, unaided or cheered by the council of a kind father and a loving mother. He worked on a farm for his board and clothes for five years, for the privilege of going to school a few weeks each winter. Becoming convinced at the end of that period that life had more in store for him than simply the servitude of a slave, and believing in the theory that a skilled mechanic could always command better wages than a day laborer, he learned the blacksmith's trade. The first year he received $20, out of which he had to clothe himself. They required him to remain five years in order to learn the trade which is three times the present apprenticeship for such a trade. He was paid the following sums, including his board, for the respective years, $20, $30, $40, $80, and the fifth year, $200. He has followed blacksmithing nearly all of his life and operated a shop on his farm in Douglas Township up to 1881.

During the war he was engaged at shipbuilding in New York, for which he received large pay, the same placing him in independent circumstances. After the close of the war he returned to his old home in Orange County and purchased a sixty-acre farm, which after seven years, he sold, doubling his money. The cattle with which the farm was stocked, brought as high as $100 per head. After the disposition of this property he came to Iowa.

Miss Esther GARVEN, of Orange County, N.Y., became his wife August 26, 1840. They are the parents of eleven children: James G., Stevenson, Clement D., Eli W., Sarah G., Francis A., Rosa L., George C., Emeline D., Charles V. W., and Eugene. Stevenson, Francis, Rosa, George, and Clement are deceased.

Esther (GARVEN) PITTS, wife of our subject, is a native of Ireland, born April 15, 1822. When twelve years of age, in coming with her mother, she came to Orange County, N.Y.,where she remained until the time of her marriage.

To return to more personal matters concerning the subject of our sketch, it should be stated that politically he is a Republican, and voted for William Henry HARRISON, as well as for all the Republican Presidents, including the grandson of "Old Tippecanoe," Benjamin HARRISON, now President of the United States.

Mr. and Mrs. PITTS are both members in good standing and zealous workers in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Eli W., fourth son of our subject, enlisted in Company D, Sixty-ninth New York Infantry in 1861, and was shot in the left leg, causing the same to be amputated above the knee. In consequence of which he was in the hospital at Baltimore for one year and then returned to New York, and from there accompanied his parents to Iowa. He met with a railroad accident which caused the amputation of his other leg, which terminated in his death at the Soldier's Home, at Dayton, Ohio. Eddy, grandson of our subject, a bright boy of thirteen summers, born in December, 1878, and a son of Eugene PITTS, lives with his grandfather.

In conversation with this man now living on borrowed time (having passed his three-score years and ten) and listening to him while he recounts the events of his checkered life, fraught with so many vicissitudes, disappointments and joys, and learning of the sacrifice he and his good wife were called upon to make, in sending forth their son to do battle in defense of our country, we cannot but feel that his pathway has not always been by the side of still waters and yet he has met life with all of its changing scenes only as a true manhood can.

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