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By 1862 Pitts was married in Union, Wisconsin, and he and his wife moved to
Fredericksburg to be near her elderly parents, and they remained there forty-four years and had three children. Upon his return to the Iowa, Pitts was surprised to find a church being erected where he had imagined it five
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Pitts joined
Frederickburg's Baptist church in 1871, and upon moving to Clarion in 1906, he joined the Congregational church there in 1906. After moving to New York in 1909, Pitts joined the Dyker Heights Congregational Church in Brooklyn. Pitts served as mayor of Fredericksburg for seven years,
93:. While viewing the spot, Pitts envisioned a church building there and could not seem to ease the vision from his mind. Returning to his home in Wisconsin, he wrote "The Church in the Wildwood" for his own sake, eventually saying of its completion, "only then was I at peace with myself."
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117:. To pay his enrollment fees, he sold the rights to the song to a music publisher for $ 25. He completed medical school, graduating in 1868, but the song was largely forgotten for several decades. Pitts practiced medicine in Fredericksburg until 1906.
101:. During the winter of 1863-64 he taught a singing class at Bradford Academy. Pitts had his class sing the song at the dedication of the new church in 1864. This was the first time the song was sung by anyone apart from Pitts himself.
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English and Scottish ancestry. Pitts was the eighth of nine children and had musical ability from an early age, taking formal music lessons from a graduate of the Boston
132:. Pitts occasionally performed his most famous song. He died in Brooklyn in September 25, 1918 and was buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Fredericksburg, Iowa.
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His first wife died in 1886 and Pitts remarried to Mrs. M.A. Grannis in 1887 and they moved to
Clarion, Iowa in 1906. She died in 1909 and Pitts moved to
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years before. The building was even being painted brown, because that was the least expensive color of paint to be found and became known as
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Annals of Iowa, Volume 3; Volume 12 (Iowa State
Historical Department, Division of Historical Museum and Archives, 1921)
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to be with his son, William
Stanley Bates, that same year while William was working for the U.S. War Department.
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school treasurer for twenty-six years, wrote a biographical local history, and was a Master
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on August 18, 1830 to
Charles Pitts and Polly Green Smith Pitts who were descended from
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to visit his fiancee, Ann Eliza Warren, a teacher, and along the journey he stopped in
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where he worked as a rural schoolteacher. In 1857 Pitts traveled to
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Official site of The Little Brown Church of the Vale, history page
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Annals of
Internal Medicine - Volume 6, Issues 7-12 (1936) Page 952
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89:. Pitts found particular beauty in a wooded valley formed by the
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William Savage Pitts was born at Lums
Corners within the town of
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Grand Lodge bulletin of Iowa - Volumes 36-37 (1936) Page 609
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History of
Chickasaw and Howard counties, Iowa, Volume 1
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http://desmoinesregister.com/extras/iowans/pitts.html
254:http://www.littlebrownchurch.org/churchhistory.cfm
77:At age nineteen Pitts traveled with his family to
105:Later life as a physician in Fredericksburg, Iowa
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243:. S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1919, p. 228.
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178:(Native Ground Music, Mar 30, 2007), pg. 34
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212:: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (
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326:People from Chickasaw County, Iowa
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336:19th-century American politicians
291:Songwriters from New York (state)
226:Longden, Tom. "Famous Iowans."
38:who wrote the well-known song "
341:Baptists from New York (state)
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46:Early life in upstate New York
30:(1830 – 1918) was an American
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176:The Bluegrass Gospel Songbook
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230:URL accessed on June 3, 2006
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331:People from Yates, New York
316:American Congregationalists
311:Rush Medical College alumni
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73:Move to Wisconsin and Iowa
40:The Church in the Wildwood
321:Mayors of places in Iowa
239:Fairbairn, Robert Herd.
109:In 1865, Pitts moved to
67:Handel and Haydn Society
56:Orleans County, New York
301:Musicians from Brooklyn
99:The Little Brown Church
79:Rock County, Wisconsin
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346:19th-century Baptists
296:Songwriters from Iowa
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306:Physicians from Iowa
115:Rush Medical College
83:Fredericksburg, Iowa
122:Brooklyn, New York
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16:American physician
111:Chicago, Illinois
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91:Cedar River
60:New England
42:" in 1857.
275:Categories
199:2013-01-17
136:References
130:Freemason
32:physician
208:cite web
63:Puritans
36:composer
52:Yates
214:link
34:and
54:in
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