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Pitts Family History
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Pitts Family - Newfoundland
Pitts Memorial, has
various
meanings to Newfoundlanders, depending on their generation. To younger ears, it refers
to the
arterial highway approaching St. John's from the South Side
Hills -
Pitts Memorial Drive - while an older generation can recall
Pitts
Memorial
Hall, which stood next to Holloway School,
between Military Road and Long's Hill as a focus of
school, youth group, and community activities in the city,
during the
early decades of the 20th Century.
While appreciation for the
generosity of Hon. James Stewart Pitts, is the initial
motivating
factor for the Pitts Memorial name, the
Pitt's name continues to be commemorated in Newfoundland for
good
reason. Hon. James' business interests began with a
fisheries
supply firm,
and flourished through major investments in secondary industry.
Appointed a director of the Bank of Nova Scotia, he was a major
investor in mining operations on Bell Island and shareholder of
sealing
ships. His politics were equally diversified, starting as
a Tory
in the 1880's, by 1898 he was supporting Robert
Bond's Liberals.
Accommodating to the political realities of the time, his career
spanned two decades, with cabinet postings during most of that
period.
When Hon. James Stewart Pitts
died
in 1914, he had no descendants. After
ensuring the needs of family were met, his
will
dedicated a solid portion of
his wealth to support a number of worthy causes in Newfoundland.
At a time when most men were happy to work for a dollar a day,
his
estate was valued at nearly a million dollars - a massive
fortune. His choice to invest a large portion of his
wealth in
organizations that would serve the needs of Newfoundlanders, was
progressive, and thus his selfless acts were an example of
philanthropy
in
the colony which encouraged others to dedicate their
personal
resources towards improving conditions in Newfoundland. The
final
estate
settlement, upon the death of his wife, enhanced the resources
of his
extended family, as was the custom, yet he had the
vision to embrace the needs of the broader community as well as
providing a means for his relatives to carry on his generosity.
His father's will (William
Pitts) likewise provides genealogical information.
While Hon. James was among the
best
known of the Pitts family, he was not the
first to live in Newfoundland. E J Pratt, the poet, was quick to
point
out to an
interviewer in 1958, "that
he
could trace back to a generation of
Newfoundlanders, Joseph Pitts, who was here in 1678."
Pratt went
on to
tell of the 15 year old seaman in Newfoundland waters who was
chased
and captured by pirates along with his shipmates on the high
seas. The
harrowing tale of his next fifteen years in slavery and travels
throughout North Africa, the Middle East and his eventual walk
across
Europe to freedom is a part of Newfoundland history, which is
seldom
told,
despite being first published in England in 1704, in a genre now
called slave narratives, and continues to be retold in modern
works on
the Algerian slave trade. While Joseph Pitts documented his
travels from Newfoundland to Mecca in great detail, and it
continues to
receive scholarly attention, any connection to E J Pratt is
difficult to document. Recent research indicates that both the
father and grandfather of James Pitts were named John Pitts and
the grandfather would have lived at the same time as Joseph, the
captured fisherman, who was thus not a direct ancestor of the
Newfoundland Pitts descendants.
Coming
from the very same area of Devon, as young Joseph Pitts, but
seventy years later, James Pitts arrived about 1751 in
Newfoundland,
and to this man, Pratt’s connections are clearly known, as this
was his
mother's grandfather. The emigrant was born at Kennford near Exeter
in
1735, establishing a family of
three sons and finding success as a planter at Lance Cove.
Sometime
between 1780 and 1794 he built a large
house there and expanded his interests into shipbuilding and a
brickyard. Owning a square mile of land, he appears to have
played a
lead role in developing a prosperous new community on Bell
Island.
Lance Cove historian Lloyd C. Rees indicates that, “the story of James
Pitts and his adventurous exploits is by far the most
interesting
chapter in the early history of Lance Cove.” James Pitts Sr. was the
great-grandfather of the St. John's philanthropist, James Stewart Pitts,
A story is told of one return
trip
to England, in which a Mr. Pitts from
Bell Island in 1810 purchased three tall case clocks in
Exeter, for family members and the clockmaker was so impressed
with the
family's
apparent success and confidence in the colony, that he decided
to give
life in Newfoundland a
try himself. The fledgling clockmaker, named Benjamin Bowring
visited
Newfoundland in 1811 and when he also found the Newfoundland
conducive
to business, moved there in 1813, establishing
the family firm which bears his name. One of the three original
clocks
remained for many years in the offices of a Pitts descendant,
Campbell
Macpherson while he was General Manager of Royal Stores. A card
inside
the clock tells the story and confirms the purchase by William
Pitts,
likely the son of James Pitts Sr. The card indicates that
the
purchase was made for James, William and John Pitts. Likely a
posthumous purchase from the Estate of James Pitts Sr. for his
three
sons being carried out by
William while there on business, five years after his father's
death.
The typed
card tucked inside the clock was apparently added later,
ensuring the
story remained of how the Bowring name came to Newfoundland,
encouraged
by the prosperous experience and positive descriptions of Mr.
Pitts.
The Lance Cove family living
in the
big house on Pitts' Hill included
the sons of the pioneers Ann and James Sr.- William (1787-1869)
who
married Ann Juer (1794-1869), John (1783-1825) who married
Elizabeth
Picco (1786-1826), and James Jr. (1784-1870) who married
Elizabeth's
sister, Frances Bartlett Picco (1786-1864). When John Pitts
drowned in Conception Bay, and Elizabeth died the next year,
their
children moved in with their double cousins, and grow up
together as a combined family following a move to St.
John's.
William
Pitts' branch of the family remained on Bell Island. The will of
James
One can imagine that a house
full
of young women growing up with just
one brother might have been the centre of a bit of attention in
St.
John’s. While I don’t know if all the Pitts girls had extremely
dark
eyes, I
do know that my own mother (Jean White), when growing up in St. John’s, was told the dark eyes ran in
the Pitts family, and that dark brown eyes were always
attributed as
being “Pitts eyes”, for any child who
inherited the trait. Looking over old albums and faded
pictures
of children with beautiful big dark brown eyes that never seem
to fade,
I assume that these are the eyes she spoke of.
From
this St.
John's combined
family many Newfoundland families have a
connection to the Pitts family. Like their mothers who married
brothers
on Bell Island we
discover double marriages of descendants in the next generations
to
brothers or cousins including men
of the Ayre, Knight and Ebsary name. Marriages in the early
generations
also included
surnames Duder, Coyell,
Parsons, Stone, Cowan and Dickenson. Additional surnames today
including Pratt,
Rowe, White, Lilly, O'Neill, Gentleman, Francis, Puddester,
Macpherson,
Porter, Butler, Noseworthy,
Cook, Carnell, Godden, and Shepherd to mention only a few.
Among the stories of heroic
sacrifice in Newfoundland's history few
exceed the loss suffered on July 1,
1916 in a few brief morning hours at Beaumont Hamel during WW I.
Among
the many
Newfoundlanders who gave their young lives for freedom that
tragic
morning, were three great-great-grandchildren of Ann and James
Pitts
Sr. - Gerald
Ayre, Eric
Ayre
and Bernard
Pitts
Ayre.
While stories survive and the
memory of his descendants continue in
various forms - high on a cliff-top cemetery on Bell Island
where he is
buried,
the memory of James Pitts, the Lance Cove pioneer, could have disappeared forever.
While
storms and winds had left his grave intact for almost two
centuries, the
old
stone could not withstand vandalism in recent years.
Broken fragments of the
headstone were retrieved by a concerned resident,
from the bottom of the cliff, all that remained in 2004, of the historic
marker for a family patriarch, and a
Newfoundland pioneer.
Luckily, another son of Lance
Cove, Lloyd C. Rees who has long been interested in the rich
history
of Bell Island, transcribed all stones in the graveyard in 1968
when
the full
inscription of James Pitts' headstone was still intact. His
research
publishing
as website An
Outport Revisited - Lance
Cove led Pitts descendants to make
contact
with each other and Lloyd Rees, and to learn of the destruction
of
their ancestor's gravestone.
Determined to set
things right, the efforts of Lloyd Rees and others grewn to see
that the inscription for James
Pitts headstone be returned to Lance Cove. On July 27, 2005 a
dedication
ceremony marked the return to Bell Island of this inscription
in a replica headstone
- the 200th anniversary year of his passing. The re-dedication
was documented with photographs
and a speech.
This inscription could have
been
lost for all time without the
preservation and concern of individuals like Lloyd Rees.
While
vandals motives might confound, we can be thankful for
individuals who
have
taken time to mend and repair and to record cemetery
inscriptions of
strangers, while they still exist. Out of respect to James Pitts
Sr.
and
the industrious spirit he represents, the words of his
inscription - a piece of Newfoundland heritage - has now
returned to
Lance Cove once again.
Here lies ye body of
James Pitts who
died
ye 30 April
1805 Aged 70 years
Farewell my wife
and children three
Who in this life
never more shall see
Here I shall rest
and evermore remain
Until the day we
all shall meet again
When me you left I
thought of your returning
Alas my
hopes are fled and you are
mourning
So farewell
friends and aquaintence all
Pas by this tomb
in friendship call
Look on the same
without grief or fear
As my choice is to
be buried here.
He was born at
Kenford in Devonshire.
On the reverse a short
dedication reads -
This
replica, placed on the
200th anniversary of his passing
is dedicated to James Pitts,
and to fellow pioneers who
sleep here in unmarked graves.
May they rest in peace.
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