John Pitcairn Jr.

Pitcairn was born on January 10, 1841[1] in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland to parents John Pitcairn Sr. (1803 – 1884), a machinist, and Agnes McEwan (1803 - 1891), a housekeeper.[2] He was one of six children resulting from the marriage, and also had two older half-siblings from his father's first marriage.[3]

Pitcairn's parents had initially emigrated to America around 1835, and lived first in Brooklyn, New York, and then in Paterson, New Jersey, where Pitcairn' sister, Janet, was born. Meeting with a lack of financial success, they returned to Scotland a few years later. In 1846, however, the family emigrated again to America, this time with four new children,[2] and settled in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, where Pitcairn's uncle, Alexander Pitcairn, had started a woolens business.[4] There, Pitcairn attended public school until dropping out at age 14 to pursue a career in the railroad.[5]

Around 1849 Pitcairn and the rest of his family were baptized by David Powell, a reverend of the New Church.[2]

Pitcairn was the brother of Pennsylvania railroad magnate Robert Pitcairn and consul-general Hugh Pitcairn.

In 1877, the already highly successful, 38-year-old Pitcairn met 21-year-old Gertrude Starkey (1855–1898). Two years later, he proposed marriage, but was gently turned down. Reputedly, Starkey's strong New Church beliefs about the ideal of marriage required her to conduct a close examination of the spiritual nature of her feelings for him. Undeterred by her rejection, Pitcairn continued to court Starkey for five more years. Finally she accepted, and they were married in 1884.[10]

Following their marriage, the couple lived on Spring Garden Street in Philadelphia, until the completion of the new family estate, Cairnwood, in 1895.[10] Together they had six children, only four of whom survived infancy.[9] These were:

• Vera Pitcairn (1887–1910). Vera died suddenly of appendicitis at the age of 23.[11]
• Raymond Pitcairn (1885–1966). Raymond was a lawyer, a businessman, a collector of ancient and medieval art, and an amateur architect. He supervised the building of the Bryn Athyn Cathedral.[12] He was also the national chairman and a major financial supporter of the Sentinels of the Republic, a right-wing political group of the 1920s and 1930s which opposed child labor legislation and the New Deal.[13]
• Theodore Pitcairn (1893–1973). Theodore was an arts collector and philanthropist, and a minister in the General Church of the New Jerusalem.[12] In the late 1930s a doctrinal schism within the church led him and several other members to found another "New Church" branch known as The Lord's New Church Which Is Nova Hierosolyma. He served as a leader of this new church until his death.[14]
• Harold Frederick Pitcairn (1897–1960). Harold, a lifelong aviation enthusiast, started Pitcairn Aviation, an air mail service that ultimately grew into Eastern Airlines. He founded the Pitcairn Aircraft Company, which designed and built under license pioneering airmail aircraft and autogyros. He played a key role in promoting rotary wing flight leading to development of the helicopter.[12]

Bryn Athyn Cathedral

Pitcairn was an active member and benefactor of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, a branch of the New Church, which follows the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Pitcairn's financial largess enabled the founding of the Swedenborgian settlement at Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, the construction of the town's library, and the New Church's Bryn Athyn Cathedral.[15] He also financed the construction of a new campus for the Academy of the New Church, a Swedenborgian learning center comprising a secondary school, a college, and a theological school. The campus was completed in 1911.[16]

"The Fallacy of Vaccination" by John Pitcairn

During the last ten years of his life, Pitcairn was highly active in the American anti-vaccination movement. According to public health historian James Colgrove, Pitcairn's opposition to vaccination stemmed from Swedenborgian teachings, a devotion to homeopathy, an alternative medical practice embraced by many New Church members, and his son Raymond's adverse reaction to a vaccination.[17] On March 5, 1907, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he delivered an address to the Committee on Public Health and Sanitation of the Pennsylvania General Assembly criticizing vaccination.[18] He later sponsored the National Anti-Vaccination Conference, which, held in Philadelphia on October, 1908, led to the creation of the Anti-Vaccination League of America. When the League was organized later that month, Pitcairn was chosen to be its first president. In May, 1910, an article by Pitcairn entitled 'The Fallacy of Vaccination' was published in the Ladies Home Journal, a periodical with a readership of several million. On December 1, 1911, he was appointed by Pennsylvania Governor John K. Tener to the Pennsylvania State Vaccination Commission,[6] which in accordance with the law mandating it, was to include as members two anti-vaccinationists as well as two pro-vaccinationists.[19] Pitcairn subsequently authored a detailed report strongly opposing the Commission's pro-vaccination conclusions.[6]

Cairnwood Mansion

Construction of Pitcairn's family estate, Cairnwood, was completed in 1895. His wife, Gertrude, died just a few years later, in 1898. Pitcairn never remarried. When asked why, he once responded, "I would no sooner remarry than if Gertrude were standing in the other room."[10]

Pitcairn remained quite active in his numerous business, philanthropy, and social activism capacities well into his seventies. Finally, in the fall of 1915, he suffered a bout of pneumonia, from which he never fully recovered. He died at Cairnwood on July 22, 1916.[6]

In 2002, Cairnwood was entered onto the National Register of Historic Places.[11]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Pitcairn, Jr..

• Photograph of John Pitcairn, Jr. (at the Gyllenhaal Family Tree Project)
• PPG Industries corporate history