The Index, Hermitage, Missouri 2 Sep 1915 Thursday
A. J. Pitts was born July 4th, 1830, near Nashville, Tennessee. While quite young he was taken to Kentucky by his parents. They lived there a short time, and from Kentucky they moved to Mississippi and resided there till 1844. Then they moved to Hickory county, Missouri, and "Uncle Jack" resided here the remaining seventy-one years of his life.
When near the age of twenty-one years he was married to Mallisa Pitts on February 27, 1852. Bro. Pitts raised ten children, all of whom survive him, his death being the first in his immediate family.
He lived long enough to see all of his children settled in homes of their own. Besides his ten children he had thirty-eight grand-children, of whom thirty-two are living; also twenty-nine great grand-children all of whom are living.
A. J. Pitts enlisted as a private in the Union Army at Hermitage, Missouri, in the Osage Battalion of the Missouri Home Guards about July 1st, 1861, and was relieved about December 20, 1861 near Jefferson City. He then enlisted in Company H, 47th regiment of Enrolled Missouri Militia at Linn Creek, July 29, 1862. He was commissioned First Lieutenant August 29, 1862, and served as such until December 12, 1864, when he was honorably discharged.
He died at the ripe old age of 85 years, 1 month and 19 days. His funeral was conducted by Elder F. E. Butterfield at the Antioch church where he has been a member for the last 55 years. The funeral was attended by a host of friends and kinsmen.
He kept the Faith; he fought the Fight of Righteousness; and finished his course here below to quit this world with all its trials and temptations, and passed into Eternity into the presence of his God and our God.