Pitkin was born in
Philadelphia to Horace Wells Pitkin and Lucy Tracy Yale, daughter of Rev.
Cyrus Yale. His father was a merchant with government stores in Philadelphia and Louisville and acquired a generous fortune. His uncle was artist
Seth Wells Cheney, brother of
Ward Cheney, and his grandnephew was NY Senator
Mortimer Yale Ferris. On his father's side, he was a descendant of attorney general William Pitkin IV, grandfather of Gov.
William Pitkin, the cousin of Founding Father
Oliver Wolcott, and on his mother's side, he was a descendant of the family of
Elihu Yale, the founder of
Yale College. His sister was Mary Yale Pitkin, wife of landscape architect
Charles Eliot, son of
Charles William Eliot, President of
Harvard University, and member of the
Eliot family. Charles's architectural firm had the contract of
Biltmore's landscape and was a cousin of
T.S. Eliot. The Pitkin family settled in
Manchester (Connecticut). Entering
Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1884 Pitkin took a leading role in the campus Christian Endeavor movement. Entering Yale in 1888, he excelled in music, writing, and volunteer activities. He was widely admired for his sunny disposition and strong convictions. In the summer of 1889 at Dwight L. Moody's Northfield (Massachusetts) School, he signed the Student Volunteer Movement (SVM) pledge, indicating his intention to become a missionary. Following graduation from
Yale in 1892, he entered
Union Theological Seminary, New York, then spent an interim year as traveling secretary for the SVM. In 1894, with his fiancee, Letitia Thomas, a graduate of
Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, he offered himself for service with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. ==Work in China and death==