Chartley Artel Pitt (1878 - 1966)

Born 17 Apr 1878 in Portage, Wisconsin, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Emma May (McLeod) Pitt — married 18 Aug 1909 in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada

Died 3 Feb 1966 at age 87 in Everett, Snohomish, Washington, United States

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Biography

Chart Pitt was born Chartley Artel Pitt April 17, 1878 in Portage County, Wisconsin. to William C. Pitt (b. 1847 NY) and Jane “Jennie” (Eaton) Pitt (b. 1850 Canada). At age 22 he was residing on his father’s farm.^[1]

He married (18 Aug 1909, in New Westminster, B. C.) Emma May “May” McLeod, b. 1886 in North Dakota, daughter of Captain Neil S. McLeod, a master mariner of Bellingham. The McLeod family was living in Bellingham by 1890.^[2] At the time of his marriage at age 32 Chart Pitt was a resident of Joseph, Idaho. His parents were listed as living there in the 1910 Census—at least his mother Jennie was, but her husband William’s information was crossed out by the census taker and her marital status was listed as “widowed.” The year 1910 was notable in Pitt’s literary career for two reasons. In that year he won a prize of $10 for the best poem on Mother’s Day, offered by the Modern Woodmen of America fraternal organization, which pronounced Pitt a “real poet,” a feat duly recorded in his hometown newspaper, the Stevens Point Gazette.^[3] In 1910 he also published a poem, “Back to the Night,” in Liberty, a Seventh-Day Adventist magazine, beginning a long association with that sect that culminated with his baptism in May 1959.^[4]

Daughter Lotus Pitt Pasternack was born July 6, 1912 in Bellingham. At the time, her father was employed by the U. S. Lighthouse Service. Her first four years were spent south of Ketchikan at Tree Point Lighthouse, where Chart Pitt was Second Assistant Keeper from 1911, and where locals called her “Lavender Lotus, Lilly of the North.”^[5] The family later moved to Ediz Hook Lighthouse, Destruction Island Lighthouse and finally to the Mukilteo Lighthouse. He was lighthouse keeper at Mukilteo from 1917 to 1922. In the 1920 Census he was living with his family in Mukilteo, married with wife May and small children: daughter Lotus age 7, sons Donald age 4 and Gordon age 2; these children were born in Washington.

Chart Pitt’s niece, the late Elaine Scheib Jensen, was Mukilteo Pioneer of the Year for 2011.^[6] The Scheibs used to live diagonally across from her best friend Sylvia “Tude” (Zahler) Richter’s house on Fifth Street. Elaine recalled that Chart Pitt drove her and Tude to a hotel in Edmonds the night of the Powder Mill Gulch explosion in 1930. It was the first time either had spent a night in a hotel, but Tude was disappointed because they did not get the ice cream they were expecting that night. Tude told me that at age 12, she and Elaine used to go around Mukilteo delivering radical newspapers for Mr. Pitt. ^[7]

Fiction Writer

Starting about 1909, Pitt frequently submitted verses and fiction to popular magazines. His short stories appeared in such pulp magazines as Thrilling Adventures, Action Stories, North-West Stories, Outdoor Stories, and Red-Blooded Stories. They often dealt with seafaring, hunting, mining, and man against nature generally. A story called "Brawn of the Bering" was featured in Action Stories in January 1927.

If the Everett Public Library had started back in the 1970s collecting Pitt’s fiction, there would be a whole shelf of it now in the library, librarian David Dilgard told me.^[8]

Pitt and Prohibition

“The Bootlegger’s Brat” (1931) is set in Oregon, but those in the know recognized it as a thinly disguised portrait of Mukilteo during Prohibition days. David Dilgard told me that this book is like H. P. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon—in that some people claim to have seen a copy but no one knows where to actually find one. It was published in 1931 under the imprint of Hurst and Blackett in London. Pitt’s fiction had been, and still remains, better known in England than over here. The only review (unsigned) to be found online appeared in the Sydney, Australia Morning Herald for April 3, 1931.

“Among the Rum-Runners of Oregon” “The purpose of Mr. Chart Pitt in writing ‘The Bootlegger’s Brat’ may have been to supply ‘wet’ propaganda, or to show the ease with which lawless practices are carried on in the United States. Apart from this, his story is a vigorous if undistinguished piece of writing, which deals with a remarkably thirsty community on the Oregon coast. Citizens who are not consistently imbibing spend all their leisure in a search for spiritual intoxication through the agency of the more violent forms of evangelism. Both parties are despicable, the one meanly striving to snatch such sources of happiness as the other possesses.

“The trouble begins within a few days of ‘the death of John Barleycorn,’ when Pat Shanley installs his secret distillery to satisfy, at a price, the inordinate thirst of his fellow townsmen. Shanley is caught by Federal officers and sent to gaol, but as soon as he gains his freedom he learns that bootlegging has by this time been scientifically organized throughout the country, and he is honoured to find himself district manager of the liquor ring. One learns something of the extent to which bootlegging has destroyed the integrity of American law officers and others in authority, including prison governors, who apparently accord special privileges to such rum-runners as the police occasionally imprison for the sake of appearances. Mr. Pitt also concerns himself with the effect of organized lawlessness upon young America, and the difficulties facing a lawyer of repute at the beginning of his career, under the present corrupt conditions.”^[9]

State Legislator

Pitt is best known as a representative to the Washington State Legislature for the 38th District, elected in 1937, 1939, 1941, 1943 and 1945. The present 38th District includes Everett, Tulalip and Marysville (but not Mukilteo). When Pitt served, the 38th covered part of Snohomish County and part of Island County. As a legislator his antics were legendary. As the summary of “Bootlegger’s Brat” attests, Pitt long associated the “wet” interests with political corruption. Although a Democrat, he often broke with his party over this issue. During a debate in the Washington Legislature in 1939, he stood up to oppose a bill to permit sales of liquor by the drink on trains within the state. Proponents said the measure was for the benefit of thirsty tourists. “If these tourists want to souse up for 3000 miles, all right,” countered Chart Pitt, “But when they get to the state of Washington it isn’t going to hurt them a bit to sober up for a few hours.” The measure was killed by four voles.^[10]

His antics were well known to speakers of the house. When Speaker Jack Sylvester wouldn’t recognize him, Pitt waited until about halfway through the session and then leaped to his feet.

“Mr. Speaker, I want to make a motion,” said Pitt.

The speaker sighed and said, “Make your motion, Mr. Pitt.”

Chart smiled, raised his hand and thumbed his nose at the Speaker.^[11]

A 1945 newspaper article described him as a “grim, pipe-biting little representative” when he spoke on the house floor to oppose Governor Wallgren’s proposal to appoint a liquor control board to serve “at his pleasure.” After his side was defeated, Pitt stood up to declare he was unashamed of his vote. When told to sit down, he protested, “there is nothing before the house.” “Nothing except Pitt,” snickered another representative.^[12]

A few days later, perhaps figuring he had already committed political suicide and had nothing to lose, Chart Pitt was waving and thumping a baseball bat on boxes and desks to get the chairman’s attention during a near riot on the house floor, when labor members were beaten down in an attempt to amend the rules to permit forcing of bills from the rules committee upon presentation of a petition by 33 members or 50 members.^[13]

Chart Pitt came in third in the 1946 primary election. Although he ran for his old seat several times, he was not elected to statewide office again. His name was on the ballot in the first mayoral election in Mukilteo in 1947. He ran as a Progressive in the 1948 election, and was back among the Democrats in 1962.

Chart Pitt died Thursday, February 3, 1966, and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Everett, Block 50, Lot 129.

Obituary

Chart Pitt’s Obituary from the Everett Herald, February 5, 1966

Chart A. Pitt, 87, of 2510 Victor Place, died in a local hospital Thursday evening following an extended illness. Mr. Pitt was born in Wisconsin on April 17, 1878, and had lived in Mukilteo and Everett for 48 years. He was a lighthouse keeper, retiring 40 years ago. Since his retirement he has been an author. Mr. Pitt was a member of the Bellingham Bay Masonic Lodge, F. & A. M., the Townsend Club and the Golden Hour Club. He served in the Washington State Legislature for a number of years. Surviving are a daughter, Mrs. Joe Pasternack of 612 Park, Mukilteo; two sons, Donald Pitt of Forks and Gordon Pitt of Novato, California; a brother, Ray Pitt of Ketchikan, Alaska; 17 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Funeral services will be Monday afternoon at 3 o’clock at the funeral home of Purdy and Walters. The Rev. Philip A. Laurie of Mukilteo Presbyterian Church will officiate. Burial will be in Evergreen Cemetery. Should friends desire, memorials may be made to the charity of their choice. Pallbearers are to be Martin Roken, Rex Tucker, Oliver Markham, Miles Rooney, Robert Hayes and Andy Arvidson.

Sources

1. ↑ "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MM2S-YFD : accessed 11 October 2018), Chartley A Pitt in household of William C Pitt, Eau Pleine township, Portage, Wisconsin, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 102, sheet 3A, family 45, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,241,812.
2. ↑ History of Whatcom County, vol. 2, by Lottie Roeder Roth, 1926, pp. 473-474.
3. ↑ “Chart Pitt, the Poet,” Stevens Point (WI) Gazette, Wednesday, June 15, 1910, page 1.
4. ↑ “North Pacific Union Gleaner,” (a Seventh-Day Adventist publication) vol. 54, no. 20, College Place, WA, dated May 18, 1959, p. 5: “May 2 was a happy day for the believers in the Everett-Marysville area when twenty precious souls were added to this faith…Mr. Chart Pitt, formerly of the State Legislature, was also baptized. A patient of Doctor Wagner, he owes some of his first contacts with the church to this Christian physician.”
5. ↑ Obituary of Lotus Jean Pitt Pasternak, Juneau Empire, May 7, 2007: http://juneauempire.com/stories/050907/obi_20070509022.shtml#.Vj6y-29dFhF
6. ↑ “Pioneer of the Year Elaine Scheib Jensen”, Mukilteo Beacon, 17 August 1911, p. 12.
7. ↑ Personal interview with Tude Richter, Mukilteo, 12 Dec 2015.
8. ↑ Personal interview with David Dilgard, Everett Public Library, 22 Dec 2015. Having brought up the Necronomicon of H. P. Lovecraft, Dilgard mused that Lovecraft and Pitt, being both pulp authors, had a lot in common. If only Lovecraft could have been a lighthouse keeper like Pitt, he would have been happy, Dilgard said. I thought at once of Ray Bradbury’s story “The Fog Horn,” in which a great undersea beast attacks a lighthouse, and pictured to myself a Cthulhu-spawn on the spit at Mukilteo.
9. ↑ https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/117752230/
10. ↑ “It Would Be a Change! “ Pottstown, PA Mercury, 18 Feb 1939, p. 3 (regarding the debate in the Washington State Legislature over serving liquor on trains by the drink).
11. ↑ “House History Hysterical: Official Collects Stories,” by Eldon Barrett, Spokane Chronicle, Wednesday, March 3, 1965, page 6.
12. ↑ “Wallgren Wins in Liquor Fight,” Spokane Statesman-Review, Thursday, March 8, 1945, page 1.
13. ↑ “Both Houses Pass Bulky Highway Bill after Long Battle,” Spokane Chronicle, Monday, March 12, 1945, page 2.

• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/93712993/chartley-artell-pitt: accessed 14 January 2024), memorial page for Chartley Artell -Chart- Pitt (17 Apr 1878–3 Feb 1966), Find A Grave: Memorial #93712993, citing Evergreen Cemetery, Everett, Snohomish County, Washington, USA; Maintained by Sandra Ellis (contributor 47868887).