Show Thomas Denton Pitt died at his South Tenth East in this December 20 leaving a wife and five children to mourn his This is a plain newspaper statement of Tom Pitt's departure on death's through that never returns from 1 he great Many times I have bade Tom good-bye at the S. L. and Union Pacific depots when he started for or New and as I shook his warm I would wish him a safe journey and a quick but on his last Tom's hand was and his heart-throbs for humanity had become silent I had learned of his sudden departure to that country so dreaded and so On my first visit to January I met Tom for the first it was at his home in t I rode with him for three days over the Bear River which was then a wilderness of sage but Tom's honest and his sincere and glowing picture-of the i future of that great so inspired me that I became ohe of the three general traveling agents for that and nearly every month for three or four years when I arrived in Corinne with prospective land Tom met us there and conducted us through the By his easy and honest Tom inspired the confidence of all who came to Bear River In every instance where strangers and friends alike reposed confidence in Tom it was never broken or Tom Pitt would rather lose MOO out of his own pocket than to strain the confidence of a stranger or friend in a five-dollar Many a knowing Tom's great heart and his took advantage of t and actually helped to eat up Ws great If he had been an astute and crafty man in business he would have been a millionaire at his At one Tom and Jim Pitt owned a two-thirds interest in nearly one-half of all the irrigated lands under the Bear River besides all the odd sections of dry and grazing lands included in the land grants to the Southern Pacific railroad for miles north and west of Bear River Much of the irrigated lands in that wonderful valley are worth per acre I rode with Tom many days over the Bear River I accompanied him to Chicago on several occasions while preparing a beautiful catalogue for Bear valley we were together in Chicago for fifteen At another time Tom met me at the Grand hotel in Cedar and after arranging our business affairs for the future campaign 1 accompanied Tom to the Northwestern and just before he took the train for home he placed in my hand a fifty-dollar and is a little extra expense money for you to use above your regular expense he further live too it may give you I was with Tom so 1 thoroughly knew and I knew that there was not one drop of mean or bad blood coursing through his massive In the fall of I arrived in Salt Lake City with my wife and I was then working for Jay Smith oP who were Tom's general land agents for the Bear River Valley Smith were behind on my expense and they told me they had sent it to Salt Lake My daughter and myself had just between that Saturday afternoon when we arrived in this my wife and daughter went out and found a for which they paid two dollars for a week in we then went to the postoffice for my there was none Saturday afternoon in a strange with wife and and only forty-five cents to live on over I knew and John P. but they were out of the we took the forty-five went into the little Crescent just west of the Dooly and there blew ourselves to three fifteen-cent When we left the restaurant we could not have bought one apple at the rate of two cents per and Saturday night at My wife and daughter went their while I strolled up the street to As I turned around the corner of the Dooly block on West Temple street I near the corner of Third about pounds of good natured humanity coming toward It was Tom I told him my He n Jay Smith if that is the way they use their traveling I will fire them and give you their At that he put his big hand into his pocket and drew forth a twenty and a five-dollar gold which he handed to me and will keep you till and then I will put you on a sure which he err is We all make and our road through life is more or less The only thing that does not make a in its own is the Salt Lake but that is not Tom Pitt's greatest mistakes in life were his business and his last political When Tom sold his lands he went into the wholesale commission business in Salt one of his partners had to leave the city to keep out of Tom then went into the wholesale grain and commission business with G. C. and Cleaveland was so crooked you could not measure him with a flexible rule without cracking The Cleaveland Commission company went and the burden fell on Tom's greatest mistake of all was when he forsook the political and under exorbitant promises he joined the Kearns American he was appointed chief of police of Salt Lake a position in which Tom was qualified in every but he was too conscientious for the Kearns Tom honestly believed in the segregating under but not in legalizing the scarlet Tom was bold enough to advocate that and he was A notorious woman from Og-den and a few leaders of the Kearns American party took a cue from Tom's report to the city council and built the West Side The scarlet women of this city were ready and willing to forsake its business haunts and move into the but on learning that they had to pay one dollar per day each for rent and one dollar per day each for police they Tom Pitt was ordered to compel all such women to go into the stockade to be be bled per day Tom absolutely he said he had herded sheep and but he would never be a trafficker in white if he hence he was removed as chief of This last stroke seemed to be too much for He appeared to be down and He was sick in bed several but Tom had One day in his office I saw Tom take a one-foot ruler and lay it on a piece of and as he drew a line along its straight putting a small circle at the he said to is Four inches down he put another and and at the further end he marked Just a little below that he made another Salt then he are the Chicago Northwestern and the Union Pacific A straight line is the shortest distance between two here in Chicago is C. A. the general passenger agent of the C. N. and here in Omaha is W. assistant general passenger agent for the Union and here in Salt Lake is Joe three of the best men in the And so it proved to Tom Details are not aside from Tom's the last few months of his life were peaceful During all the years of Tom's prosperity he extensively advertised and ed the C. N. W. and the U. and railroad men like Murray and Joe Manderfield never forget a Tom Pitt leaves wife who is as big-hearted and as he She would give her last slice of bread to a if she thought that friend was In our national paper currency-are two silken running through every bill to guarantee its In Tom Pitt's Book of starting page where he was born in Montana to page 45 in Salt Lake City in are many smooth and bright pages and a few torn and blotted but running through each and every from page 1 to the are two very prominent silken and those threads were generosity and V. S. |