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John Pitcairn Jr. Biography: Railroads, PPG, and Bryn Athyn

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On February 22, 1861, twenty-year-old John Pitcairn traveled aboard a special train carrying president-elect Abraham Lincoln from Harrisburg to West Philadelphia. He was a railroad employee with a telegraph instrument, not the architect of the security operation. Years later, his own account would describe the precautions surrounding the trip.

Within a dozen years, Pitcairn had left railroad management for investments in oil, pipelines and natural gas. He would eventually join Captain John B. Ford in the glassmaking venture that became Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. Running alongside that industrial career was another commitment: support for New Church education and the community that grew into Bryn Athyn.

A Quick Look at the Life of John Pitcairn Jr.

Biography Summary

John Pitcairn Jr. (1841–1916) was a Scottish-born American industrialist who co-founded Pittsburgh Plate Glass with John B. Ford in 1883 and later served as its president and board chairman. He also helped fund the Academy of the New Church and develop Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. In his later years, he became a prominent opponent of vaccination and compulsory vaccination laws.

Profile

Full Name: John Pitcairn Jr.

Born: January 10, 1841

Birthplace: Johnstone, Scotland

Died: July 22, 1916, in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania

Known For: Co-founding Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company with Captain John B. Ford; supporting New Church education and the development of Bryn Athyn

Major Roles: Railroad manager; energy investor; president of Pittsburgh Plate Glass (1897–1905); PPG board chairman until his death

Religious and Educational Work: Supporter of the Academy of the New Church and the Bryn Athyn community

From Scotland to Railroad Work at Fourteen

John Pitcairn was born in Johnstone, Scotland, on January 10, 1841, to John Pitcairn Sr., a machinist and inventor, and Agnes Pitcairn. His family emigrated to the Pittsburgh and Allegheny City area in 1846, when he was about five.

The household also introduced him to the religious tradition that would remain important throughout his life. His mother followed the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, and Pitcairn was baptized into the New Church with members of his family before 1850.

On his fourteenth birthday, January 10, 1855, Pitcairn left school for railroad work at Altoona, Pennsylvania. He later returned to school for about six months, but railway employment became his principal training ground.

In the office of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s general superintendent, Pitcairn learned telegraphy. His brother Robert helped him enter railroad work in Fort Wayne, Indiana; by about 1860, John was working in Philadelphia. The young employee was gaining experience in the communications and management side of the railway business.

The Young Telegraph Operator on Lincoln’s Train

One assignment in Pitcairn’s early railway career placed him alongside a president-elect. In February 1861, concerns about a threat on Abraham Lincoln’s expected route through Baltimore led to a discreet rail movement from Harrisburg toward Philadelphia. Pitcairn traveled on the special train on February 22 as a railway employee with a telegraph instrument.

He later wrote a firsthand account in a letter dated November 23, 1867. Describing the passenger car, Pitcairn recalled: “The lamps of the car were not lighted.” He also described a stop at Downingtown for locomotive water and Lincoln’s unobtrusive departure from the train in Philadelphia.

Pitcairn distinguished what he witnessed from what he learned afterward about the threatened attack and the wider arrangements. Railway officials Enoch Lewis and G. C. Franciscus also left accounts of the trip. His role was in the rail journey itself, under the direction of railway superiors.

Railroad management continued beyond that episode. Pitcairn served as general manager of the Oil Creek and Allegheny River Railroad from 1869 until September 1872, when he resigned and turned further toward business enterprises outside railway management.

Moving from Railroad Management into Energy Ventures

Pitcairn was involved in oil and related ventures while he was still working in railroads, and those interests continued after he left railroad management in 1872. His activities included oil production, refining, pipelines and natural gas. His associations included Vandergrift and Forman and the Imperial Refinery at Oil City. He later sold refinery interests to Standard Oil, but his energy interests extended beyond those holdings.

Pitcairn and Vandergrift were associated with early efforts to pipe natural gas for Pittsburgh-area industrial use. The venture was part of a wider period of energy investment and transportation development; it does not make Pitcairn the sole inventor of natural-gas pipelines. By 1879 he was also connected with H. L. Taylor and the Union Oil Company of Buffalo, and his interests expanded into other businesses and mining.

By the time he entered glass manufacturing, Pitcairn had worked across transportation and industrial energy. Those business interests developed alongside a separate undertaking already forming in the 1870s: his support for New Church education.

An Educational Commitment That Predated PPG

Pitcairn’s support for New Church education was already taking institutional form before the glass company existed. On January 12, 1874, he joined the Reverend William Henry Benade, Walter C. Childs and Frank Ballou in Pittsburgh to discuss a religious-educational and reform initiative. Two days later, Pitcairn wrote a $500 check in support of the new effort.

The Academy of the New Church formally began on June 19, 1876. Its college traces its incorporation to 1877. The distinction matters: the 1874 fundraising and organizational activity preceded the Academy’s formal establishment.

Benade became an important collaborator. In 1877, the two set out on an extended journey through Europe, Egypt and the Holy Land. They acquired more than a thousand ancient objects, which contributed to the Academy’s educational museum collection.

The commitment to New Church education thus predated Pitcairn’s glassmaking career. Both continued as his responsibilities increased.

John B. Ford, John Pitcairn, and the Creation of Pittsburgh Plate Glass

Glassmaking brought Pitcairn into partnership with Captain John B. Ford, who already had manufacturing experience and pursued European methods and equipment. Pitcairn’s contribution lay in investment, organization and management. Ford’s sons and other associates also took part in the early business.

Pitcairn was associated with a predecessor venture, the New York City Plate Glass Company, in 1882. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company dates its founding to 1883, when Ford and Pitcairn established a commercially successful American plate-glass manufacturing operation at Creighton, Pennsylvania, north of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Plate Glass was the predecessor of PPG Industries.

Leadership also extended beyond the two co-founders: Edward Ford was the company’s first president, while Pitcairn was among its initial directors. The glass enterprise depended on manufacturing expertise, financial backing and a wider group of officers rather than the work of either co-founder alone.

As Pittsburgh Plate Glass grew, it added manufacturing works and widened its distribution system. Pitcairn increased his position in the business, with a change in control in 1897 associated with his purchase of Ford family interests. He served as PPG president from 1897 through 1905 and remained board chairman until his death in 1916.

Company expansion reached beyond plate glass. Pittsburgh Plate Glass developed improvements in glass annealing and cooling, established an alkali plant in 1899 and entered coatings through an interest in Patton Paint in 1900. These were company developments, not inventions credited to Pitcairn personally.

Cairnwood, Bryn Athyn, and a Growing Religious Community

While his commercial responsibilities grew, Pitcairn was developing a family home and a religious-educational community. He married Gertrude Starkey on January 8, 1884, in a New Church ceremony. The couple lived in Philadelphia before moving in 1895 to Cairnwood, their Bryn Athyn estate designed by Carrère and Hastings.

The family had six children, two of whom died in infancy. Raymond, Vera, Theodore and Harold lived beyond infancy; Vera died in 1910. Gertrude died in 1898. Pitcairn did not remarry.

Cairnwood stood within a broader undertaking. Beginning in 1889, Pitcairn acquired land in the Huntingdon Valley and Beth Ayres area for a home and for the New Church community that became Bryn Athyn. He supported the Academy’s relocation and campus development, alongside clergy, educators and other collaborators.

The development did not proceed without religious disagreement. In 1897, organizational tensions involving governance of the church and the Academy accompanied a separation of the General Church of the New Jerusalem from the older General Convention. Pitcairn played an influential lay role in these developments, which also brought disagreements involving his longtime collaborator Benade. The institutional questions were more complex than a quarrel between two individuals.

The Academy’s Bryn Athyn campus continued to develop, and Benade Hall was in use by 1901. The community’s educational and religious buildings became a visible second line of Pitcairn’s work, extending beyond the glass company he helped lead.

Vaccination, Compulsion, and a Public Dispute

A smallpox outbreak in Bryn Athyn in early 1906 brought a dispute over compulsory vaccination into sharper focus. Pitcairn and Bishop William Frederic Pendleton disagreed over resistance to the law within the New Church and Academy community. Pitcairn refrained from organizing local institutional defiance, while continuing his opposition through state and national campaigning.

Pitcairn helped organize a Pennsylvania anti-vaccination league in 1906 and opposed both compulsory vaccination laws and vaccination itself. On March 5, 1907, he addressed a Pennsylvania legislative committee in Harrisburg. In his speech, he declared, “We are here this evening in the cause of freedom.” The appeal to liberty and objections to government compulsion were prominent features of his argument.

A Pennsylvania bill seeking to relax or repeal the compulsory requirement passed both legislative houses in 1907 but was vetoed. Pitcairn and Charles M. Higgins later helped found the Anti-Vaccination League of America in 1908; Porter F. Cope was another important collaborator in the movement.

His opposition extended to print and official deliberation. In May 1910 he published an article titled “The Fallacy of Vaccination” in Ladies’ Home Journal. Governor John K. Tener subsequently appointed him to a Pennsylvania State Vaccination Commission, and in 1913 Pitcairn issued a dissenting report challenging vaccination’s effectiveness and safety.

Those assertions about medical safety and effectiveness were Pitcairn’s positions, not findings established by the historical fact that he expressed them. His dissent did not represent the commission’s collective conclusion. The campaign remains a consequential and contested part of his public record, distinct from his contributions to industry and education.

Cathedral Plans, His Final Years, and What Continued After Him

Bryn Athyn Cathedral was another project Pitcairn helped finance. On January 10, 1908, his sixty-seventh birthday, he gave $30,000 to the cathedral building fund. Construction began in 1913, during his lifetime. His son Raymond later took a leading role in supervising the prolonged building work.

John Pitcairn remained PPG board chairman as the enterprise continued beyond his presidency. He died at Bryn Athyn on July 22, 1916, aged 75.

After John’s death, Raymond took a leading role in cathedral construction and later developed Glencairn, completed in 1939. Cairnwood, meanwhile, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in March 2002 for its significance in industry, religion and architecture.

The railroad employee who helped convey Lincoln to Philadelphia went on to co-found an industrial company and support a religious-educational community. Pitcairn’s role in both depended on partnerships, and his later anti-vaccination leadership adds a more contentious dimension to the legacy. The businesses, buildings and disputes that outlived him reflect a public life broader than any single undertaking.

Timeline

These milestones trace Pitcairn’s move from railroad employment into business, religious institution-building and later political campaigning.

Timeline.

1841–1855

Born in Johnstone, Scotland, on January 10, 1841; emigrates with his family to the Pittsburgh area in 1846; begins railroad work on his fourteenth birthday in 1855.

February 22, 1861

Accompanies president-elect Abraham Lincoln aboard a special train from Harrisburg to West Philadelphia, carrying a telegraph instrument.

1869–1872

Serves as general manager of the Oil Creek and Allegheny River Railroad, leaving the role in September 1872 to pursue other enterprises.

1874–1877

Supports a New Church educational initiative with a $500 check in 1874; the Academy of the New Church begins formally in 1876, and its college is incorporated in 1877.

1882–1884

Participates in a plate-glass predecessor venture, co-founds Pittsburgh Plate Glass with John B. Ford in 1883, and marries Gertrude Starkey in 1884.

1889–1898

Begins acquiring land for Bryn Athyn in 1889; moves into Cairnwood in 1895; becomes PPG president and participates in church reorganization in 1897; Gertrude dies in 1898.

1905–1908

Concludes his PPG presidency in 1905; helps organize a Pennsylvania anti-vaccination league in 1906; speaks to a state legislative committee in 1907; contributes to the cathedral fund and helps found the national anti-vaccination league in 1908.

1910–1913

Publishes “The Fallacy of Vaccination” in 1910; files a dissent as a member of a state vaccination commission in 1913; cathedral construction begins in 1913.

July 22, 1916

Dies at Bryn Athyn while still serving as PPG board chairman.

FAQs

Did John Pitcairn Jr. found PPG by himself?

No. He and Captain John B. Ford co-founded Pittsburgh Plate Glass in 1883, with Ford family members and other associates participating in the company’s early operations. Ford brought glassmaking experience, while Pitcairn became an important investor and corporate leader.

What was John Pitcairn Jr.’s connection to Abraham Lincoln?

On February 22, 1861, Pitcairn was a young railway employee on a special train carrying president-elect Lincoln from Harrisburg to West Philadelphia. He traveled with a telegraph instrument and later described what he had witnessed. He did not personally devise the security plan.

Why are 1874, 1876 and 1877 all associated with the Academy of the New Church?

The dates refer to different events. Pitcairn supported a formative New Church educational effort in 1874; the Academy of the New Church formally began in 1876; and its college traces incorporation to 1877.

Did John Pitcairn Jr. build Bryn Athyn Cathedral?

He supported and financed plans for the cathedral, including a documented 1908 building-fund gift, and construction began while he was alive. His son Raymond Pitcairn oversaw much of the continuing work after John’s death in 1916.

Was John Pitcairn Jr. involved in the anti-vaccination movement?

Yes. He campaigned against compulsory vaccination and vaccination itself, helped organize state and national leagues, spoke to Pennsylvania legislators in 1907 and wrote a dissenting report after serving on a state vaccination commission. His objections about medical effectiveness and safety were his claims, not established scientific findings.

Interviews

John Pitcairn’s Firsthand Account of Lincoln’s 1861 Train Journey

In a letter dated November 23, 1867, Pitcairn recalled traveling with president-elect Lincoln from Harrisburg toward Philadelphia. He described the unlit passenger car and a stop at Downingtown for locomotive water, while distinguishing what he witnessed from what he later learned. The letter appears with other railway participants’ accounts in a historical collection.

Read the firsthand railway account

Pitcairn’s 1907 Address Against Compulsory Vaccination

This published 1907 address records Pitcairn’s argument to a Pennsylvania legislative committee. He framed the campaign in terms of freedom and government compulsion, alongside objections to vaccination’s safety and effectiveness. The pamphlet documents his position rather than establishing those medical claims.

Read the original speech pamphlet

Further Reading

Sources