He was born February 14, 1864, in Philadelphia, as a son of a respected doctor, Charles Pendleton Tutt, and Rebecca (née Leaming).
One ancestor had served as Lord Mayor of London and another was a member of General George Washington's staff during the American Revolutionary War.
[citation needed] Tutt attended the Protestant Episcopal Academy, where he met Spencer Penrose, nicknamed "Speck", and the two became friends.
After opening a branch office in Pueblo, Colorado, in 1889, Tutt visited Cripple Creek, walked up "Poverty Gulch," and stake a gold mining claim.
Tutt, together with C. Findley and A. Carlton, all big players in the future of the mining district at Cripple Creek, set up the C.O.D.
Later that year, geologist Richard Penrose, his friend Spencer's brother, travelled through Colorado Springs, where he met with Tutt.
Spencer Penrose, who had already mined for gold in Mexico, received a letter from Tutt in 1892 extolling the virtues of Colorado Springs.
Although the two men had not seen each other for at least 10 years, Penrose took the chance on gold mining and arrived in Colorado Springs by train December 10, 1892.
Charles M. MacNeill had already experience in running a barrel-chlorinating ore mill, since MacNeill, Captain De Lamar, George W. Peirce (of the Golden Fleece Mine (Colorado)), and some other mining men, owned interest in a barrel-chlorinating plant mill at Lawrence, the first in Colorado.
Tutt and Penrose explored mining for copper, learning of a major deposit in the Bingham Valley, Utah.
Furthering their partnership, he and Penrose arranged to construct a road to the top of Pikes Peak, to stimulate the tourist trade.