Witwer was born on March 11, 1890, in Athens, Pennsylvania, and briefly attended Saint Joseph's College in Philadelphia.

He worked in odd jobs—errand boy for a butcher, prize fighter manager, and a soda jerk on Broadway—for a time before starting to write for newspapers,[1] counting the St.

In 1924, he began the strip Samson and Delia with Tim Early and Paul Robinson, which ran for two years.

[6] By the time Witwer died from liver failure in Los Angeles, on August 9, 1929, the lawsuit had not been settled.

[1] In a 1999 review of an anthology of boxing short stories, which included Witwer's "The Chickasha Bone Crusher", reviewer Sybil S. Steinberg praised the "near-forgotten" Witwer, calling him one of "America's wittiest idiomatic stylists".