Pitman was declared insolvent in 1843 during a depression, and forced to unload these assets, but by the 1850s he was back in work, bridge-building on the River Torrens and near Echunga.
He founded the a branch of the Swedenborgian Church in Adelaide and served as its minister from 1844 to 1859, and from 1846 taught shorthand following his brother's system.
He moved to Camperdown, New South Wales, where he taught Pitman shorthand, for a time associated with the Sydney Technical College.
[3] He continued his association with Swedenborgianism; he married again and died in 1890[4] and was buried in Rookwood Cemetery, where his epitaph is uniquely written phonetically, using the Pitman scheme of reformed spelling.
His children included: Jacob's uncle William Pitman[5] (c. 1801 – 22 June 1859) and his wife Emma, née Angel, (1798 – 21 January 1866) of Trowbridge, Wiltshire emigrated to South Australia on the Fairlie, arriving on 4 April 1840, with their eight children, including: