Hitt was born on June 7, 1876, in Paris, France where his father was stationed after being appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant as First Secretary of the American Legation there.

[4] On December 21, 1909, he was named by President William Howard Taft as the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to Panama.

He had presented his credentials on October 14, 1910, and served until he left his post on March 3, 1913,[9] following the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson after which Hitt retired from the diplomatic service.

It has served as the Washington location of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office since the 1990s and was the residence of Ogden L. Mills (while he was the Undersecretary of the Treasury), Dwight F. Davis (while he was U.S. Secretary of War), Walter Evans Edge (while he was in the U.S. Senate), and Bernard Baruch (while he was an adviser to Franklin D.

[22] Through his daughter, he was a grandfather of Emery Hertelendy and Paul Hertelendy,[22] and through his son, Robert, he was a grandfather of Diana Bigelow Hitt, who married Henry Simmons Romaine, a grandson of President of the New York Stock Exchange Edward H. H. Simmons, in 1957,[23] and Jeffrey Potter, son of writer Fuller Potter and grandson of the Rev.