William S. Pitts

William S. Pitts (1830 – 1918) was an American physician and composer who wrote the well-known song "The Church in the Wildwood" in 1857.

At age nineteen Pitts traveled with his family to Rock County, Wisconsin where he worked as a rural schoolteacher.

While viewing the spot, Pitts envisioned a church building there and could not seem to ease the vision from his mind.

Returning to his home in Wisconsin, he wrote "The Church in the Wildwood" for his own sake, eventually saying of its completion, "only then was I at peace with myself.

"[5] By 1862 Pitts was married in Union, Wisconsin, and he and his wife moved to Fredericksburg to be near her elderly parents, and they remained there forty-four years and had three children.