He was born on January 10, 1841 in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, the son of John and Agnes (McEwen) Pitcairn.
Coming to the United States before 1850, the family settled in Allegheny, Pennsylvania.
Pitcairn received an elementary education in the public schools of Allegheny.
Following in the footsteps of his elder brother Robert, he began his business career about 1855 in the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Altoona, Pennsylvania. His connection with railroads lasted practically without interruption until 1872, and during this period he occupied minor executive positions with the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago railway and the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad, as well as with the Pennsylvania Railroad. His advancement was steady, but not spectacular, and in 1872 he resigned the general managership of the Oil Creek & Allegheny Valley Railroad.
He became an active partner in the firm of Vandergrift, Forman & Company (later Vandergrift, Pitcairn & Company), interested in various phases of fuel distribution. The firm built the Imperial Refinery at Oil City, Pennsylvania. Engaged also in the distribution of crude petroleum, Pitcairn
In 1882 it was proposed to pipe natural gas to a glass factory to be built at Creighton, Pennsylvania, and Pitcairn's advice was asked. He became interested in the project to manufacture plate glass, which had hitherto never been successful in the United States. With Captain John B. Ford and others, Pitcairn became in 1883 one of the organizers of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, an enormously successful venture. A director of the company from its incorporation, he was from 1897 to 1905 its president, and from 1894 until his death chairman of the board of directors. As president he inaugurated a policy of extensive experimentation with manufacturing methods. Among the successes achieved under this policy the lehr annealing process is worthy of note. This process of slow, controlled cooling of sheet glass, perfected between 1900 and 1904, has become standard in the industry.
Pitcairn's interests and holdings were not limited to PPG; at the time of his death, he was also president of the C. H. Wheeler Manufacturing Company, the Pittsburgh Valve and Fittings Company, and the Loyal Hanna Coal and Coke Company, and a director of the Central National Bank of Philadelphia.
He died at his country home, "Cairnwood, " at Bryn Athyn.
John Pitcairn Jr. is said to have been among the first to recognize the possibilities of the use of natural gas as fuel in manufacturing. A natural gas pipe line, perhaps the first in the United States, was laid from Butler County, Pennsylvania, to Pittsburgh under the control of Pitcairn and his partner, J. J. Vandergrift. The most significant part of his business career was his connection with the plate-glass industry. Besides, he was one of the twelve original founders of the Academy of the New Church at Philadelphia in 1876.
From 1905 until 1916 Pitcairn was increasingly absorbed by the religious activities which had been an important part of his life for many years. He was a follower of Emanuel Swedenborg and identified himself with that branch of Swedenborgianism known as the General Church of the New Jerusalem, which became a separate religious entity in 1890.
From then on he became increasingly prominent as the most influential layman of that wing of the church, and was the founder of its distinctive community at Bryn Athyn. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the doctrine of the General Church that education was a proper and necessary function of the religious organization.
Quotes from others about the person
Ralph Adams Cram described him as "an old gentleman of small stature, grave, courtly, keenly intelligent, vigorous beyond his years, an acute business man, and withal possessed of imagination and intense idealism".
Pitcairn was married on January 8, 1884, to Gertrude Starkey, who died in 1898. Of their six children, three sons survived the father.
