Joseph Asbury Pitman, the fifth Principal of the Salem Normal School, was born in Appleton, Maine in 1867. Pitman attended the public schools in Appleton and entered the Castine Normal School in 1884. He was graduated as salutatorian of his class in 1887.

After graduation, Pitman went on to administrative positions in Maine and Massachusetts before becoming Principal of the Salem Normal School in 1906. Under his administration, Salem Normal School expanded and developed from a two-year school that offered only training for elementary school teachers into a state teachers college that offered a four-year program and conferred the Bachelor of Science in Education. In 1908, Pitman developed the Commercial Department and Salem became the first public institution in the country to provide for the professional as well as technical training of commercial teachers in an integrated program. In 1914, a Junior High course was introduced in response to the demand for systematic training of teachers for the seventh and eighth grades. By 1922, the Junior High course had expanded from three years to a full four-year program that awarded the Bachelor of Science in Education. In 1929, the Special Education Department was organized to train teachers of mentally retarded and deaf students. Also during Pitman's tenure, the Horace Mann Training School was built in order to meet student teaching needs. In 1932, Salem Normal became Salem Teachers College, offering four-year programs leading to a Bachelor of Science in Education degree in Junior High Education, Commercial Education, Special Education, and Elementary Education. Pitman retired from Salem Teachers College in June, 1937 after thirty-one years of service. He died in Maine on August 26, 1952.