Heitland studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and attended the Colarossi School in Paris.  He also took classes at the Arts Students League (NY).  His career as an illustrator for popular magazines (Collier's, Cosmopolitan, McCall's, Woman's Home Companion, Delineator, etc.) refelected the ascendence of the Art Deco movement in the 1920s and '30s.  He was also an accomplished watercolorist and his work is held by several major museums including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum and the Philadelphia Museum School of Art.

Heitland accompanied Charles Hanson Towne (writer, editor and NY celebrity) to Nova Scotia ca.1921 or 1922 to wander through Acadia, the land of Evangeline.  Among other places, they visited 'Charming Chester,' where Heitland made at least three sketches of village streetscapes (published in "Ambling Through Acadia").  He also produced a watercolour of a home by the road on what is now called Pigloop Road, see image from the Art Institute of Chicago (www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/artist/Heitman,+Wilmot+Emerton).