Charles Pratt and Company was an oil company that was formed in 1867 by Charles Pratt and Henry H. Rogers in Brooklyn, New York. It became part of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil organization in 1874.
Charles Pratt and Company was an oil company that was formed in 1867 by Charles Pratt and Henry H. Rogers in Brooklyn, New York. It became part of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil organization in 1874.
Pratt, born in Watertown, Massachusetts, had come to New York around 1850-1851, where he worked for a company specializing in paints and whale-oil products. Pratt became a pioneer of the natural oil industry, and established his kerosene refinery Astral Oil Works in Brooklyn. Pratt's product later gave rise to the slogan, "The holy lamps of Tibet are primed with Astral Oil."[ citation needed ]
In the mid-1860s, Pratt met two aspiring young men, Charles Ellis and Henry H. Rogers in western Pennsylvania. Pratt had bought whale-oil from Charles Ellis in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, the young men's hometown. He purchased the entire future output of their small venture, Wamsutta Oil Refinery, at McClintocksville, near Oil City at a fixed price.[ citation needed ]
Ellis and Rogers had no wells and were dependent upon purchasing crude oil to refine and sell to Pratt. A few months later, crude oil prices suddenly increased due to manipulation by speculators. The young entrepreneurs and their Wamsutta Oil Refinery struggled to try to live up to their contract with Pratt, but soon their surplus was wiped out. Before long, they were heavily in debt to him.[ citation needed ]
Charles Ellis gave up, but in 1866, Henry Rogers went to Pratt in New York, and told him he would take personal responsibility for the entire debt. This so impressed Pratt that he immediately hired him for his own organization. In the next few years Rogers became, in the words of Elbert Hubbard, Pratt's "hands and feet and eyes and ears" (Little Journeys to the Homes, 1909).[ citation needed ]
Pratt made Rogers foreman of his Brooklyn refinery, with a promise of a partnership if sales ran over fifty thousand dollars a year. Rogers and his wife Abbie moved to Brooklyn and lived frugally. Abbie brought his meals to the "works"; often he would sleep three hours a night rolled up in a blanket by the side of a still. Rogers moved steadily from foreman to manager, and then superintendent of Pratt's Astral Oil Refinery. Pratt finally gave Rogers an interest in the business. In 1867, with Henry Rogers as a partner, he established the firm of Charles Pratt and Company.
In the early 1870s, Pratt and Rogers became involved in conflicts with John D. Rockefeller's infamous South Improvement Company, which was basically a scheme to obtain favorable net rates from the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and other railroads through a secret system of rebates. Rockefeller and the South Improvement Company scheme outraged independent oil producers in western Pennsylvania and refineries there and afar alike.
The opposition to the South Improvement Company scheme among the New York refiners was led by Rogers. The New York interests formed an association, and about the middle of March, 1872, sent a committee of three, with Rogers, of Charles Pratt and Company, as head, to Oil City to consult with the Oil Producers' Union there. Their arrival in the oil regions was a matter of great satisfaction. Working with the Pennsylvania independents, they managed to forge an agreement with the PRR and other railroads whose leaders eventually agreed to open rates to all promised to end their shady dealings with South Improvement. The oil men were most exultant, but their joy was to be short-lived, for Rockefeller had already begun forming his Standard Oil organization and was busy trying another approach, which included frequently buying up opposing interests.[ citation needed ]
Rockefeller approached Charles Pratt with his plans of cooperation and consolidation. Pratt talked it over with Rogers, and they decided that the combination would benefit them. Rogers formulated terms, which guaranteed financial security and jobs for Pratt and himself. John D. Rockefeller quietly accepted the offer on Rogers' exact terms. Charles Pratt and Company (including Astral Oil) became one of the important formerly independent refiners to join Rockefeller's organization, and it was to become part of the Standard Oil Trust in 1874. [1] Pratt's son, Charles Millard Pratt (1858-1913) became Secretary of Standard Oil.
Pratts' protégé, Henry H. Rogers soon rose to become one of the key men of Standard Oil, and was a Vice-President by 1890. Rogers, who kept his residence in New York after moving there at Pratt's request, invested outside of Standard Oil and became one of the wealthiest men in the world. He had interests in oil, gas, steel, copper, coal, and railroads, and eventually founded and built the Virginian Railway at the end of his own career.[ citation needed ]
Charles Pratt is credited with recognizing the growing need for trained industrial workers in a changing economy. In 1886, he founded and endowed the Pratt Institute, which opened in Brooklyn, New York in 1887.
Pratt settled in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York about 1890. In an effort to keep his family near him, he purchased large tracts of land surrounding his estate, totaling 1,100 acres (4.5 km²). However, he died the next year, 1891, in New York City.[ citation needed ]
At Glen Cove, on Long Island, Pratt's six sons and two daughters later built their homes. As of 2004, most of the extant Pratt mansions along the Gold Coast there are still in use:
The current Charles Pratt & Co. exists, according to its website "as a central administrative office providing professional financial services for the descendants of Charles Pratt and selected other private clients." [2]
Standard Oil is the common name for a corporate trust in the petroleum industry that existed from 1882 to 1911. The origins of the trust lay in the operations of the Standard Oil Company (Ohio), which had been founded in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller. The trust was born on January 2, 1882, when a group of 41 investors signed the Standard Oil Trust Agreement, which pooled their securities of 40 companies into a single holding agency managed by nine trustees. The original trust was valued at $70 million. On March 21, 1892, the Standard Oil Trust was dissolved and its holdings were reorganized into 20 independent companies that formed an unofficial union referred to as "Standard Oil Interests." In 1899, the Standard Oil Company acquired the shares of the other 19 companies and became the holding company for the trust.
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Cornplanter Township is a township in Venango County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,318 at the 2020 census, a decrease from 2,487 at the 2010 and 2,687 at the 2000 census.
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Ida Minerva Tarbell was an American writer, investigative journalist, biographer, and lecturer. She was one of the leading muckrakers and reformers of the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was a pioneer of investigative journalism.
Henry Morrison Flagler was an American industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil, which was first based in Ohio. He was also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida and founder of the Florida East Coast Railway. He is also known as a co-founder and major investor of the cities of Miami and Palm Beach, Florida.
Henry Huttleston Rogers was an American industrialist and financier. He made his fortune in the oil refining business, becoming a leader at Standard Oil. He also played a major role in numerous corporations and business enterprises in the gas industry, copper, and railroads. He became a close friend of Mark Twain.
Henry Clay Folger Jr. was an American businessman who was president and later chairman of Standard Oil of New York, a collector of Shakespeareana, and founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
The History of the Standard Oil Company is a 1904 book by journalist Ida Tarbell. It is an exposé about the Standard Oil Company, run at the time by oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, the richest figure in American history. Originally serialized in nineteen parts in McClure's magazine, the book is a seminal example of muckraking, and inspired many other journalists to write about trusts, large businesses that attempted to gain monopolies in various industries.
Charles Pratt was an American businessman. Pratt was a pioneer of the U.S. petroleum industry, and he established his kerosene refinery Astral Oil Works in Brooklyn, New York. He then lived with his growing family in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. He recruited Henry H. Rogers into his business, forming Charles Pratt and Company in 1867. Seven years later, Pratt and Rogers agreed to join John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil.
The South Improvement Company was a short-lived Pennsylvania corporation founded in late 1871 which existed until the state of Pennsylvania suspended its charter on April 2, 1872. It was created by major railroad and oil interests, and was widely seen as part of John D. Rockefeller's early efforts to organize and control the oil industry in the United States under Standard Oil. The company's purpose was to end a rate war with the rail trunk lines by dividing oil traffic more evenly between the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Erie Railroad, and the New York Central railroads. The second purpose of the company was to limit the production of refined oil - the country had a daily refining capacity of 40,000 barrels and a market for only 16,000. Although the company never shipped any oil, the South Improvement Company scheme caused widespread attention to be focused on the relationships between big railroads and big businesses that wanted and demanded favorable treatment. In what would become known as the Cleveland Massacre, John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler bought eighteen refineries, only one of which wasn't located in Cleveland over a month's time between mid-February and mid-March 1872.
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McClintockville, Pennsylvania was a small community in Cornplanter Township in Venango County located in the state of Pennsylvania in the United States.
Astral Oil Works was an American oil company specializing in illuminating oil, and based in Brooklyn, New York. Astral Oil was a high-quality kerosene used in lamps and noted for being relatively safe. It was founded by Charles Pratt. Charles Pratt and Company became part of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust in 1874, although the fact that Astral Oil was a New York branch of Standard Oil in Ohio was not made public until 1892.
Wamsutta, also known as Alexander Pokanoket, as he was called by New England colonists, was the eldest son of Massasoit Ousa Mequin of the Pokanoket Tribe and Wampanoag nation, and brother of Metacomet.
John Dustin Archbold was an American businessman and one of the United States' earliest oil refiners. His small oil company was bought out by John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company. Archbold rose rapidly at Standard Oil, handling many of the complex secret negotiations over the years. By 1882, he was Rockefeller's closest associate, and typically acted as the company's primary spokesman. Rockefeller, after 1896, left business matters to Archbold while he pursued his philanthropy; as vice president, Archbold effectively ran Standard Oil until his death in 1916. Inspired by Rockefeller's policies, Archbold's main goals were stabilization, efficiency, and minimizing waste in refining and distributing petroleum products. When the company was broken up by the Supreme Court in 1911 into 34 smaller operations, Archbold became president of the largest one, Standard Oil of New Jersey.
Samuel Andrews (1836–1904) was a chemist and inventor. Born in England, he immigrated to the United States before the American Civil War and settled in Cleveland, Ohio. He is best known as a partner in the oil refining firm of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler, the major predecessor company of the Standard Oil corporate empire. When the first unit was formed in 1870, Andrews owned 16.67% of Standard Oil stock. He sold his stock early on in 1874 and while he was wealthy, he did not participate in the level of wealth generation that the other founders did.
Herbert Lee Pratt was an American businessman and a leading figure in the United States oil industry. In 1923, he became head of Standard Oil of New York; his father Charles Pratt was a founder of Astral Oil Works, which later became part of Standard Oil. He lived and worked in New York City, as well as having a country estate, "The Braes" in Glen Cove, Long Island, and a hunting preserve and estate, "Good Hope Plantation" in Ridgeland, South Carolina. He was also an art collector and philanthropist.
Charles Millard Pratt was an American oil industrialist, educator, and philanthropist. As the eldest son of industrialist Charles Pratt, in 1875 he began working at Charles Pratt and Company, soon becoming president.
Frederic Bayley Pratt was an American heir, the president of the board of trustees of Brooklyn's Pratt Institute for 44 years, from 1893 to 1937, and president of the United States Olympic Committee in 1910.