Charles Pratt

Charles Pratt was born in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, US, as one of eleven children. He was the son of Elizabeth Stone and Asa Pratt, a carpenter. He spent three winters as a student at Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham (now Wilbraham & Monson Academy). ==Career==

Whale oil, petroleum, Astral Oil As a young man, Pratt joined a company in nearby Boston, Massachusetts, that specialized in paints and whale oil products. In 1850 or 1851, he moved to New York City, where he worked for a similar company. Pratt realized that whale oil could be replaced by petroleum ("natural oil") distillates to light lamps. He became a pioneer of the petroleum industry as new wells were established during the 1860s in western Pennsylvania. Henry H. Rogers, Charles Pratt and Company Pratt and his future business partner Henry H. Rogers became acquainted while doing business in the oil fields of Pennsylvania. In 1867, Pratt built "America's first modern oil refinery (Astral Oil) on the banks of Newtown Creek," In 1869, Pratt trademarked "Pratt's Astral Oil". However, the fact that Astral Oil was a New York branch of Standard Oil in Ohio was not made public until 1892. When the Rockefellers absorbed the Pratt interests in 1874, Pratt and Rockefeller in 1874 began to buy competing refineries in Brooklyn under the Pratt name. At the time, about 250 boys and adult men were employed by Pratt. No deaths were reported with the fire. There was also a December 21, 1884 fire at the Brooklyn Astral refinery. According to Pratt, much of the damages were insured. Although the merger with Rockefeller made Pratt a wealthy man, as a member of the board of directors of Standard Oil, he maintained his independence and frequently criticized Rockefeller. With Pratt's death in 1891, Rockefeller's position as the most powerful man in the oil industry, already well established, became unassailable. Pratt's family were involved with his business ventures and with Standard Oil. His eldest son, Charles Millard Pratt (1855–1935), became Secretary of Standard Oil. In 1923 his son Herbert Lee Pratt rose to become head of Standard Oil of New York. ==Philanthropy==

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 Clinton Hill, Brooklyn in 1887. Originally a technical institute, it has become a renowned art, design and architectural college. In 1910, Pratt also endowed the construction of the Pratt School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was an organizing member of the Emmanuel Baptist Church, a prominent and extant congregation near Pratt Institute worshiping in the 1887 edifice supported by Pratt and today known as perhaps the finest extant 19th Century church interior in New York City. ==Personal life==

Charles Pratt worked first in Boston, then moved to New York in 1850–1851. Soon after getting established in New York, in 1854 he married Lydia Ann Richardson (1835–1861). They had two children: Charles Millard Pratt (1855–1935) and Lydia Richardson Pratt (1857–1904) (who married Frank Lusk Babbott). Lydia died young in 1861. The widower Pratt married her younger sister Mary Helen Richardson in September 1863. They had six children together: Frederic B. Pratt (1865–1945), Helen Pratt (1867–1949), George Dupont Pratt (1869–1935), Herbert L. Pratt (1871–1945), John Teele Pratt (1873–1927), and Harold I. Pratt (1877–1939). Pratt moved to a country home in Glen Cove, New York, about 1890. To provide for his children, he purchased large tracts of land surrounding his estate, totaling 1,100 acres (4.5 km2). He died the next year, aged 60, in New York City. Each of the sons developed an individual estate in Glen Cove. Other notable Pratt descendants include: • Andy Pratt (born 1947 in Boston), a great-grandson who is a singer-songwriter. His father Edwin H Baker Pratt was headmaster of the school Buckingham Browne & Nichols. • Sherman Pratt (1900–1964), grandson of Charles Pratt and son of George Dupont Pratt. Founder of Marineland of Florida • Richardson J. Pratt 'Jerry' (1923–2001), great-grandson of Charles Pratt and grandson of Charles Millard Pratt. Was President of Pratt Institute (1972–1990) • Suzanna Love (1950–), great-granddaughter of Charles Pratt and granddaughter of John Teele Pratt. Former actress. • John Sherman Register (1939-1996), realist painter. ==Legacy and honors==

Long Island mansions After his death, Charles Pratt's six sons and two daughters later built their own family estates in Glen Cove. As of 2004, most of the extant Pratt family Gold Coast Mansions are still in use: • Welwyn, originally the estate of Harold I. Pratt, is owned by and operated as the Welwyn Preserve, a Nassau County park; the house is now adapted as the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County. • The Braes, initially owned by Herbert L. Pratt, is now used as the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. • The Manor, built for John Teele Pratt, is now the Glen Cove Mansion Hotel & Conference Center. • Poplar Hill, the Frederic B. Pratt residence, is now the Glengariff Healthcare Center, housing both Glengariff (a long-term nursing care facility) and the Pratt Pavilion for Nursing and Rehabilitation (a state-of-the-art, short-term, sub-acute rehabilitation center). • Killenworth, originally the home of George Dupont Pratt, has been (since the mid-20th century) the country retreat for the Russian delegation to the United Nations. Pratt Cemetery With so many Pratt family members in Glen Cove, they had a cemetery built for themselves on their property. Known as "Pratt Cemetery", behind ornate gates and up a winding drive stands a pink granite Romanesque mausoleum designed by William Tubby, as well as a crypt and a tower connected by a "bridge of sighs". Charles Pratt is interred in a sarcophagus here, as are seven out of his eight children, and many of his grandchildren. Pratt, West Virginia The town of Pratt, West Virginia (previously known as Clinton) was renamed Pratt in 1905, after the owner of the Charles Pratt Coal Company. Steamship tanker S.S. Charles Pratt In March 1916, Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company launched the S.S. Charles Pratt, a tanker of 8,807 tons with a capacity of of oil. It became the first ship of the Pratt class, and was joined by the S.S. H.H. Rogers in May 1916. After 1939, both ships were operated by Panama Transport Co., a subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey. At the beginning of World War II, on December 21, 1940, the S.S. Charles Pratt was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa while en route from Aruba to Freetown, Sierra Leone. Of the American crew of 42, only two men died. ==See also==