Pew invested in Pennsylvania
oil fields. With several partners, he began piping
natural gas. Pew founded several
petroleum-related companies and, in 1880,
incorporated Sun Oil Company. Pew donated to various charities and served as the chair of the
board of directors of
Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. He was a member of the
Presbyterian Church and the
Republican Party. Pew's sons,
J. Howard Pew and
Joseph N. Pew Jr., took over management of the company after their father's death in 1912 and later, with their sisters, founded
The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 1881, he developed the Keystone Gas Company which used the by-products of oil, such as natural gas, to provide heat and light for the community of
Bradford, Pennsylvania, a town that emerged as a wild oil boom town in the
Pennsylvania oil rush in the late 19th century. The area's
Pennsylvania Grade Crude Oil has superior qualities and is free of
asphaltic constituents, contains only trace amounts of
sulfur and
nitrogen, and has excellent characteristics for refining into lubricants. By 1889 Pew's Keystone Gas Company was delivering gas to
Pittsburgh. The Haymaker Gas Well in
Murrysville, Pennsylvania was the United States's first commercial natural gas well. For some time, it remained the largest commercial gas well in the world. In 1885 and 1886, individuals who established the Haymaker Gas Well moved on to Ohio and created
Sunoco. Eventually, and in partnership with E.O. Emerson, he developed the Peoples Natural Gas Company. ==Later life==