THE    CITY    OF    NEW    YORK.----PR.
 

527
 

was able to call his creditors together again and pay them not only the remaining fifty
per cent, but interest thereon.

Mr. Prentice may justly be considered the oldest successful oil operator. He
drilled the third well for petroleum in Pennsylvania and thereafter drilled over fifteen
hundred wells in the State, forming The Producers Consolidated Petroleum Co.,
which paid in dividends over three million dollars; also, with others, founded The
Producers' Land & Petroleum Co. on lands they bought on Oil Creek, with a paid up
capital of $2,350,000, for which the great refineries at Bayonne, N. J., were built in
1873 by himself, Oliver Ames and others of Boston, associated with him.

In 1888, Mr. Prentice started The Prentice Brown Stone Quarries at Hough¬
ton, Wis., on lands bought by him in 1854. The success of this company was so great
that he decided to secure all the good brownstone land around, which he did not then
control. He effected this, and in 1891 organized The Excelsior Brown Stone Co. The
two companies now largely control the supply of this excellent building material, and
Mr. Prentice expects to make up his former great losses. He yet owns large tracts of
lumber, coal and oil lands, which must in time be of great value.

Mr. Prentice was a warm friend of President Lincoln during his life time and
personally contributed over $300,000 to the national cause during the Civil War. He
is a member of the Union League club and The National Academy of Design.

EDWARD PRIflE, banker, born in 1801 at No. 54 Wall street, in this city, died
at Riverdale, N. Y., Aug. 22, 1883. He was a son of Nathaniel Prime, founder of
the banking house of Prime, Ward, Sands, King & Co., and received part of his early
education at a boarding school in Morristown, N. J., where his father and others of
the family had been educated. When a young man, he entered his father's banking
house as a clerk and, in 1846, became a member of Prime, Ward & Co., consisting of
Nathaniel Prime, John Ward and Edward Prime. When his father died in 1848, he
established the firm of Prime & Co., consisting of himself and his four sons. Mr. Prime
retired in 1867. He was one of the founders of The New York Eye & Ear Dispensary.
In his younger days, Mr. Prime was an active sportsman and is said to have been the
first to bring to this country a pack of fox hounds, which he employed on Long Island,
He left three sons, Nathaniel, Edward and Henry, and three daughters.

RUFUS PRIflE, banker, born in New York city, died in Huntington, L. I., Oct.
15, 1885, in his eightieth year. He was a brother of Edward Prime. Graduating from
Yale College, Mr. Prime afterward engaged in business as a stock broker and banker
in Wall street. After his father's death, he devoted himself to the care of the latter's
large estate. Long experience made him an expert in all questions relating to trusts,
although he had no legal training, and excellent qualities as a business man brought
him a fortune.    He was a member of the Union club and a man of fine literary tastes.

JOSEPH PULITZER, journalist, born in Hungary in 1847, was educated by a tutor
and came to America at the age of seventeen. Entering a cavalry regiment in the
Union army, he served with credit until the end of the Civil War. He then settled in
Missouri, where for a few years he met with much hardship. He was a man of spirit,
however, and during a period of service in various employments steadily made his
way, finally studying law. The law did not suit his enterprising mind, however, and
in 1868, he became a reporter for the Westliche Post in St. Louis, a German newspaper
conducted by Carl Schurz.    In this field of work,  Mr. Pulitzer found his vocation for
 

^
^
 

^