Herbert Lee Pratt

Herbert Lee Pratt (November 21, 1871 – February 3, 1945) 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. Early life Pratt was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 21, 1871. He was the fourth of six children of the Standard Oil industrialist Charles Pratt, and Mary Helen (née Richardson) Pratt (1840–1907), his father's second wife. His siblings included Frederic B. Pratt, George Dupont Pratt, Helen Pratt, John Teele Pratt (husband of Ruth Baker Pratt, the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York) and Harold I. Pratt. From his father's first marriage to Lydia Richardson (the elder sister of his mother), who died young in 1861, his older half-siblings were Charles Millard Pratt and Lydia Richardson Pratt. His paternal grandparents were carpenter Asa Pratt and Elizabeth (née Stone) Pratt. His maternal grandparents were Thomas H. Richardson and Lydia (née Teel) Richardson. He took a degree of Bachelor of Arts at Amherst College in 1895, a classmate of future president Calvin Coolidge.