Samuel P. Bush

Samuel Prescott Bush (October 4, 1863 – February 8, 1948) was an American businessman and industrialist. Bush was the patriarch of the Bush political family. He was the father of U.S. Senator Prescott Bush, the paternal grandfather of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and the patrilineal great-grandfather of former Texas Governor and President George W. Bush and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. After graduating from the Stevens Institute of Technology, he went on to establish himself as one of the leading industrialists of his era, leaving a lasting impact on history. Early life Bush was born in Brick Church, Orange, New Jersey, to Harriet Eleanor Fay (1829–1924) and Reverend James Smith Bush (1825–1889), an Episcopal priest at Grace Church in Orange. His siblings were James Freeman Bush (1860–1913), Harold Montfort Bush (1871–1945), and Eleanor Bush Woods (1872–1957). He grew up in New Jersey, San Francisco, and Staten Island, but spent the majority of his adult life in Columbus, Ohio. Career Bush graduated from the Stevens Institute of Technology at Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1884, where he played on one of the earliest regular college football teams. He took an apprenticeship with the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad at the Logansport, Indiana, shops, later transferring to Dennison, Ohio, and Columbus, Ohio, where in 1891 he became Master Mechanic, then in 1894 Superintendent of Motive Power. In 1899, he moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to take the Superintendent of Motive Power position with the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. In 1901, Bush returned to Columbus to be general manager of Buckeye Steel Castings Company, which manufactured railway parts. The company was run by Frank Rockefeller, the brother of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, and among its clients were the railroads controlled by E. H. Harriman. The Bush and Harriman families would be closely associated at least until the end of World War II. In 1908, Rockefeller retired and Bush became president of Buckeye, a position he would hold until 1927, becoming one of the top industrialists of his generation.