Andrew Woodbury Preston (June 29, 1846 – September 26, 1924) was a prominent American businessman at the turn of the 20th century.

Biography

Andrew Preston was born in

Beverly Farms Beverly Farms is a neighborhood comprising the eastern part of the city of Beverly, Massachusetts, in the state's North Shore (Massachusetts), North Shore region, approximately 20 miles north of Boston. Beverly Farms is an oceanfront community wi ...

, Massachusetts on June 29, 1846. He married Frances E. Gutterson on August 5, 1869, and they had one daughter. In 1884, Preston and nine others formed the Boston Fruit Company, an event marking the birth of the modern

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

business. Later, in 1899, Preston and Minor C. Keith combined ventures to form the

United Fruit Company The United Fruit Company (later the United Brands Company) was an American multinational corporation that traded in tropical fruit (primarily bananas) grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was ...

. Preston was the president, and Keith became vice-president. He died at his summer home in

Swampscott, Massachusetts Swampscott () is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located up the coast from Boston in an area known as the North Shore. The population was 15,111 as of the 2020 United States census. A former summer resort on Massachusetts ...

, on September 26, 1924. At the time of his death he was still serving as president of the United Fruit Company, the Revere Sugar Refining company, the Central American railroad companies, the Tropical Radio company the Banana Specialty company, and was an officer of several other organizations.

Biography

References

Further reading