Calvin Pardee (July 7, 1841 – March 18, 1923) was a businessman from

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...

. He attended the Luzerne Presbyterian Institute and later the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He did business in Pennsylvania and several other states. His business was mostly related to coal, land, and natural gas. He worked in the Glendon Iron Company in his youth. He was later the treasurer of numerous companies in Pennsylvania. These were mostly electric companies.

Early life and education

Pardee was born on July 17, 1841. He was the son of the industrial tycoon

Ario Pardee Ariovistus Pardee (November 19, 1810 – March 26, 1892) was an American engineer, coal baron, philanthropist, and director of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. In the 1840s he began purchasing land in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, suspecting it to contain ...

. In 1851, Pardee, along with one of his brothers, was sent to Wyoming's Luzerne Presbyterian Institute. However, following an argument with the headmaster of the Institute, Pardee was withdrawn from the Institute in 1854. He was instead sent to the

West Jersey Collegiate Institute West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

. In 1857, Pardee joined the

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Va ...

, and in 1860, he graduated from the institute, where he was in the

fraternity A fraternity (from Latin ''frater'': "brother"; whence, "brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club or fraternal order traditionally of men associated together for various religious or secular aims. Fraternity in ...

Theta Delta Chi Theta Delta Chi () is a social fraternity that was founded in 1847 at Union College, New York, United States. While nicknames differ from institution to institution, the most common nicknames for the fraternity are TDX, Thete, Theta Delt, and Thump ...

Coal-related work

Pardee joined the

Glendon Iron Company The Glendon Iron Company was an iron company in the Lehigh Valley, in Pennsylvania, in the United States. It was the second iron furnace in Lehigh Valley to be fueled by anthracite. The company was established in 1842 and disestablished in 1896. It ...

after he graduated. This company primarily belonged to his father and was based in

Easton, Pennsylvania Easton is a city in, and the county seat of, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city's population was 28,127 as of the 2020 census. Easton is located at the confluence of the Lehigh River, a river that joins the Delaware Ri ...

. For 22 years, he worked as the superintendent of mines in his father's company and was based in

Hazleton, Pennsylvania Hazleton is a city in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 29,963 at the 2020 census. Hazleton is the second largest city in Luzerne County. It was incorporated as a borough on January 5, 1857, and as a city on Decembe ...

. In 1884, he left his father's company to pursue his own work in several enterprises, including the coal business and the natural gas business. He was the founder of the Pardee Brothers Company, which was his most significant source of wealth. In 1903, his children inherited the company. The Pardee Brothers Company was primarily developed to exploit coal mines near Lattimer. After Pardee's sons joined his business, he began to build businesses for coal and

land Land, also known as dry land, ground, or earth, is the solid terrestrial surface of the planet Earth that is not submerged by the ocean or other bodies of water. It makes up 29% of Earth's surface and includes the continents and various isl ...

, among other things, in

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virgini ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...

, and

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the ...

. Pardee was the treasurer of several companies. These included the Beaver Meadow Electric Railway, the Butler Township Power Company, the Coal Township Electric Company, the Conyngham Township Electric Company, the East Union Township Electric Company, the Fairview Township Electric Company, the Mahanoy Township Electric Company, the Mount Carmel Township Electric Company, the Union Township Power Company, the Wright Township Power Company, the Wilkes-Barre Township Power Company, and the West Mahanoy Township Power Company. He also became an officer of the Hazleton Gas Company in 1879. Pardee owned several

collieries Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron fro ...

in the

Coal Region The Coal Region is a region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is known for being home to the largest known deposits of anthracite coal in the world with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons. The region is typically defined as compris ...

. Pardee owned the mines worked by the miners who were massacred in the

Lattimer massacre The Lattimer massacre was the violent deaths of at least 19 unarmed striking immigrant anthracite miners at the Lattimer mine near Hazleton, Pennsylvania, United States, on September 10, 1897.Anderson, John W. ''Transitions: From Eastern Europ ...

. However, he was in Germantown at the time. He returned to

Hazleton Hazleton may refer to: Places * Hazleton, British Columbia, Canada * Hazleton, Gloucestershire, a village in Gloucestershire, England ** Hazleton long barrows, Neolithic burial mounds at Hazleton, Gloucestershire, England ** Hazleton Abbey, a me ...

on September 15, after the massacre. He was eager to restart his mines and was "disgusted" that his superintendents were unable to get his

to resume their running. He was also strongly opposed to increasing his miners' wages shortly before the Lattimer Massacre.

Other work

In April 1861, Pardee joined the Union Army in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...

. He participated in the Battle of Antietam and several minor battles. He was a

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

in the army. He retired on October 30, 1862 after getting

typhoid fever Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over severa ...

. He also funded the construction of the Pardee Dormitory at Rensselaer. It was completed in 1925.

Personal life

On June 4, 1867, Pardee married Mary Byrne Day. The couple had nine children: Estelle, Alice, Calvin, Alfred, Ario, Ellie,Died as a child Olive, Howard and Helen. Pardee and his family moved to

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. He bought a summer farm in Whitemarsh in 1889. Near the end of his life, he enjoyed traveling to distant places including the Far East, Russia,

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

, and Europe. He also regularly hosted family members at his summer home. Pardee's health started failing during the spring of 1922. He died on March 18, 1923. He was the grandfather of William Green Foulke. Pardee was friends with John R. Fell. In 1889, he purchased 69 acres of land near Fell's estate.

Notes

References

External links

Image of Pardee (on a book cover)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pardee, Calvin Businesspeople from Pennsylvania People from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania 1841 births 1923 deaths Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumni