Joseph Newton Pew (July 20, 1848 – October 12, 1912) was the founder of Sun Oil Company (now

Sunoco Sunoco LP is an American master limited partnership organized under Delaware state laws and headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that is a wholesale distributor of motor fuels. It distributes fuel to more than 5,500 Sunoco-branded gas stations, ...

) and a prominent philanthropist.

Early life

Joseph N. Pew was born in

Mercer County, Pennsylvania Mercer County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 110,652. Its county seat is Mercer, and its largest city is Hermitage. The county was created in 1800 and later organized in 1803. Merce ...

, to John Pew and Nancy Glenn. He worked on the family's farm as a child. Pew attended public schools in Mercer and graduated from Edinboro Normal School (1866). Pew taught school for two years and then became a

real estate broker A real estate agent or real estate broker is a person who represents sellers or buyers of real estate or real property. While a broker may work independently, an agent usually works under a licensed broker to represent clients. Brokers and agen ...

. Beginning in 1904, Pew lived in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, at his estate named Glenmede, which was designed by architect Will Price.

Oil industry

Pew invested in Pennsylvania

oil field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...

s. With several partners, he began piping natural gas. Pew founded several petroleum-related companies and, in 1880, incorporated Sun Oil Company. Pew donated to various charities and sat on the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

of Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. He was a member of the

Presbyterian Church Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

and the

Republican Party Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party. Republican Party may also refer to: Africa *Republican Party (Liberia) * Republican Part ...

. Pew's sons,

J. Howard Pew John Howard Pew (1882–1971) was an American philanthropist and president of Sunoco (Sun Oil Company). Biography J. Howard Pew was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania in 1882 and raised as a devout Presbyterian. In 1886 Pew's father, Joseph Newton P ...

and

Joseph N. Pew, Jr. Joseph Newton Pew Jr. (November 12, 1886 – April 9, 1963) was an American industrialist and influential member of the Republican Party. Early life Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Pew was the youngest son of Joseph N. Pew and Mary Anderson P ...

, took over management of the company after their father's death in 1912 and later, with their sisters, founded The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 1881, he developed the Keystone Gas Company which used the by-products of oil, such as natural gas, to provide heat and light for the community of Bradford, Pennsylvania, a town that emerged as a wild oil boom town in the

Pennsylvania oil rush The oil rush in America started in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in the Oil Creek (Allegheny River), Oil Creek Valley when Edwin L. Drake struck "rock oil" there in 1859. Titusville and other towns on the shores of Oil Creek expanded rapidly as oil w ...

in the late 19th century. The area's

Pennsylvania Grade Crude Oil Pennsylvania Grade Crude Oil is a type of sweet crude oil (sweet crude oil), found primarily in the Appalachian mountains, Appalachian basin in the Marcellus Formation in the states of New York (state), New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virgi ...

has superior qualities and is free of asphaltic constituents, contains only trace amounts of

sulfur Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...

and nitrogen, and has excellent characteristics for refining into lubricants. By 1889 Pew's Keystone Gas Company was delivering gas to Pittsburgh. The Haymaker Gas Well in Murrysville, Pennsylvania was the United States's first commercial natural gas well. For some time, it remained the largest commercial gas well in the world. In 1885 and 1886, individuals who established the Haymaker Gas Well moved on to Ohio and created

. Eventually, and in partnership with E.O. Emerson, he developed the Peoples Natural Gas Company.

References

1848 births 1912 deaths People from Mercer County, Pennsylvania Sunoco LP people Grove City College Presbyterians from Pennsylvania American company founders American real estate brokers American investors Pennsylvania Republicans Edinboro University of Pennsylvania alumni Educators from Pennsylvania Philanthropists from Pennsylvania 19th-century American philanthropists 19th-century American businesspeople {{business-bio-stub