Chemung County NY
History of Tompkins, Schuyler, Chemung, Tioga 1879
Page 257 - Daniel Pratt & Ransom Pratt Biographies
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1879 Four County History - Table of Contents
Typed for Tri-Counties by Janice Walker
Formatted by Joyce M. Tice
Daniel Pratt was born in Colchester, Conn., March, 1806.  His minority was mostly spent at home, where he learned of his father, Daniel Ransom Pratt, the cloth-dressing business, which subsequently became his chief business, and in which he was pecuniarily successful.

At the age of twenty, in connection with his brother Ransom, -who was next younger, -he assumed full control of the business previously carried on by his father.  The two young men continued their business for some two years, and in the year 1828 came to the town of Catharine, Schuyler Co., N. Y., where they followed their business.

They spent some three years in Burdett, and the elder Pratt afterwards four years on a farm, while the younger still worked at his trade.

In 1837 they again went into partnership in Havana, established a woolen-mill and carried on business for five years, when, in the year 1842, believing Elmira a better place for their operations, removed to that place, where they at once established the woolen-mills at the foot of  Water-Cure Hill, where their energies were successfully concentrated for very many years.  They were business men of the most thorough and enterprising kind, quick to conceive and rapid in the execution of their plans.  They were among the original incorporators of the Second National Bank of Elmira, and continued to be large stockholders to the time of their decease, and Daniel Pratt was a director from its organization.

At the time of the decease of Daniel Pratt, January, 1877, he was senior member of the wholesale hardware house of Pratt & Co.  He was a man of great energy of character, having few equals as a sagacious capitalist and business man.  He was a consistent Christian, and through life, in public or private relations, honorably met and fulfilled his obligations.

In the year 1828 he married Harriet, daughter of Joseph Carrier, of the town of Marlborough, Conn.  She was born in 1806, and survives her husband, together with an only son, Daniel R. Pratt, who is president of the Second National Bank of Elmira. 

Ransom Pratt did much to advance the interests and prosperity of the city; was a man of sterling integrity of purpose in all his business relations, and a liberal supporter of all enterprises tending to educate and elevate the rising generation. Neither he nor his elder brother, whose lives were so blended in one in all their business relations, were active political workers, but unswervingly identified themselves with first the Whig, and subsequently the Republican party, preferring the quiet of a business life to the rounds of political strife and any emoluments office might afford.  He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church to the time of his decease, April, 1871, being then sixty-three years of age.

In the year 1839 (January 30) he married Sarah, daughter of Otis Alvord, of East Hampton, Conn., she being a granddaughter of Joseph Carrier, previously alluded to.

Their children are Mrs. Gardner Reynolds and Charles R. Pratt, an attorney and counselor at law, of Elmira City.

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