- George Dupont Pratt
George Dupont Pratt (
16 August 1869 -20 January 1935 ) was aconservationist ,philanthropist , Boy Scout sponsor, big-game hunter and collector of ancient antiquities.Early life
Pratt was born in
Brooklyn , NY, the third son ofStandard Oil magnateCharles Pratt and Mary Helen Richardson.He was brother to
Frederic B. Pratt ,Herbert L. Pratt ,John Teele Pratt andHarold I. Pratt ; and half-brother toCharles Millard Pratt .He graduated from
Amherst College in 1893.Pratt was a member of the track team, one of Amherst's great teams, who easily won the NEIAA Championship at Worcester,
May 28 ,1890 . In the NEIAA Championship of 1892, he set a new record in the two mile bicycle race.Pratt was also quarterback for the football team. The 1892 team, which he captained, is considered “the greatest football team of which Amherst can boast”. They played thirteen games, all with other college teams, won 8 and lost 5, scored 314 to opponents 141. On November 18, 1892, Amherst beat Williams on Weston Field at Williamstown, 60-0. Pratt kicked ten goals from almost every angle of the field, most of them against the wind. This record still stands today as the best goal-kicking exhibition of any Amherst player in a major game.
Career
Pratt worked for the
Long Island Rail Road for many years, ending as assistant to the president and superintendent of ferries.As an early member of the Camp Fire Club he became interested in conservation and for 25 years served on its committee on conservation. He was Conservation Commissioner of New York from 1915 to 1921.
Pratt was a trustee of Amherst College, the
American Museum of Natural History , theMetropolitan Museum , vice president of thePratt Institute , and president of theAmerican Forestry Association .Heritage
His house "Killenworth" at
Glen Cove was one of the larger Pratt family mansions, built in 1913 in a Tudor style, with 39 panelled rooms, thirteen bathrooms, twelve fireplaces, five cellars, a swimming pool, and flower beds tended by 50 gardeners. It was designed byTrowbridge and Ackerman . By the 1950's it was purchased by the then Soviet Union to serve as the retreat for theRussia n delegation to theUnited Nations .Personal life
He married Helen Deming (Sherman) Pratt, the great granddaughter of American founding father
Roger Sherman ; her sister Gertrude Mary (Sherman) Trowbridge was the grandmother of US Secretary of CommerceAlexander Buel Trowbridge , who was also an executive in the Rockefeller/Pratt oil business.Pratt died at home in
Glen Cove on 20 January, 1935.Pratt's son,
Sherman Pratt was an explorer, and joint founder ofMarineland of Florida , the world's firstoceanarium .References
* [http://www.amherst.edu/library/archives/texts/tower_amherst_athletics/index.html Amherst athletics]
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