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 Massachusetts's North Shore region, about 20 miles north of Boston. Beverly Farms is an oceanfront community with a population of about 3,500, ...

, 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 The Boston Fruit Company (1885-1899) was a fruit production and import business based in the port of Boston, Massachusetts. Andrew W. Preston and nine others established the firm to ship bananas and other fruit from the West Indies to north-easte ...

, the birth of the modern banana business. Later, in 1899, Preston and

Minor C. Keith Minor Cooper Keith (19 January 1848 – 14 June 1929) was an American businessman whose railroad, commercial agriculture, and cargo liner enterprises had a major impact on the national economies of the Central American countries, as well as on th ...

combined ventures to form the

United Fruit Company The United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) 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 formed in 1899 fro ...

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