Thomas Mellon (February 3, 1813 – February 3, 1908) was a businessman, judge, and lawyer who was best known as the founder of Mellon Bank and patriarch of the

Mellon family The Mellon family is a wealthy and influential American family from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The family includes Andrew Mellon, one of the longest serving U.S. Treasury Secretaries, while other members worked in the judicial, banking, financia ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

Early life and education

Mellon was born to farmers Andrew Mellon and Rebecca Wauchob on February 3, 1813, at Camp Hill Cottage, Lower Castletown, parish of Omagh, County Tyrone, Ireland. The original family house now forms the centrepiece of the Ulster American Folk Park Museum. His family had come into Ireland from Scotland and Holland around the middle of the seventeenth century. In 1816, his grandfather, Archibald Mellon, emigrated to the United States, settling in

Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania Westmoreland County is a county in the state of Pennsylvania, United States, in the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census the population was 354,663. The county seat is Greensburg and the most populous community is ...

. Andrew and his family followed two years later.Rook, Charles Alexander, et al., eds
''Western Pennsylvanians: A Work for Newspaper and Library Reference''
, Western Pennsylvania Biographical Association (Pittsburgh, 1923), p390. Mellon wrote in his autobiography that at the age of ten, he had been struck by "wealth and magnificence I had before no conception of" upon viewing the mansion of prominent landowners Jacob Negley and Barbara Ann Negley.Mellon, Thomas, ''Thomas Mellon and His Times'', University of Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, 1994). At fourteen, he read ''

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin ''The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin'' is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin appears to have called the work his ''Memoirs''. Although it had a tort ...

'' and became inspired by Franklin's rags-to-riches tale. Deciding he would not be a farmer, he enrolled at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

, then known as the Western University of Pennsylvania, in October 1834, graduating in 1837.

Career

After graduation, he obtained work in a Pittsburgh law office, and became clerk for the Allegheny County

prothonotary A prothonotary is the "principal clerk of a court," from Late Latin, L.L. ''prothonotarius'' (Wiktionary:circa, c. 400), from Greek ''protonotarios'' "first scribe," originally the chief of the college of recorders of the court of the Byzantine E ...

. He was himself admitted to the bar on December 15, 1838, and opened his own law firm, focusing on civil cases. On August 22, 1843, following a long and frustrating courtship, he married Sarah Jane Negley, daughter of Jacob and Barbara and aunt of James S. Negley.Steele, Bruce.
Thomas Mellon and His Times
," ''University Times'', Vol. 27, No. 6, November 10, 1994. University of Pittsburgh Soon thereafter, he embarked on a long and successful legal career in

. In 1859, he was elected assistant judge of the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas and on December 1 began a ten-year judicial career. Mellon invested the proceeds from his legal work shrewdly, buying up large portions of downtown Pittsburgh real estate. In late 1869, he decided to retire from the bench, and rather than return to the legal profession, "concluded to open a banking house." On January 2, 1870, he opened the T. Mellon & Sons' Bank with his sons Andrew W. and Richard B.Mellon, William Larimer and Sparkes, Boyden
''Judge Mellon's Sons''
, 1948. Above the

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...

door of the original bank building at 145 Smithfield Street was placed a near life-sized statue of his inspiration, Benjamin Franklin. He nearly lost his estate in the

Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the "L ...

, an economic depression in which half of Pittsburgh's ninety organized banks and twelve private banks failedMcCullough, C. Hax Jr.
The World of Thomas Mellon
" Allegheny Cemetery, accessed May 16, 2006.—but prevailed and was well placed to prosper when the economy again began to expand. Shrewd investments included real estate holdings in downtown Pittsburgh, coal fields, and a $10,000 loan to

Henry Clay Frick Henry Clay Frick (December 19, 1849 – December 2, 1919) was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company and played a major ...

in 1871, which would provide the coke for

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...

's steel mills. In 1877, Mellon was approached to finance the Ligonier Valley Railroad. In 1878 he acquired land around the railroad just west of

Ligonier, Pennsylvania Ligonier is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,513 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Ligonier was settled in the 1760s. The borough is well known for nearby Idl ...

, where he began a picnic park, Idlewild. Additional land in the Ligonier Valley which he once owned is now the Rolling Rock Club. On January 5, 1882, he retired from day-to-day management of the bank's affairs, handing it to his 26-year-old son,

Andrew Andrew is the English form of the given name, common in many countries. The word is derived from the , ''Andreas'', itself related to ''aner/andros'', "man" (as opposed to "woman"), thus meaning "manly" and, as consequence, "brave", "strong", "c ...

. Under A.W. and R.B.'s management, Mellon Bank was by the end of the century the largest banking institution in the country outside of New York. He divested himself of most of the rest of his property on February 3, 1890, leaving it in the hands of his sons. Mellon died on his 95th birthday, February 3, 1908, at his home in East Liberty. He was survived by his wife, who lived for about a year after his death, and three children. Thomas Mellon and his wife Sarah are buried in Pittsburgh's Allegheny Cemetery.

Family and personal life

Mellon was

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

by faith. Though not devoutly religious, he was a member and supporter of the East Liberty Presbyterian Church, the land for which had been originally contributed by the Negley family. He maintained a "country house" at 401 North Negley Avenue in East Liberty, where he indulged a passion for horticulture, raising fruit trees and other crops. He also took an interest in the poetry of

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the List of national poets, national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the be ...

and in the history of Ireland. He was said to have remarked "the only way to settle the Irish question would be to sink the island." Thomas and Sarah Mellon had eight children, five of whom survived to adulthood: * Thomas Alexander Mellon, born June 26, 1844, married to Mary C. Caldwell, sister of

Alexander Caldwell Alexander Caldwell (March 1, 1830May 19, 1917) was a U.S. Senator from Kansas. Early years Born in Drakes Ferry, Pennsylvania, he attended public schools, and in 1847 enlisted as a private to serve in the Mexican–American War. He moved to ...

, U.S. Senator of Kansas; father of Thomas Alexander Mellon, III and the architect Edward Purcell Mellon. * James Ross Mellon, born January 14, 1846, married to Rachel Hughey Larimer, daughter of railroad and land baron William Larimer; their son was William Larimer Mellon. * Sarah Emma Mellon (died in childhood). * Annie Rebecca Mellon (died in childhood). * Samuel Selwyn Mellon (died 1862, at age 9). * Andrew William Mellon, born March 24, 1855, died August 26, 1937. * Richard Beatty Mellon, born March 19, 1858, died December 1, 1933, married to Jennie King, daughter of Alexander and Cordelia King. * George Negley Mellon, born June 30, 1860, died April 15, 1887. Mellon entrusted his sons with business ventures from very early ages. By the age of 21, his son Tom had raised, with his son Jim, some $100,000 operating a nursery, lumber yard and construction supply business, and Andrew was managing a theatre at the age of 17. Well-prepared for business, the Mellon family ranked among the wealthiest and most prominent industrialists in the United States by the time of Judge Mellon's death in 1908.

References

External links

Mellon Homestead
birthplace of Thomas Mellon and part of the Ulster American Folk Park in

County Tyrone County Tyrone (; ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. Its county town is Omagh. Adjoined to the south-west shore of Lough Neagh, the cou ...

Scots-Irish AmericansThomas Mellon and William B. Negley Day Book (University of Pittsburgh Archives Service Center)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mellon, Thomas 1813 births 1908 deaths 19th-century American businesspeople 19th-century Irish people American bankers American judges American people of Scotch-Irish descent American people of Dutch descent Businesspeople from Pennsylvania Burials at Allegheny Cemetery Irish emigrants to the United States Irish people of Scottish descent Irish people of Dutch descent Mellon family Pennsylvania lawyers People from County Tyrone Ulster Scots people University of Pittsburgh alumni

Early life and education

Career

Family and personal life

References

Further reading

External links