Henry Clay Frick - Early Years

Early Years

Frick was born in West Overton, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, U.S., a grandson of Abraham Overholt, the owner of the prosperous Overholt Whiskey distillery (see Old Overholt). Frick's father, John W. Frick, was unsuccessful in business pursuits. Henry Clay Frick attended Otterbein College for one year, but did not graduate. In 1871, at 21 years old, Frick joined two cousins and a friend in a small partnership, using a beehive oven to turn coal into coke for use in steel manufacturing, and vowed to be a millionaire by the age of thirty. The company was called Frick Coke Company.

Thanks to loans from the family of lifelong friend Andrew W. Mellon, by 1880, Frick bought out the partnership. The company was renamed H. C. Frick & Company, employed 1,000 workers and controlled 80 percent of the coal output in Pennsylvania.