Irving T. Bush - Early Years

Early Years

Born in Ridgeway, Lenawee County, Michigan, a small town southwest of Detroit, Irving moved with his family at a young age to Brooklyn, New York, at the time an independent city. When he was in his teens, his father sold his Brooklyn waterfront oil refinery to Standard Oil and retired. Irving T. Bush was educated at The Hill School, a boarding school outside Philadelphia, and joined his father's firm at age 19.

The two-masted schooner yacht Coronet, a 136-foot (41 m) vessel that Rufus had built during the mid-1880s, influenced Irving's life, for the ocean race between the Coronet and the yacht Dauntless in March 1887 made Rufus T. Bush and the victorious Coronet famous—the New York Times devoted its entire first page for March 28, 1887 to the story. Rufus and Irving T. Bush then circumnavigated the globe on the Coronet in 1888. Though they traveled overland and did not join the yacht until it arrived in San Diego in 1889, the Coronet was the first registered yacht to cross Cape Horn from East to West. After crossing the Pacific Ocean, the Coronet stopped in China, Calcutta, Malta (and elsewhere), giving him a view of the world that few had at the time. The Coronet was sold before Rufus's death in 1890, when Rufus accidentally drank a fatal dose of aconite. Rufus T. Bush left an estate estimated at $2,000,000 to his wife and two sons. The family heirs quickly incorporated under the name The Bush Co. Aged 21, Irving T. Bush, a clerk for Standard Oil, could have lived off his inherited wealth and retired from the business life.