Grey Warden (1831-95), born in
Pittsburgh of Scottish ancestry, was a pioneer in the refining of
petroleum in Pennsylvania, and the controlling spirit in the work of
creating the great Atlantic Refinery consolidated with the Standard
Oil Company of Ohio in 1874. George Gibson McMurtry (1838-1915), born
in Belfast of Scottish descent, steel manufacturer and philanthropist,
was "one of the big figures of that small group of men which
established the industrial independence of the United States from the
European nations of cheap labor." James Edwin Lindsay (1826-1919),
lumberman, was descended from Donald Lindsay, who settled in Argyle,
New York, in 1739. John McKesson (b. 1807), descended from the
McKessons of Argyllshire, was founder of the, wholesale drug firm of
McKesson and Robbins; and Alfred B. Scott of the wholesale drug firm
of Scott and Bowne was also of Scottish descent. Edmond Urquhart (b.
1834) was one of the pioneers in the creation of the cotton seed oil
industry. To Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), born in Dunfermline, "the
richest and most free-handed Scot who ever lived," more than anyone
else is due the great steel and iron industry of the United States.
His innumerable gifts for public libraries, etc., are too well known
to need detailing here. To New York alone he gave over five million
dollars to establish circulating branches in connection with the New
York Public Library. In the development of the steel business of
Pittsburgh he was ably seconded by James Scott, George Lauder (his
cousin), Robert Pitcairn, Charles Lockhart, and others--all Scots.
James McClurg Guffey (b. 1839), oil producer and capitalist, was of
Galloway descent. He developed the oil fields of Kansas, Texas,
California, West Virginia, and Indian Territory. The town of Guffey,
Colorado, is named in his honor. His brother Wesley S. Guffey was also
prominent in the oil industry. John Arbuckle (1839-1912), merchant and
philanthropist, known in the trade as the "Coffee King," was born in
Scotland. Robert Dunlap (b. 1834), hat manufacturer and founder of
Dunlap Cable News Company (1891), was of Ulster Scot origin. William
Chalk Gouinlock (1844-1914), physician and manufacturer, of Scottish
ancestry, was one of the first to establish the salt industry in
Western New York (1883), and in 1887 established the first salt-pan
west of the Mississippi (at Hutcheson, Kansas). Edward Kerr, born in
Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire, in 1842, was founder of the L