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John Teele Pratt

John Teele Pratt (December 25, 1873 – June 17, 1927) was an American corporate attorney, philanthropist, music impresario, and financier.[1]

For other people named John Pratt, see John Pratt (disambiguation).

John Teele Pratt

(1873-12-25)December 25, 1873

Brooklyn, New York, U.S.

June 17, 1927(1927-06-17) (aged 53)

Brooklyn, New York, U.S.

Amherst College
Harvard Law School

Attorney, philanthropist, financier

​
(m. 1904)​

5, including Edwin

Charles Pratt
Mary Helen Richardson

Frederic Pratt (brother)
George Dupont Pratt (brother)
Herbert Pratt (brother)
Harold Pratt (brother)
Charles Pratt (half-brother)
Robert Thayer (son-in-law)
Paul Nitze (son-in-law)
Andy Pratt (grandson)
Suzanna Love (great-granddaughter)

Early life[edit]

Pratt was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 25, 1873. He was one of six children born to industrialist and Standard Oil co-founder Charles Pratt and Mary Helen (née Richardson) Pratt. His siblings included brothers Frederic Bayley Pratt, George Dupont Pratt, Herbert Lee Pratt, and Harold Irving Pratt. From his father's first marriage, he had two half-siblings including Charles Millard Pratt.[1]


After graduating from Amherst College in 1896, he studied at Harvard Law School, graduating in 1900.[1]

Career[edit]

He worked as a lawyer for the prestigious firm of Carter and Ledyard at 54 Wall Street in New York.[1]


Pratt became a director in the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, and a trustee in the Pratt Institute which was founded by his father. He was also a partner in the Stock Exchange firm of Grayson M.P. Murphy & Co. and a director of several banks.[1]

John Teele Pratt Jr. (1903–1969), who was married to Mary Christy Tiffany (1905–1980), the daughter of George Shepley Tiffany.[6] They divorced and he later married Elizabeth Ogden Woodward (1907–1986), the daughter of William Woodward Sr. and the former wife of Robert Livingston Stevens Jr. After his death, she married Alexander Cochrane Cushing, founder of Squaw Valley Ski Resort.[7]

[5]

Virginia Pratt (1905–1979), who married Robert Helyer Thayer (1901−1984), a U.S. Minister to Romania,[9] in 1926.[10]

[8]

Sally Sears Pratt (1908–1973), who married James Tracy Jackson III (1905–1986) in 1928.[12]

[11]

Phyllis Pratt (1912–1987), who married Paul Henry Nitze (1907–2004), the Secretary of the Navy and Deputy Secretary of Defense under President Lyndon B. Johnson.[14]

[13]

(1913–1975),[15] the headmaster of Browne & Nichols school,[16] who married Aileen Kelly.[15]

Edwin Howard Baker Pratt

In 1904,[2] Pratt married Ruth Sears Baker (1877–1965), a Wellesley College graduate and the daughter of Edwin K. Baker, a Massachusetts dry-goods merchant.[3] In 1929, two years after his eventual death in 1927, Ruth became the first woman elected to the United States Congress from the State of New York.[4] Together, they were the parents of five children:

Death[edit]

Pratt died suddenly in his Broadway office on June 17, 1927, aged 53, of heart disease.[1] Thirty six years earlier, his father, Charles Pratt, had died of heart disease in offices at the same address.[1]

at Find a Grave

John Teele Pratt