The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-14
Daniel Pratt, Hlabdma's
 Great Captain of Industry

manufacturing center. As site for a ! town the high and level table lands
 about the mill were much more desira-
 hle than was originally the swampy
 land, which with herculanean labor | was transformed into the beautiful, lit- l tie city of Prattville. What makes the | difference between Montgomery's mill and Prattville has existed for over forty years. It Is the single fact that Dan- 1 icl Pratt moved from Montgomery s
 Mill in 1888 and founded the town of Prattville His talents. his energy, made Prattville; the lack of 1t destroy ed whatever hope the little settlement below had of becoming a town of any i importance.
 It is given to very, very few men to accomplish the work and do the deeds of Daniel Pratt. Not only must the
 opportunity be ripe for the accomplish
 ment of the great things he did but | the man must have the equipment of i extraordinary talents and a rare tenac- | ity of purpose. These elements were dominant chara cteristics Of Daniel Pratt and through the strength and | courage with which they endowed him
 he worked his way to his goal, which his clearer eye saw in the distance and which was unknown and unseen to the critics whom every successful man |
 The life of no man in all of Ala bama's history has perhaps so vitally affected the State as that of Daniel Pratt. That is a startling statement and at first sight 1t appears a glarinS
 exaggeration. There are perhaps but few Alabamians who so regard the ca reer of this man who came to Alabama a northern mechanic. a mere user or tools and but lately the apprentice of a carpenter. But if the mans life and his plishments are scanned close ly the justice of the claim Is apparent. The mere possession of money gives no man greatness. Daniel Pratt was not a great citizen of Alabama because of the fact that when he died his es- tate was worth very nearly million dollars and was at that time perhaps the largest private fortune in Alabama.
 Nor was he necessarily a great citizen of the State because he established q great manufactury Other men, many of them. have done that same thing in Alabama. Nor is the claim for his career as a great one founded on the fact that he was one of the very first to recognize the possibilities of the
 mineral district of Alabama and to spend fortunes in developing those riches Nor was he a great Alabam- ian because his strong and rugged character was continually an in fluence in the commercial and po- litical affairs of his people. Many
 men have had the same and a greater influence. Nor was he necessarily great because he foun Jed a commercial 1 dynasty, as it were, giving to Alabama a family of capitalists and developers
 That has been done in Alabama and | elsewhere.
 But that he did all those things. that ! he was the first Captain of Industry
 of the State. that he was the pioneer
 manufacturer, that he was a pioneer l developer of the mineral district. that 1 he transformed a wilderness into city | of factories, that he built up an in l fluence and wrote his name in such a way in Alabama's history that will en- 1 dure as long as the State exists, gives { him the title of one of the most ex- l traordinary and one of the most re- i markable men characters who belong to the State.
 { MT. Pratt was born on a bleak hill ! near Temple, N. H.. in 1799. His home was not home of want but 1t was a
 home of poverty. He got perhaps ten
 weeks of school during his whole life
 He served an apprenticeship to car l penter from his sixteenth to his twen- | tieth year, as was the custom for hope full mechanics in those days. Before
 his term of apprenticeship expired, the 1 carpenter to whom he had been ap-
 prentice fell into misfortunes and Dar-
 iel Pratt started South to make his