The daily Alaska citizen., 1919-12-03

lho would have been 70 years Of age, being born in lS49.
 The career of Henry Clay Prick |as formed one il the most fascinating chapters in the romance of industry in the United States. At ten, a boy on a farm in family of only ordI- mary means, he was, at sixty. man oi so many millions that his fortune, like those of Carnegie and Rocke, |rouer. was largely a matter of guess work even to himself It has been said he was worth more than $10O.- o000oO. perhaps as much as $2OO,- .oooOO0.
 Mr. Prick built up the greatest coke bushes in the world, and acquired such vast interests in steel that he was also one of the principal mag hates in that industry. and in round ling out his career he became known las one of the worlds greatest collec- tors of master paintings
 Mir Prick was born December 19. .1Sf9. at West Overton, Pa This village was named after the maternal grandfather of Mir. Prick. Abram. Oyorholt whose original family name was Oyerholtzer, and who settled in Western Pennsylvania when that re- 'glon was regarded as the frontier Of civilization. A the settlements along the Allegheny and MonongaheIa grew. band Pittsburg emerged from its swaG- .dlng clothes, Mir Oyorholt became rhy leading miller and distiller of
 .estrrn Pennsylvania. His daughter. Elizabeth. married John w. Prick. a young man of Swiss ancestry. who at hat time was working as an engineer
 n the OverhoIt distillery It was from this union that the future capi- taliSr was born. The father attempted farming, but did not make a remark able success of it and as result young Henry Clay Prick was prac- tieally adopted into the Oyerholt fami- ly when he was about 12 years old. He received a good basic schooling, but there was nothing in his boyhood Ito indicate the remarkable ability which characterized his latter life, eX- cept his eagerness to get into busi- ness. For a time he was booEkeeper in his grandfather's distillory and from this position he went to Morgan and Company, coke dealers, and at about 21 years of age he appeared in Pirtsburg as their agent The coke industry was in its infancy. The uon masters of Pittsburg were just beginning to appreaciate the value of coke for their furnaces Young Prick had an opportunity to acquire a limit ed interest in plant near Broadford, land out of the profits of this he ac- .quired other holdings. He later join led a company to build railroad to renetrate the COnnelsyille coke re
 ion, and in 1871, the year this road was opened. Mr Prick organized the corporation of Prick and Company, which bot coal land and coke ovens in the Connelsville region. That was the basis of the Prick fortune. The
 iIed attention of the rising fin ancicr was given to coke until 1882.
 Iii the midst of this period there came the panic of '73 and the finan- cial crash of many ambitious opera tors. At a sheriff's sale MT. Prick purchased additional tracts of coal land ovens, and few years later the Melons, powerful Pittsburgh bankers, became interested in the expanding enterprise of the young operator.
 The Carnegies, then developing their great steel business in Pitts burgh, had taken large holdings in the Prick coke company, and in 1882 Mr. Prick found the Carnegie broth CTS willing to admit him as member of their firm in consideration of his giving them further interests in his coke business. It was thus MT. Prick became also a great manufac- turer of steel.
 Thru the Homestead strike of 1892, Mr Prick came into national promt- hence. Differences had arisen be- tween the Carnegie Steel company and it's employees over a warge scale, culminating in a strike involving thousands of men; the calling out Of | the National Guard and the proclama- gion of martial law. It tried to as sassinate MT. Prick. Berkman walk ed into Tricks office, drew a revolver