Edward Hamlin Everett


Edward Hamlin Everett was a noted American businessman and philanthropist, and a founder of the Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vermont, USA.
Everett was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He began his career as a bottle salesman for his stepfather, Henry W. Putnam, the inventor of the Lightning fruit jar. His innovations in glass manufacturing led to his discovery of oil and natural gas in Ohio, where his workers struck natural gas in 1887. By 1906 Everett owned 50 gas wells in Licking and Knox Counties; he subsequently drilled over 400 wells. His investments later extended to cattle, real estate, orchids and apple orchards, and large stockholdings the Anheuser-Busch Co. His orchard of 70,000 trees at Old Bennington was once the largest one-man owned orchard in America. He was also one of the first manufacturers of automobiles. His company, The American Bottle Company, merged with Corning to eventually become Owens Corning. Prior to the 1929 stock market crash, Everett's estimated wealth was between $40–50 million.
He married Amy Webster King on July 8, 1886. As his daughter, Amy, was active in Newark, Ohio hospital work, in 1912 Everett transferred title of his Newark home on Buena Vista Street to the hospital, and later deeded 20 acres on Everett Avenue to the Newark Board of Education for Everett Park. Everett constructed two notable mansions: one in Washington, DC, which later became the Turkish Embassy, and his summer residence in Bennington, Vermont, which he built on 500 acres of farm land from 1911–1914, and which later became the Southern Vermont College. He also owned the Aile Castle in Vevey, Switzerland.
Everett died at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and is buried in the Everett mausoleum in Park Lawn Cemetery in Bennington, Vermont.