Ario Pardee was an American engineer, coal operator, and philanthropist.
Background
Ario Pardee was born on November 19, 1810 in Chatham, Columbia County, New York, United States. He was the son of Ariovistus Pardee and Eliza (Platt). The family genealogy gives his name as Ariovistus, but elsewhere it appears as Ario. The Pardees, according to the family tradition, were of Huguenot extraction, but they had lived in England for at least two generations before George Pardee emigrated to New Haven about 1644. Soon after Ario's birth his father moved to a farm in Stephentown, New York, where the boy grew up.
Education
Ario Pardee attended the district school until he reached the age of fifteen, and thereafter continued to study at home under the direction of Reverend Moses Hunter.
Career
In 1830 Ario Pardee began training as an engineer by becoming a rodman for the surveyors who were locating the Delaware & Raritan Canal in New Jersey. He continued work with the engineers in charge of constructing the canal until 1832, when he went with the chief engineer to locate the Beaver Meadow Railroad connecting the coal mines at Beaver Meadow, Pennsylvania, with the Lehigh Canal at Mauch Chunk. His employers soon recognized his ability by placing him in charge of the construction of this road. In 1836 the Hazleton Railroad & Coal Company was organized to exploit the rich vein of anthracite at the present Hazleton. An outlet was needed and Pardee was employed as chief engineer to build a railroad from these mines to the Beaver Meadow road. After its completion he continued as chief engineer of the company.
Resigning in 1840, he began business as an independent coal operator, founding the firm of Pardee, Miner & Company, later known as A. Pardee & Company, which in time became the largest shipper of anthracite coal in the state. As the business grew, Pardee extended his interests until they included mines in various anthracite and bituminous fields, locomotive and car works at Hazleton, iron works at Allentown, in New York state, and in Virginia, and lumber holdings in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, the Carolinas, and in Canada. He also became a director of the Lehigh Valley and other railroads. He first became interested in Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1864. This institution was in financial difficulties, and in 1863 the trustees commissioned the newly elected president, William C. Cattell, to raise $30, 000 in a year as the price of saving the college.
After eleven months, having raised only a third of that sum, he preached at Hazleton in the Presbyterian church which Pardee attended, and was the rich man's guest. Cattell ventured to explain his views of the difference between education and coal mining, and asked Pardee for $20, 000. To his amazement, Pardee promptly wrote his note for that amount--said to have been the largest single gift from an individual to an educational institution that had then been made in Pennsylvania. The capitalist, now interested, followed up his investment with larger gifts. As an engineer and businessman he was most interested in the practical type of education. He endowed the "Pardee Scientific Course" in 1866, and in 1871 he offered to erect and equip a building to house it, his total gifts amounting to more than half a million dollars.
In 1865 he became a trustee and from 1882 to his death he was president of the board. In this capacity he was noted for his business-like application to the affairs of the institution, for his regular attendance at commencements, for his quiet modesty, and for his consistent refusal to make a long speech on any public occasion. He was reputed to have bestowed many charities so quietly that they were known only to the recipients. He was a presidential elector in 1876, and chairman of the board of commissioners for the second Pennsylvania Geological Survey. He died suddenly in Ormond, Florida on March 26, 1892.
Achievements
Ario Pardee has been listed as a notable engineer, businessman by Marquis Who's Who.
Personality
Ario Pardee was a silent man, a familiar but elusive figure, engaged in grand and far-flung business schemes, driving quietly and persistently toward his objectives, and disclosing little of his purposes or personality to any but a few close friends.
Connections
Ario Pardee was married in 1838 to Elizabeth Jacobs of Butler Valley, who died in 1847. On August 29, 1848, to Anna Maria Robison of Bloomsburg. He had fourteen children.
