Edward Berwind was born on June 17, 1848, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, the third of five sons and the third of six children of John E. and Augusta (Guldenfennig) Berwind, Prussian immigrants of modest circumstances. His father was a cabinetmaker in a Philadelphia piano factory.
Appointed by President Lincoln to the United States Naval Academy in 1865, Berwind graduated in 1869 and was promoted to master (lieutenant junior grade) in 1872.
Berwind served as naval aide in Washington during President Grant's administration, and was discharged because of a service-induced disability in 1875. From then until 1905, when he voluntarily relinquished it, he received a pension of approximately $150 a month. After his discharge from the navy, Berwind established connections with the Pennsylvania Railroad. In the early 1880's he entered the bituminous coal business, forming, with his brother Charles and Judge Allison White, Berwind, White and Company. This company was succeeded in 1886 by the Berwind-White Coal Mining Company, with which four of the five Berwind brothers were associated and of which Edward was president from 1886 to 1930, when he became chairman of the board. With the help and cooperation of J. P. Morgan and Company, if not under their explicit guidance, Berwind followed the Morgan tactics of consolidation, reorganization, and integration and aggressively expanded his coal operations.
To integrate his operations from the mine to the market, Berwind became heavily involved in businesses complementary to coal, such as railroads, steamships, docks, and lumber. Next to coal, however, his chief business activity was in New York City rapid transit - which was also one of the largest consumers of Berwind-White coal. Early in his career, he was associated with Thomas Fortune Ryan and Peter A. B. Widener in the Metropolitan Securities Company, which owned the city's surface transportation. He was treasurer of the Rapid Transit Construction Company, which built the Interborough Rapid Transit system, and for many years he was chief executive officer of the I. R. T. In September 1930, shortly before the I. R. T. went into receivership, Berwind resigned as chairman of the board.
Berwind died at his New York City home after a long illness. Funeral services were held at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, New York, and he was buried in West Laurel Hills Cemetery, Philadelphia.
Reputed to be the world's largest individual owner of coal-mining properties, Berwind was president of six coal companies and director of four others. He also had a controlling interest in two banks in the soft-coal fields, and because of his close ties with Morgan he was a director in three large insurance companies and three large banks. Altogether he was an officer or director in fifty companies, among them the International Telephone and Telegraph and Postal Telegraph companies.
In personal appearance Berwind resembled a Prussian field marshal, and in his business dealings he was unsentimental, ruthless, and hard-driving. He paid little attention to price competition, and he conducted his labor relations in a cavalier fashion. He refused to bargain with his employees, and his were the last of the non-union coal fields. Berwind assiduously avoided publicity, and during his long career he was mentioned at length by the press on only four occasions. One observer described Berwind as "dour, close-mouthed, and acquisitive. " Yet socially he was gregarious and charming.
In 1886 Berwind married Sarah Vesta Herminie Torrey in Leghorn, Italy, where her father was United States consular agent. Mrs. Berwind died in 1922. They had no children, but Berwind maintained very close relations with his family, and many of his nephews were executives in the Berwind-White Company.
