manufacturer politician statesman
George Whitfield was born on May 23, 1811 in Madison, Connecticut, United States, the son of Theophilus and Elizabeth (Warner) Scranton and a descendant of John Scranton who settled in Guilford, Connecticut, in 1639. His father was the owner of a stage line running from New Haven to Saybrook.
Scranton was educated in the common school and at Lee's Academy in his native town.
In 1828 George Whitfield Scranton went to live with an uncle at Belvidere, New Jersey, and obtained work as a teamster; soon afterward he was employed as a clerk in a store there and in a short time was admitted as a partner. In 1835 he sold his interest in the store, and engaged in farming.
Four years later, in partnership with his brother Selden, he purchased the lease and stock of an iron furnace at Oxford, New Jersey, where he met with considerable success. In May 1840 he and his brother, with William Henry, Sanford Grant, P. H. Mattes, and Joseph C. Platt, formed the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company to acquire an extensive tract of coalbearing land in the Lackawanna Valley, including the present site of the city of Scranton, which he founded in the same year.
He and his associates conducted experiments in smelting iron with anthracite coal and by January 1842 had developed a successful process. Although they began the manufacture of bar-iron to be converted into nails, they soon planned to build a rolling-mill for the manufacture of railroad iron. Lacking the necessary capital, they contracted to furnish rails to the Buffalo, New York & Erie Railroad at a rate lower than the current one upon the condition that the road advance funds to enable them to proceed with manufacturing.
After this start Scranton saw the company develop rapidly into a firmly established and highly lucrative business. In 1846 his first cousin, Joseph Hand Scranton (1813 - 1872), son of Jonathan Scranton, became general manager of the iron works and in 1858 its president; he also organized the First National Bank of Scranton and was the chief organizer of the Scranton Gas and Water Company.
From 1859 until his death George Scranton served in Congress in the House of Representatives as a Republican.
He died in Scranton.
Being a partner of Iron & Coal Company, George Whitfield Scranton participated in development of a method of producing T-rails for constructing railroad track, which previously had been imported from England. The innovation led to a boom in production of track and construction of railroads. He was actively interested in the development of transportation facilities in the Lackawanna Valley and projected and constructed the Northumberland division of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railroad, of which he was president for several years, as he was of the Cayuga & Susquehanna railroad.
Scranton was not a politician in the ordinary sense, but the nature of his business made him a firm believer in protection for home industries.
Scranton is described as a man of inexhaustible energy and great moral integrity and is said to have had the faculty of impressing his ideas upon the minds of other men, qualities that had much to do with his rise from poverty and obscurity to wealth and prominence.
In 1835 Scranton married Jane Hiles of Belvidere. One of his sons, William Walker Scranton, went to Yale in the family tradition, later becoming general manager of the Lackawanna Iron & Coal company. He was survived by his wife, two sons, and a daughter.
