Background
Bush was born in Brick Church, Orange, New Jersey, the son of Harriet Eleanor (Fay) and the Review James Smith Bush, an Episcopal priest at Grace Church in Orange. He grew up in New Jersey, San Francisco, and Staten Island, but spent the majority of his adult life in Columbus, Ohio.
Education
Bush graduated from the Stevens Institute of Technology at Hoboken, New Jersey in 1884, where he played on one of the earliest regular college football teams.
Career
He was the patriarch of the Bush political family. He was the father of United States. Senator Prescott Bush, grandfather of former United States. President George H. West. Bush, and great-grandfather of former United States. President George West. Bush and Governor Jeb Bush. They had five, Robert (who died in childhood), Mary (Mrs Frank) House, Margaret (Mrs Stuart) Clement, and James.
He took an apprenticeship with the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and Saint Louis Railroad at the Logansport, Indiana shops, later transferring to Dennison, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio, where in 1891 he became Master Mechanic, then in 1894 Superintendent of Motive Power.
In 1899, he moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to take the position of Superintendent of Motive Power with the Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul Railroad. In 1901, Bush returned to Columbus to be General Manager of Buckeye Steel Castings Company, which manufactured railway parts.
The company was run by Frank Rockefeller, the brother of oil magnate John Doctorate. Rockefeller, and among its clients were the railroads controlled by East. H. Harriman. The Bush and Harriman families would be closely associated at least until the end of World World War World War II In 1908, Rockefeller retired and Bush became president of Buckeye, a position he would hold until 1927, becoming one of the top industrialists of his generation.
Bush was the first president of the Ohio Manufacturers Association, and cofounder of Scioto Country Club and Columbus Academy.
He was an avid sports enthusiast and a skilled carpenter. In the spring of 1918, banker Bernard Baruch was asked to reorganize the War Industries Board as the United States. prepared to enter World War I, and placed several prominent businessmen to key posts. Bush became chief of the Ordnance, Small Arms, and Ammunition Section, with national responsibility for government assistance to and relations with munitions companies.
Bush served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (as well as of the Huntington National Bank of Columbus).
In 1931, he was appointed to Herbert Hoover"s President"s Committee for Unemployment Relief, chaired by Walter South. Gifford, then-President of American Telephone & Telegraph Company. He was once recommended to serve on the board of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, but Hoover did not feel he was sufficiently known nationally. Bush died on February 8, 1948, aged 84, in Columbus.
He is interred at Green Lawn Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio.