Parker County, TX - Obituaries - Hugh McGrattan, Sr.

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Hugh McGrattan, Sr.
Hugh McGrattan, Sr., died at his home on North Main street at 5 oÕclock Thursday 
morning, Feb. 1, being in the 77th year of his age.
For many years a respected citizen of this town and county, his life has a peculiar 
interest from the fact that he was an actor in one of the most stirring episodes of 
American history, that attending the early development of the oil industry and the 
birth of the Standard Oil Company.

He was born in St. George, New Brunswick, Feb. 25, 1829, of Irish parentage, and at 
the age of twenty removed to Bangor, Maine, where on July 6, 1854, he was married to 
Miss Sarah Campbell. Later he went to Olean, New York, and on the discovery of oil in 
Western Pennsylvania, to the south of him, h e was led thither about 1860. He became 
one of the pioneers in the development of the industry, and helped to sink some of 
the very first wells. The whole country was excited and speculation was rife. Oil 
had never been refined for illuminating purposes, and the world was just waking up 
to its possibilities. The times were reckless and exciting, and fortunes frequently 
changed hands over night.

Mr. McGrattan was intimately associated with many men who are now high in the councils 
of Standard Oil.

On account of the uncertainties of the oil business, he began to cast about for a 
suitable home for his family, and decided on Parker county, Texas, whence he removed, 
in 1879, settling on the farm, which the family still own, a few miles northeast of 
Weatherford. For a good many years the family home has been in Weatherford. The wife 
died here in 1888.

Mr. McGrattan was a sturdy, blunt, droll man, quiet and retiring, who made friends 
and kept them. 
He leaves four daughters, three of whom are at home and one, Mrs. J.W. Weatherford, 
lives at Flagstaff, Arizona; and three sons, who are engaged in the mercantile and 
cotton gin business in this city. His two brothers survive in the old home town in 
New Brunswick.

The Plain Texan and Weatherford Democrat
February 9 1906