Henry Clay Frick

The money in the family belonged to his grandfather, Abraham Overholt, who ran a rye whiskey distillery at West Overton. His own father failed at whatever he tried. Frick lasted a year at Otterbein College and left without a degree, and in 1871, at 21, went in with two cousins and a friend on beehive ovens that baked coal into the coke the steel mills burned. He told people he intended to be a millionaire by 30. The Mellons lent him what he needed to buy out his partners, and by 1880 the firm was his alone: a thousand men on the payroll and 80 percent of the coal coming out of Pennsylvania. He married Adelaide Childs in December 1881 and met Andrew Carnegie in New York on the honeymoon.

Coke was the bottleneck in steelmaking and Frick owned it. The partnership with Carnegie set his ovens behind Carnegie's furnaces, guaranteed the mills their fuel, and made him chairman of Carnegie Steel, where he ran the works the way he had run the coke fields: costs down, output up, no union. Then the two men turned on each other. Frick tried to sell the company out from under Carnegie to speculators, Carnegie tried repeatedly to force him out without paying him properly, and Frick sued and settled. What they had built went into J. P. Morgan's United States Steel in 1901. Frick had also taken over his grandfather's whiskey brand in 1881 and split it three ways with Andrew Mellon. By 1905 he had moved himself, his boards and his paintings to New York.

In 1879 he and 15 other Pittsburgh men chartered a fishing club above Johnstown and took possession of the largest earthen dam in the world. They lowered its crest, screened the spillway to keep the fish in, and let the maintenance go. On May 31, 1889, it failed and killed 2,208 people. The members agreed never to discuss the club in public, and Frick's lawyers Philander Knox and James Reed turned back every lawsuit. Three years later he locked out Homestead, fenced the mill in barbed wire, and sent 300 armed Pinkertons upriver on barges. Ten men died in the fight of July 6, 1892, nine of them workers. He asked the governor for troops and got 8,000. On July 23 the anarchist Alexander Berkman shot him twice in his office. Frick was back at his desk within a week.

A heart attack killed him in New York on December 2, 1919, at 69. He is buried at Homewood Cemetery in Pittsburgh. The will did the rehabilitating. It left Pittsburgh 150 acres and a two-million-dollar trust, which opened as Frick Park in 1927 and grew to nearly 600 acres. It left Princeton six million unrestricted, which the university spent on faculty salaries and repaid with a building. And it left the Fifth Avenue house and everything in it as a public museum, which opened December 16, 1935, four years after his widow died. The Frick Collection reopened in April 2025 and named its first restaurant Westmoreland, after his private railroad car. The two halves of the name have never reconciled.

Henry Clay Frick's life against the full span of the corpus.

• H. C. Frick and Company company
  Beehive coke ovens in Westmoreland and Fayette counties 1871
• South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club company
  Chartered with 15 others. Its dam failed ten years later. 1879
• Eagle Rock building
  A 104-room summer house at Prides Crossing, Massachusetts, razed in 1969 1904
• Henry Clay Frick House building
  Built on Fifth Avenue to hold the collection and become a museum 1913
• Frick Park building
  150 acres and a two-million-dollar trust left to the City of Pittsburgh 1927
• The Frick Collection building
  Opened December 16, 1935. Reopened April 2025 after renovation. 1935

• 1871 aged ~22 At 21 he goes in on beehive coke ovens with two cousins and a friend He told people he meant to be a millionaire by 30.
• November 17, 1879 aged 29 Helps charter the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club above Johnstown
• December 15, 1881 aged 31 Marries Adelaide Childs and meets Andrew Carnegie on the honeymoon
• May 31, 1889 aged 39 The club's dam gives way and the Johnstown Flood kills 2,208 people The club had lowered the crest and screened the spillway. Its lawyers defeated every suit.
• July 6, 1892 aged 42 Pinkerton barges reach Homestead and ten men are killed Nine of the dead were workers. Frick then obtained 8,000 state militia.
• July 23, 1892 aged 42 Alexander Berkman shoots him twice in his Pittsburgh office Berkman also stabbed him four times with a sharpened file. Frick returned to work in a week.
• 1901 aged ~52 Carnegie Steel is absorbed into J. P. Morgan's United States Steel
• 1905 aged ~56 Moves his business, social and collecting life to New York
• December 2, 1919 aged 69 Dies of a heart attack and leaves the house and its art to the public

• Andrew Carnegie 1835–1919
  Steel magnate who built one of the largest steel empires in history and later became a major philanthropist. partner and adversary
• Andrew W. Mellon 1855–1937
  Banker and art collector whose foundation built the National Gallery of Art. lifelong friend and lender
• Emma Goldman 1869–1940
  Anarchist orator and editor whose free-speech and birth-control agitation led to her 1919 deportation. helped plan the attempt on his life
• J. P. Morgan 1837–1913
  Banking titan who stabilized the economy during the Panic of 1907 and shaped modern finance. bought the company
• Samuel Gompers 1850–1924
  Founding leader of the American Federation of Labor who established durable craft-union organization. led the labor federation he fought