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Henry Osborne Havemeyer

Havemeyer's

Henry Osborne Havemeyer was one of the most successful businessmen of the nineteenth century.

Henry Osborne Havemeyer, or H.O. Havemeyer was a very successful businessman born to Frederick Christian and Sarah Louise Havemeyer in 1847. He was the younger brother of Theodore Havemeyer, and his partner in business. Together they ran the Havemeyer sugar refinery and became very wealthy in the process. Henry more involved in the business of the sugar refinery than his older brother Theodore, who was busy with the farm and his other responsibilities. Henry was the president of the company while Theodore was the vice-president. On January 8, 1882 the Havemeyer sugar refinery was completely destroyed by a fire. This was a huge loss, as the refinery produced up to three fourth s of the nations sugar, and the damages amounted to 1.5 million dollars. The Havemeyer brothers were determined to turn this bad fortune around, so they used the opportunity to build a new refinery. Then new refinery they built was one of the most modern sugar refineries in the world, capable of refining over 3 million pounds of sugar in a day. No other refinery in the United States came close to this amount at this time. Even after the construction of the new plant, competition was heavy in the sugar refining industry leading to the lowering of prices and slim profit margins. Henry therefore decided to lead the formation of the "Sugar Trust". The company was renamed the American Sugar Refining Company, and at its height it controlled 98% of sugar production in the United States. Eventually Henry and the Sugar Trust were brought to court for behaving monopolistically, but they emerged unscathed and the government's power to control monopolies was reduced on the grounds that manufacturing monopolies were not covered by the Sherman Antitrust Act. Henry Havemeyer was for the most part kept occupied by his business, however his success in the sugar refining industry allowed the Havemeyer family to pool more resources into development in Mahwah, and the expansion of the mountainside farm. Henry O. Havemeyer was one of the more well known members of the family, and he left a huge legacy in the United States as a whole, however he was not often present in the town of Mahwah, where his older brother Theodore would have a far larger impact due to his availability.