User:Mitzi.humphrey/Thomas Prather

Thomas V. Prather (1770 - 1823).

Business interests
Prather met John J. Jacob in Philadelphia. Inspired by talk of the new American frontier they left together for Kentucky in 1800. They became business partners in Kentucky, establishing the firm of Prather and Jacob. In 1811 Prather's sister-in-law Anne Overton Fontaine married Jacob. John Jeremiah Jacob and Thomas Prather became prominent business men and named his son Thomas Prather Jacob after his business partner. Jacob was the largest landowner and the richest resident of Louisville, Kentucky. He became the city's first millionaire and a philanthropist. Jacob's brother ?Richard Taylor Jacob was Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky (1863–64) "The papers of Louisville merchant Thomas Prather (d. 1823) include letters, 1810-1812, discussing business, including counterfeit notes and ships built at Marietta, Ohio, in 1807; receipts, 1818-1822, for dividends from the Shelbyville and Louisville Turnpike Co., the Beargrass Toll Bridge Co., and the Louisville and Portland Turnpike; land papers; and miscellaneous papers."--Filson File. Also, "Included are papers of Jacob, his children, grandchildren, and business partner Thomas Prather. Jacobs papers consist of correspondence, 1806-1851, including letters from business associates and his partner, Thomas Prather, discussing business, crops, lands in Kentucky and Missouri, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and the Louisville Library; accounts, 1806-1850,"

Biography
Prather was born December 2, 1770 in Frederick, Maryland. He died February 3, 1823 in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky. Prather's letters to J. Jeremiah Jacob are included in the files of the Filson Historical Society. (After his first wife died in 1806, Alexander S. Bullitt remarried, to widow Mary Churchill Prather.--Wikipedia) Reverend Edward Porter Humphrey's first wife was Catherine Cornelia Prather, daughter of Thomas Prather and Matilda Martha Fontaine.