Profile – Charles R. Flint circa 1901

[[The Father of Trusts as reprinted from Cassier’s magazine v. 20 May-Oct. 1901. Article by W. D. Walker]

It would be difficult, in the small space here at command, to give any detailed sketch of Mr. Flint. The closing years of the nineteenth century will be referrred to in the future as the period when the movement toward industrial consolidation in the United States reached its zenith, and when the history of that movement shall be written the name of Charles R. Flint, a pioneer in the movement and one of the most successful organisers of his time, will be a predominating feature.

He was born at Thomaston, Maine, in 1850, and was graduated from the Polytechnic Institute at Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1868. In 1871 he was partner in the firm of Gilchrist, Flint & Co., and from 1872 to 1875 he was a partner in the firms of W. R. Grace & Co. of New York, Grace & Co. of Chile, and J. W. Grace & Co. of San Francisco. Reorganised, in 1876, the firm of Grace Brothers & Co. of Callao, Peru, remaining on the West Coast of South America for nearly a year. In 1887 he was Consul of Chile at New York, and, during the absence of the charge d’affaires, was in charge of the archives and correspondence of the Chilian Legation. He has also in recent years been consul-general in the United States of the republics of Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

It was in 1878 that Mr. Flint foresaw that the inevitable trend of business was towards consolidation. In that year, he organised a consolidation of several lumber companies under the name of the Export Lumber Company, Limited. This company has yards at Ottawa, Montreal, Boston, Portland, Me., New York (Greenpoint), carries stocks of lumber in West Virginia, South Carolina, the Adirondacks, New Hampshire and Michigan, and handles over 200,000,000 feet of lumber per year. It is one of the most successful lumber concerns in the United States. In 1881, Mr. Flint took up the crude rubber industry and consolidated the four leading factors in that business. Three years later he visited Brazil and spent some time on the Amazon, acquiring a thorough knowledge of the details of the rubber business and establishing houses there. Since that time, organisations with which Mr. Flint has been identified have handled crude rubber to the value of over $250,000,000, his crude rubber interests now being in The Crude Rubber Company, of New York, which has branches in the rubber producing markets.

In 1885 he became a partner in the house of Flint & Co., composed of his father, Benjamin, his brother, W. B. and himself, devoting some years to the development of a general export and import commission business. In 1891, he organised the United States Rubber Co., which has a capital of $47,191,500. In 1892 he brought about a union of five companies manufacturing belting, packing, hose, clothing, and druggists’ sundries, under the title of the Mechanical Rubber Company. Subsequently this became a part of the Rubber Goods Manufacturing Co. which Mr Flint organised, this latter company taking over the businesses of the principal manufacturers of belting, packing, hose, mats, interlocking tiling, tires for bicycles, carriages and automobiles.

In 1895 Mr Flint consolidated the export and import business of his firm with that of The Coombs, Crosby & Eddy Co., under the style of Flint, Eddy & Co. This concern was, in the summer of 1900, further augmented by consolidation with the American Trading Company, under the name of Flint, Eddy and American Trading Company, with a capital of $4,000,000. This concern does an export business with every country in the world, and is the largest buyer in the United States of manufactured goods for export. Among the other consolidations which Mr. Flint has brought about, or with which he has been identified, are the American Chicle Company, capital $9,000,000; the Sloss Sheffield Steel and Iron Company, with a capital of $18,200,000; the American Caramel Company, with a capital of $2,600,000; the U. S. Bobbin and Shuttle Company, with a capital of $2,300,000; the American Sewer-Pipe Company, with a capital of $12,500,000, and the National Starch Company, with a capital of $13,500,000. Mr. Flint has also organised the Atlantic Coast Lumber Company, with headquarters and mills at Georgetown, South Carolina, with a capacity of 500,000 feet per day, and which has been alluded to as the “Carnegie plant of the lumber business.” In order to advantageously market the product of this company, Mr. Flint organised the Atlantic Coast Steamship Company, which owns four new steamers built specially for the lumber carrying trade and plying between Georgetown and northern coast ports. Mr. Flint was a member of the International Conference of American Republics in 1889-1890, representing the United States on the Banking-Committee, and was a member of the Committee on Customs Regulations; in 1891 he assisted in the negotiation of the Reciprocity Treaty with Brazil. In 1893 he fitted out a fleet of war vessels for Brazil, which arrived there in time to strengthen the republic and defeat the monarchists in their attempt to re-establish an empire.

In 1896 he established the Flint & Co. Pacific Coast Clipper Line, between New York and San Francisco. Four years later this line sold their entire fleet of clipper ships, and the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company was organised, which has in service and building seven large steamers varying from 1100 tons dead weight capacity to 6500 tons. In 1897 Mr. Flint was chairman of the reorganisation committee which consolidated the street railroads of Syracuse, under the name of Syracuse Rapid Transit Railway Company. In 1898 Mr. Flint acted as confidential agent for the United States Government in negotiations for war vessels and munitions of war in the war with Spain.

Mr. Flint, notwithstanding his large business interests, is a keen sportsman. He is a member of a number of shooting and fishing clubs, and religiously spends one day each week either fishing or shooting. He was a member of the syndicate which built and raced the Vigilant, and which successfully defended the America’s cup against the Valkyrie. He is now building the Arrow, which is known as a torpedo yacht, expected to attain a speed of 45 miles an hour, and capable of being transformed into a torpedo-boat within three days.