Астрал Ойл: Америкалық шам май өндірушісінің тарихы

Former American producer of lamp oil

Astral Oil Works was an American oil company specializing in illuminating oil, and based in Brooklyn, New York. Astral Oil was a high quality kerosene used in lamps and noted for being relatively safe. In the mid 1860s, Pratt met two aspiring young men, Charles Ellis and Henry H. Rogers in western Pennsylvania, and later purchased the entire future output of their small venture, Wamsutta Oil Refinery near Oil City, at a fixed price. Pratt had previously bought whale oil from Ellis in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, and had done business with Rogers in the Pennsylvania oil fields starting in 1861. After five years in the oil fields, in 1866 Pratt asked Rogers to come to the Brooklyn side of Pratt's business. While spending eight years in the Brooklyn refinery starting in 1866, Rogers, according to The New York Times, “invented the machinery by which naphtha was first successfully separated from the crude oil. This invention not only made the way for all that has been done since [in 1909] in the use of naphtha and its kindred products, but it made the handling and use of the residual oil far safer than it had ever before, because the volatile constituent had been removed." Rogers moved steadily from foreman to manager, and then superintendent of Pratt's Astral Oil Refinery. Pratt finally gave Rogers an interest in the business. In 1867, with Henry Rogers as a partner, he established the firm of Charles Pratt and Company. In 1869, Pratt trademarked “Pratt’s Astral Oil.” The president of the Metropolitan Board of Health apologized for the error within several days, at a meeting on August 25, as it was DEVOE'S patent petroleum which had been deemed unsafe in an investigation, with "Astral" oil not analyzed by the board. The error resulted because the firm DEVOE & PRATT had been dissolved, with the different partners selling different patent oil canned in the same manner, and "sold in Fulton street at neighboring stores.

Specializing in illuminating oil, which had earlier been derived from whale oil, the products of the Astral Oil Works kerosene refinery became famous worldwide in the late 19th century. Company advertising used the slogan, "The holy lamps of Tibet are primed with Astral Oil." In September 1870, Astral Oil was exhibited at the American Institute Fair, after Charles Pratt of No. 108 Fulton street had a "splendid array of specimens of illuminating oils" displayed. The Pratt's Astral Oil Guards, numbering 200 men, were organized on the night of August 30, 1871 on Long Island. Mr. Walter of the machine department was elected captain, with most of the men employed at the Pratt establishment at Hunter's Point. Around 10 o’clock in the evening of January 26, 1873, Pratt's Astral Oil works on the northern Williamsburg block “bounded by North 12th and North 13th street and extending from First street to the river”) was the scene of a large fire, creating shoots of flame at the building that “formed large spiral columns of flame which shot into the air fifty feet high.” although great alarm was reported in the neighborhood as different barrels were heard exploding. At the time, about 250 boys and adult men were employed by Pratt, including the workers in the packing house and box factory. A small number were employed in the refinery. No deaths were reported due to the fire.

Charles Pratt and Company (including Astral Oil) became part of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust in 1874. When the Rockefellers absorbed the Pratt interests in 1874, Pratt and Rogers began working under the auspices of Standard Oil Company, where Rogers held a number of executive positions.

By late 1884, Pratt’s new Astral Oil Works in Williamsburg was on Bushwick Creek in the Eastern District of Brooklyn in Northern Williamsburg. The main building of the oil company ran from First street about 300 feet to “the width of the block" from North Twelfth to North Thirteenth street. The tank on North 12th Street then had a body of flames shoot up from two naphtha tanks, each with the quantity of 2,500 barrels of naphtha in them. The fire then spread. On January 22, 1885, Pratt Manufacturing Company of New York filed a bill in equity against the Astral Refining Company of Oil City in the US Circuit Court of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Pratt Manufacturing Company alleged that the term “Astral” as applied to petroleum was their trademark. In April 1886, a case was heard where Pratt Manufacturing Company sued the Astral Refining Company, Limited, to stop the latter from using the words “Astral Oil” as branding with refined petroleum. The case was dismissed. Built in 1885–1886 as affordable housing for employees of Astral Oil Works, the Astral Apartments was a massive brick and terra cotta building in the Queen Anne style featuring a three story high round arch recess.

On November 11, 1905, Rogers was on the stand in the Exchange Building in the office of Walter I. Badger for three hours. He testified in a $50,000,000 lawsuit brought by Cadwallader M. Raymond and the estate of B. F. Greenough against him and other Standard Oil operators. The estate sought to recover royalties on a patent that Rogers admitted that Captain Greenough had pledged to Rogers and Pratt for a royalty contract years earlier, which rendered kerosene oil non explosive. Pratt founded and endowed the Pratt Institute. Under the Sherman Antitrust Act, Standard Oil Trust was broken up into 34 companies in 1911. Standard Oil's Brooklyn refinery, at 20 acres, burned down in 1919, in what may have been an intentional attempt to clear the land and draw insurance.