John Huntington
The story of the Bishop and Parker Foundations begins with an English immigrant, John Huntington. In 1854, at 22 years of age, John and his wife, Jane Beck, immigrated to Cleveland, Ohio where he began working as a contractor in slate roofing. In 1863 he joined the Clark, Payne & Co., an oil refining firm. During his time there, John developed and patented many inventions for improving furnaces, oil refining methods, and machinery used to produce barrels for storage and transportation of oil. In 1870 Clark, Payne & Co. was taken over by John D. Rockefeller’s original Standard Oil Company and John Huntington became very prominent in the business affairs of Cleveland’s oil industry. He became part-owner of a large fleet of lake vessels in 1886, and later vice president of Cleveland Stone Company. He served thirteen years on Cleveland’s city council, supporting many city improvements, including a paid fire department; a municipal sewer system; deepening of the Cuyahoga River channel; re-organization of the waterworks department, and construction of the Superior Viaduct, the city’s first high-level bridge.
On his fifty-seventh birthday in 1889, John established a Benevolent Trust based mostly on his 500 shares of Standard Oil Stock. The fund provided charitable benefits to more than 40 cultural and educational institutions in the Cleveland area. He also recorded his will in 1889, establishing the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust with a goal of producing a “gallery and museum” and a “free evening polytechnical school.” Upon his death in 1893, the trustee of his estate, Henry Clay Ranney, who was also the trustee for the estates of Hinman Hurlbut and Horace Kelley, channeled bequests from all three estates toward the establishment of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Today the Cleveland Museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian art and it provides general admission free to the public. With a $755 million endowment, it is the 4th wealthiest art museum in the United States.
Mr. Huntington had five children, one of whom was William Robert Huntington, a successful businessman and for years the Commodore of the famous Put-In-Bay Yacht Club on Lake Erie. William met Marie Elizabeth Baldwin of Houston, Texas while they were both at school in Cleveland. Their daughter, Lillian H. Huntington, was born May 19, 1895 on the same street (Euclid Avenue) as John D. Rockefeller’s home. Her home was only a block away from where her future husband, Edward Everson Bishop was born. Lillian grew up in Elyria, near Cleveland, spending much of her time with her beloved pony. As an adult Lillian (Patty to her friends) recalled Mr. Rockefeller taking her riding some afternoons! She also recalled that she took voice lessons with Madame Schumann-Heick, an opera star of that era, which she stated she did not enjoy! She and her mother, Marietta “Marie” Huntington first visited Bradenton in 1904 where they stayed at the A.F. Wyman home. She and her mother were later among the first guests to register in “Braidentown’s” new Manavista Hotel, currently the site of the Courtyard Retirement Center in downtown Bradenton.
Eventually, Mrs. Huntington built a lovely French provincial residence which fronted the Manatee River on Riverview Boulevard in West Bradenton. She and Lillian moved to Bradenton permanently after the death of her husband, William, and she lived in her home until her death in 1934.