Henry Flagler (1830-1913) was a self-made millionaire and industrialist who co-founded the Standard Oil Company. He masterminded the plan that transformed Standard Oil into the most successful monopoly of the nineteenth century. During the second half of his life, he developed land and built railroads in Florida, establishing agriculture and tourism as the state's leading industries.

Henry Morrison Flagler was born January 2, 1830 in Hopewell, New York, to Isaac and Elizabeth Flagler. Both parents had been married twice before and Henry had three half sisters and one half brother. Isaac was an itinerant Presbyterian minister who settled in Toledo, Ohio, in 1836. There, he became involved in the temperance movement and advocated racial equality. In 1838, Flagler's parents separated and Elizabeth, Henry and a younger sister moved to Rock Hill, New York.

At the age of 14, Flagler left school and moved to Bellevue, Ohio, near Cleveland, to live with a half-brother...