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. It was founded by Charles Pratt. Charles Pratt and Company (including Astral Oil) became part of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust in 1874, although the fact that Astral Oil was a New York branch of Standard Oil in Ohio was not made public until 1892.
History
1850s-1860s: Background and formation
Astral Oil Works was founded in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, New York, by Charles Pratt. Pratt was a pioneer of the petroleum industry who later formed Charles Pratt and Company with Henry H. Rogers. As a young man, Pratt had joined a company in Boston, Massachusetts which specialized in paints and whale oil products. In 1850 or 1851 he moved to New York City, where he worked for a similar company. Pratt realized that whale oil could be replaced by petroleum ("natural oil") distillates to light lamps. He became a pioneer of the petroleum industry as new wells were established in western Pennsylvania in the 1860s. He soon established his kerosene refinery, Astral Oil Works, in Brooklyn, New York. 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.
In 1867, Pratt built “America’s first modern oil refinery (Astral Oil) on the banks of Newtown Creek.” Over 50 other oil refineries were then founded along the East River from Williamsburg to Greenpoint, in the same area. 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.” On August 21, 1869, Charles Pratt wrote to the editor of The New York Times that in the Board of Health meeting that month, the company's astral oil came in for "an unintentional consure" after the name was confounded with other parties. 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.
1870s: Spread of the Astral Oil brand
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.