Percival Farquhar

Percival Farquhar (October 19, 1865 – August 5, 1953) was an American investor and financier with extensive interests in Latin America and pre-Soviet Russia, including railways, mines, hotels, and restaurants.

Early life Farquhar was born to a wealthy Maryland-Pennsylvania Episcopalian family, with Quaker roots, at York, Pennsylvania in 1865. His father was Arthur B. Farquhar (1838–1925), founder of a large agricultural equipment works at York, which was called the Pennsylvania Agricultural Works (1856–1889) and later the A.B. Farquhar Company (1889–1951). His mother was Elizabeth N. (née Jessop) Farquhar (1837–1918).

Percival attended the York Collegiate Institute, in a version of manifest destiny.

Visionary, controversial, and audacious, Farquhar became the greatest private investor in Brazil between 1905 and 1918. A history journal article of 1937 described the way that Farquhar's syndicate during this period was viewed by Brazilians nervous about Yankee ambitions and by British competitors. According to the writer and former minister Ronaldo Costa Couto, Farquhar's empire was comparable to those of Count Francisco Matarazzo and Irineu Evangelista de Souza, The Viscount of Mauá.

The writing on Farquhar is full of contradictions, making it very difficult to sort through the legend, hagiography, and libel found in his biographies.

Professor Francisco Foot Hardman