Samuel P. Bush

Samuel Prescott Bush (October 3, 1863 – February 8, 1948) was an American steel industry executive and the patriarch of the Bush family. He was the father of U.S. senator Prescott Bush, the paternal grandfather of former U.S. president George H. W. Bush, and the patrilineal great-grandfather of former president George W. Bush and former Florida governor Jeb Bush.

After graduating from the Stevens Institute of Technology, he established himself as one of the leading industrialists of his era.

Early life Bush was born in Brick Church, Orange, New Jersey, to Harriet Eleanor Fay (1828–1923) and Reverend James Smith Bush, Sr. (1825–1889), an Episcopal priest at Grace Church in Orange. His siblings were James Freeman Bush, Jr. (1858–1913), Harold Montfort Bush (1869–1945) and Eleanor Howard Bush Woods (1871–1958).

He grew up in New Jersey, San Francisco as well as Staten Island, New York City but had spent the majority of his adult life in Columbus, Ohio. and cofounder of the Columbus Academy. Additionally, he was the co-founder of the Scioto Country Club, a golf club in Columbus, Ohio.

Political prominence In the spring of 1918, banker Bernard Baruch was asked to reorganize the War Industries Board during World War I, and placed several prominent businessmen in key posts. Bush became chief of the Ordnance, Small Arms, and Ammunition Section, with national responsibility for government assistance to and relations with munitions companies.

Bush served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (as well as of the Huntington National Bank of Columbus). He was once recommended to serve on the board of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, but Hoover did not feel he was sufficiently known nationally. Sheldon Robert Bush (January 1897–1900), who died in childhood. Mary Eleanor Bush House (December 1897–1992), who married Francis "Frank" House. Margaret Livingston Bush Clement (1899–1 June 1994), who married Stuart Holmes Clement (1897–1974) in 1917. James Smith Bush II (1901–1979), a director of the Export–Import Bank, and president of the Northwest International Bank.

His first wife, Flora, died prematurely young in 1920 at the age of 48-49 during a vacation in Rhode Island, when she was hit by a car (five years after the death of her own father, Robert Sheldon in 1915; who lived to 70 years of age and three years before her mother-in-law, Harriet's demise in 1923, aged 95 of which the latter outlived her by three years). He later remarried Martha Bell Carter (1879–1950) of Milwaukee, the widow of one Thomas Percy Carter (1868–1933).

Bush died on February 8, 1948, aged 84 (eight months shy of his 85th birthday), in Columbus. He is interred at Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus.