He was also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida and founder of the Florida East Coast Railway. He is also known as a co-founder and major investor of the cities of Miami and Palm Beach, Florida. Flagler was born in Hopewell, New York. His father was Isaac Flagler, a Presbyterian minister and great-grandson of Zacharra Flegler, whose family had emigrated from the German Palatinate region to Holland in His grandson Solomon changed the spelling of the surname to Flagler and passed it on to his 11 children.
Harkness , and a son, Daniel M. Harkness , from her marriage to deceased widower David Harkness of Milan, Ohio. Flagler attended local schools through eighth grade.
His half-brother Daniel had left Hopewell to live and work with his paternal uncle Lamon G. Harkness, who had a store in Republic, Ohio. He later joined Daniel in a grain business started with his uncle Lamon in Bellevue, Ohio , [ citation needed ] and made a small fortune distilling whiskey. He sold his stake in the business in He found that salt mining required more technical knowledge than he had and struggled in the industry during the Civil War.
The company collapsed when the war undercut commercial demand for salt. Flagler believed that he had learned a valuable lesson: invest in a business only after thorough investigation. After the failure of his salt business in Saginaw, Flagler returned to Bellevue in and reentered the grain business as a commission merchant with the Harkness Grain Company.
During this time he worked to pay back his stepbrother. Through this business, Flagler became acquainted with John D. Rockefeller , who worked as a commission agent with Hewitt and Tuttle for the Harkness Grain Company. By the mids, Cleveland had become the center of the oil refining industry in America and Rockefeller left the grain business to start his own oil refinery.
