Samuel P. Bush

Samuel Prescott Bush was born on October 4, 1863, in Brick Church, Orange, New Jersey. His parents were Harriet Eleanor Fay (1829–1924) and Reverend James Smith Bush (1825–1889), an Episcopal priest affiliated with Grace Church in Orange. He had three siblings: James Freeman Bush (1860–1913), Harold Montfort Bush (1871–1945), and Eleanor Bush Woods (1872–1957).

Bush's early life included periods of residence in New Jersey, San Francisco, and Staten Island. He pursued higher education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, graduating in 1884. During his time there, he participated in one of the earliest organized college football teams.

Following his graduation, Bush commenced an apprenticeship with the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, working at the Logansport, Indiana shops. He later transferred to locations in Dennison and Columbus, Ohio. By 1891, he attained the position of master mechanic, and in 1894, he became superintendent of motive power for the railroad.

In 1899, Bush moved to Milwaukee to serve as superintendent of motive power for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. Two years later, he returned to Columbus to become general manager of Buckeye Steel Castings Company, which produced railway parts and was managed by Frank Rockefeller, brother of John D. Rockefeller. The company’s clientele included railroads controlled by E. H. Harriman, establishing a connection between Bush and the Harriman family that persisted through World War II.

Bush was promoted to president of Buckeye Steel Castings in 1908, a role he held until 1927. Under his leadership, the company became a prominent player in the steel industry. He was also renowned for his involvement in industry associations and community initiatives; he was the first president of the Ohio Manufacturers Association, a cofounder of the Columbus Academy, and a cofounder of the Scioto Country Club, a golf club in Columbus, Ohio.

In addition to his industrial pursuits, Bush engaged in political and governmental roles. During World War I, in the spring of 1918, he was appointed to serve as chief of the Ordnance, Small Arms, and Ammunition Section of the War Industries Board, overseeing government collaboration with munitions companies. He was also a member of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and the Huntington National Bank of Columbus.

In 1931, Bush was appointed to Herbert Hoover’s President’s Committee for Unemployment Relief, headed by Walter S. Gifford of AT&T. Although he was once considered for a position on the Reconstruction Finance Corporation’s board, President Hoover deemed him not sufficiently prominent on a national scale for that role.

In his personal life, Samuel Prescott Bush married Flora Sheldon on June 20, 1894. Flora was the daughter of Robert Emmet Sheldon and Mary Elizabeth Butler, linking Bush by marriage to the Livingston family through her maternal grandfather, Courtland Philip Livingston Butler. The couple had five children:

- Prescott Sheldon Bush (1895–1972), who served as a U.S. senator and married Dorothy Walker.

- Robert Sheldon Bush (1896–1900), who died in childhood.

- Mary Eleanor Bush (1897–1992), who married Francis "Frank" House.

- Margaret Livingston Bush (1899–1993), who married Stuart Holmes Clement in 1919.

- James Smith Bush (1901–1978), who was a director of the Export–Import Bank and president of the Northwest International Bank.

Flora Sheldon Bush died on September 4, 1920, in Narragansett, Rhode Island, after being hit by a car. Samuel Prescott Bush later remarried Martha Bell Carter, of Milwaukee.

He passed away on February 8, 1948, at the age of 84 in Columbus, Ohio. He was interred at Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus.