John Batterson Stetson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Batterson Stetson (May 5, 1830 - February 18, 1906) was a U.S. hat manufacturer; the stetson hat was named for him.

Born in Orange, New Jersey, Stetson had learned hatmaking and traveled to the West in the 1860s to improve his health. He returned to Philadelphia and began manufacturing hats there suited to the needs of the Western cowboy. These hats, known as Stetsons, soon became the popular headgear of the West. The John B. Stetson Company, formed in 1865, became, under his direction, one of the largest hat firms in the world, producing about 2 million hats a year with the world's biggest hat factory in Philadelphia.

He donated generously to De Land Univ. (at De Land, Fla.), which was renamed (1889) John B. Stetson University. In 1900, Stetson created the first law school in Florida (Stetson University Law School).

John Stetson once owned a mansion in Deland where he died in 1906. The over 8000 ft² masterpiece is a mixture of Gothic, Tudor and Moorish style.

Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0846694.html