Oliver Chace
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Oliver Chace (1769-1852) was the founder of several New England manufacturing companies including the Valley Falls Company, the original antecedent of Berkshire Hathaway, currently one of the largest companies in the world.
Chace was born on August 24, 1769 in Swansea, Massachusetts to Jonathan Chace and Mary Buffinton, members of well known Yankee families in New England. As a young man Chace worked for Samuel Slater, the "father of the American industrial revolution," as a carpenter in the mills. Chace eventually started a textile mill in Swansea in 1806 and founded the Valley Falls Company in Valley Falls, Rhode Island in 1839, which eventually through a series of mergers became the world known Berkshire Hathaway Company. Chace died in Fall River on May 21, 1852. Chace's great-great-great-grandson Malcom Chace remained a director of Berkshire Hathaway until 2007, when he was replaced by Susan Decker.
