Representative Harcourt Joseph Pratt

Harcourt Joseph Pratt (October 23, 1866 – May 21, 1934) was a U.S. Representative from New York and a notable Republican politician from Ulster County. He was born in Highland, Ulster County, New York, the son of George Washington Pratt (1840–1931) and Mary Adelaide Harcourt Pratt (1845–1909). His father served as supervisor of the town of Lloyd in 1872 and 1874. Through his mother, the daughter of Mathew and Sarah (Deyo) Harcourt, Pratt was descended from several of the original New Paltz patentees—Christian Deyo, Louis DuBois, Abraham DuBois, and Hugo Freer—linking him to some of the earliest European settlers in the Hudson Valley. His extended family included a number of prominent regional figures: his maternal uncle John J. Harcourt married his paternal aunt, Helen Ermina Pratt, and they were the parents of his first cousin Mabel Harcourt Hasbrouck, whose daughter Beatrice married New York politician John F. Wadlin. Another first cousin was Alfred Harcourt, a publisher and co‑founder of Harcourt Trade Publishers.

Pratt was educated in the public schools of Highland and at Claverack College and Hudson River Institute (commonly known as Claverack Academy) in Claverack, New York. After completing his studies, he returned to Ulster County and entered private business. He engaged in the lumber and coal trade and developed substantial interests in banking and local industry. He established the George W. Pratt Lumber Company in Highland, named in honor of his father, and became a significant figure in the regional lumber and building‑supply sector.

Over the course of his business career, Pratt held stock in and was associated with numerous area lumber and supply companies, including the Kingston Lumber Corporation of Kingston, the Arnold Lumber Company of Poughkeepsie, the Beacon Coal and Lumber Company in Beacon, the Marlborough Manufacturing and Supply Company of Marlborough, and the Hudson Lumber and Supply Company. In addition to his commercial ventures, he was active in local financial institutions. He served as a director of the First National Bank of Highland beginning in 1900 and later became a director of the Kingston Trust Company in 1921, reflecting his growing influence in the economic life of the mid‑Hudson region.

Pratt’s public career began at the local level, where he followed his father into town and county government. He was elected supervisor of the town of Lloyd and, by virtue of that office, served as a member of the Board of Supervisors of Ulster County from 1895 to 1897, occupying the same supervisory position his father had held two decades earlier. In 1897 he advanced to state office as a member of the New York State Assembly, representing his district in Albany. Alongside his legislative work, he remained deeply involved in local educational affairs. From 1908 to 1926 he served as president of the Board of Education of Highland, New York, overseeing the administration and development of the community’s public schools for nearly two decades.

A member of the Republican Party, Pratt was elected to national office in the 1920s. He won election as a Republican to the Sixty‑ninth Congress and was subsequently reelected to the three succeeding Congresses, serving four consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1925, to March 3, 1933. During his tenure in Congress, which coincided with a significant period in American history encompassing the latter half of the 1920s and the onset of the Great Depression, he participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of his New York constituents. While in office he served on agricultural committees, reflecting both the rural and small‑town character of much of his district and the importance of agricultural policy to his constituents. His service in Congress thus spanned a time of economic expansion followed by severe contraction, and he took part in the national debates that shaped federal responses to these changing conditions.

Pratt chose not to seek renomination in 1932 and concluded his congressional service at the end of his fourth term in March 1933. After leaving the House of Representatives, he resumed his former business interests in lumber, coal, and banking in Highland and the surrounding Hudson Valley communities. He continued to be regarded as a leading local businessman and elder statesman of Ulster County Republican politics, drawing on decades of experience in both public office and private enterprise.

On December 3, 1890, Pratt married Mary Elizabeth Hasbrouck (March 1, 1870 – November 10, 1940) in Humeston, Iowa. She was the daughter of Jacob DuBois Hasbrouck (1838–1905) and Rowena Caroline Deyo Hasbrouck (1838–1916) and a member of the historically prominent Hasbrouck family. Her father, a general manager of the New Jersey–New York Railroad for a time, was the namesake of Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. Through her mother, Mary was a third cousin of Harcourt Pratt via the Deyo family, further intertwining two longstanding Hudson Valley lineages. The couple had four children: George Washington Pratt (1891–1953), who married his fifth cousin Florence Deyo (1890–1972) and had no issue; Augusta Pratt (1895–1923), who married her third cousin once removed, Olof Sundstrom Jr. (1894–1964), with whom she had two children, Mary Jane Sundstrom and Carolyn Sundstrom; Jane Caroline Pratt (1897–1998), who married Walter Sherwood Betts (1893–1975) and had two children, Barbara Betts and Nancy Jane Betts; and Rowena Pratt (1908–1990), who married LeGrand Haviland Jr. (1909–1953) and had three children, Rosalie Haviland, Elizabeth Anne Haviland, and Harcourt Pratt Haviland.

Harcourt Joseph Pratt died on May 21, 1934, from injuries sustained in an automobile accident near Port Ewen, New York. He was traveling from his home in Highland to a meeting in Kingston when he mistook a turn near the Port Ewen Cemetery; following the accident he was transported to Kingston Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries. He was interred in Highland Cemetery in Highland, New York, closing a life that had been closely bound to the civic, economic, and political development of Ulster County and the Hudson Valley.