Waterford connection to the wealthiest man in history

Born in 1874 and from a family of mostly future national school teachers, Patrick Flanagan went to the United States at the age of about twenty-two and became a guardian of both the peace and one of the most powerful people to ever turn a dollar.

Pictured here in uniform in 1908, two years after the formation of the Greenwich Police Department, Pat was subsequently appointed chief of police in Connecticut’s commercial capital.

In the late summer of 1937, for the first time in over four decades, he made a trip home from Fairfield County to see his siblings, namely Jack, Mary, Biddy of Killotteran, who all became school principals in Butlerstown, and their sister, popular teachers’ housekeeper Ellie.

That visit came just a few months after the death of business tycoon John D. Rockefeller; Pat having been a personal bodyguard and close friend of the man ranked the wealthiest American of all time.

The oil magnate’s fortune equated to nearly two per cent of the U.S. national economy and his peak net wealth would have been worth around $400 Billion in today’s terms. (He’s considered to have been the richest person in modern history, relative to GDP.)

Though he was a philanthropist and extremely religious, Rockefeller was widely accused of all sorts of unholy behaviour, not least being ruthless and corrupt in his business dealings.

With his boss making countless enemies, “Captain” Flanagan’s work would have been cut out keeping Rockefeller safe, not least from kidnappers. Though it may well have been worth it if “the King of Wall Street” (who lived to age 97) left Flanagan even a minor reward in his will.

A father of seven, Patrick died in Greenwich in early 1946, with his passing noted in the New York Times.

Main photo: John D. Rockeller (front left), “The King of Wall St.”, pictured on the sidewalk, date unknown. The man on the steps (centre) looks like it could have been Patrick Flanagan.