In 1868, however, he disposed of his interests there, and returned to Greenfield, where he concluded arrangements that resulted in his connection with a business that has become one of the important productive industries of New England.

The firm of Gunn & Amidon was manufacturing bit braces and other tools in Greenfield, and Mr. Pratt arranged with them to form a stock company with their business as a basis. An undeveloped water power at Millers Falls was purchased, a new factory was there erected and business was begun under the name of the Millers Falls Company.

In December of the same year an office and salesroom were opened at No. 87 Beekman Street. New York, and from that time until his death Mr. Pratt remained president of the company and superintended its executive interests. From a small beginning the enterprise was developed to large proportions, and every year additions were made to the line of tools produced until the product of the Millers Falls Company became widely known throughout the United States.

Mr. Pratt believed in maintaining a high quality in whatever the company manufactured, confident that a business built up on that principle would be permanent and enduring. He himself possessed considerable inventive genius which took tangible form in his work at the bench in Manhattan and resulted in some desirable improvements that were embodied in the tools manufactured at the factory in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

His success resulted largely from a watchfulness of the market, a thorough study of the demands of the public and the development of his enterprise along modern lines, and his business associates and patrons had the same confidence in his methods and dealings that was shown by his friends of social and church circles.

The days of his business career were not all equally bright, for at times there arose clouds in the business horizon that threatened disaster, but these seemed to stimulate him to more persistent effort. During the period of the early years of his business career he knew what it meant to bear the struggles that result from a limited income, and while he desired success, as does every ambitious, energetic business man, he seemed to regard himself merely as the steward of his accumulations and never allowed his wealth to in any way warp his kindly nature or affect his treatment to those less fortunate in the business world.

All who knew Henry L. Pratt bore testimony to his upright life, his high principles and his undeviating consistency. At the time he established his office in Manhattan he also established his home in Brooklyn, and soon afterward became identified with Plymouth church and through a long period served as a member of its board of deacons, and whenever he filled that office he was, by common consent, chairman of the board.