Henry Overholt
Henry Overholt, born Henrich Oberholtzer on February 5, 1739, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, was an American whiskey distiller who started the Overholt distillery. He moved with his family to southwestern Pennsylvania in 1800 and settled on a farm in West Overton that also housed a distillery. There they turned rye they grew into whiskey. He is the great-grandfather of Henry Clay Frick.
In 1810, his relative Abraham Overholt pushed to sell rye whiskey commercially, not just for medicine. The family opened a second distillery at Broad Ford and produced brands known as Old Overholt and Monongahela Rye. The business grew from a small operation to a larger one, eventually covering hundreds of acres and producing up to about 200 gallons of rye whiskey per day.
When Henry Overholt died in 1813, his sons Abraham and Christian inherited the business. Abraham later ran the company with his own sons, Jacob and Henry, and the business was renamed Abraham Overholt & Company. The company stayed in the family until 1919, when Prohibition ended its operations. Later, Helen Clay Frick donated the distillery properties to become a museum as part of the West Overton Village restoration.
Today, the Old Overholt Straight Rye Whiskey brand is owned by Jim Beam. The life and business records of Henry Overholt are kept at the Archives Service Center of the University of Pittsburgh Library System.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:29 (CET).