William Tandy Christy, 1803–1883

William Tandy Christy was born on 20 June 1803 in Clark County, Kentucky, to Ambrose C. Christy (1768–1839) and Mary (Bush) Christy (1774–1849).

William worked in dry goods stores owned by relatives in Clark County before moving to Louisville, Kentucky, where he established Falls & Christy in Russellville, Kentucky, with James Falls. Falls & Christy eventually moved the store to Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Mr. Falls sold his share of the business, and Robert Woods was brought into the company, at which time, the firm was renamed William T. Christy & Company. On 12 July 1832, in Knox County, Tennessee, William married Ellen Patience Morgan, the daughter of Calvin Morgan Sr. (1773–1851) and Sarah (Fackler) Morgan (1783–1838).

In 1836, the dry goods business and the Christy family moved to the growing city of St. Louis, and the business was renamed Woods, Christy & Company. William became active in the civic and social affairs of his newly adopted city. “He was connected with several insurance companies, was a bank director, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.” He also started a logging business with Woods, who bought large tracts of land in St. Louis County. One 300-acre section eventually became Greensfelder Park. Today, the small Christy Park in the City of St. Louis is named after William.

In 1856, after finding high-quality fireclay while digging a well on the family farm, William Christy began mining the clay and started a fireclay plant at Morganford and Gravois Avenue, which became the Christy FireClay Company. Christy’s company made several kinds of bricks and supplied minerals and clay to many glass manufacturers. Fire bricks lined kilns and furnaces for the rapidly expanding steel and glassmaking industries. The clay used to make them was also used to make sewer pipes as well as decorative tiles.

William and his sons, Calvin and William Jr., received patents for purifying fireclay and for a process of working with molten glass. The company eventually became “one of the largest fireclay companies in the United States, with a value of more than $1 million, equivalent to $28 million in today’s dollars.”

William and Ellen had six children:

• • Sarah Morgan (1834–1915). She married John O’Fallon Farrar Sr. (1823–1877) in 1855.
  • Calvin Morgan (1836–1907). He married his brother’s widow, Mary Ann LeBeau (1855–1937), in 1885. He later became president of the Christy FireClay Company.
  • Mary B. (1839–1889). Never married.
  • Elizabeth M. (1842–1866). She married James Swearingen Farrar (1837–1888) in 1861.
  • Ellen (1845–1859). Never married.
  • William Tandy II (1851–1882). He married Mary Ann LeBeau (1855–1937) in 1876, and, along with his older brother, was involved with the family company.

William died on 5 November 1883 in St. Louis and is buried in the family plot in Bellefontaine Cemetery. In 1907, several decades after William’s death, his company merged with the Laclede Fire Brick Manufacturing Company to become the Laclede-Christy Fire Brick Company, which is still in business.

Written by Jim Bellenger
June 2025

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