William Colgate

William Colgate (1783-1857) was an English-born soap and candle maker who opened a starch, soap and candle factory on Dutch Street in New York City in 1806. He was a devout Baptist and philanthropist whose family later supported the school renamed Colgate University in 1890.

William Colgate founded the business in 1806 in New York City, making starch, soap and candles. After his death in 1857, his son Samuel Colgate led Colgate & Company, which introduced toothpaste in jars in 1873 and Colgate Ribbon Dental Cream in a collapsible tube in 1896. A separate lineage began with the B.J. Johnson Soap Company in Milwaukee (1864), which created Palmolive soap from palm and olive oils in 1898, became The Palmolive Company, and merged with Peet Brothers in 1926. Colgate & Company and Palmolive-Peet merged in 1928, and the combined company adopted the Colgate-Palmolive name in 1953.