# Thomas Mellon **Thomas Mellon** (1813–1908) was the Irish-born Pittsburgh judge and banker who founded **T. Mellon & Sons** (1869), the private bank that became [[Mellon Bank]] and the financial root of the [[Scaife-Mellon Family]] fortune. His 1885 autobiography framed wealth-building as a moral imperative. His son [[Andrew Mellon]] industrialized the family's holdings into a national empire. > Status: **stub** — expand the founding generation and the Mellon bank's origins.