One of Hewitt's investments handled by Rogers and Page was the Loup Creek Estate in Fayette County, West Virginia. The Deepwater Railway was a subsidiary initially formed by the Loup Creek investors to ship bituminous coal from coal mines on their land a short distance to the main line of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) along the Kanawha River. After rate disputes, the tiny short line railroad was eventually expanded to extend all the way into Virginia and across that state to a new coal pier at Sewell's Point on Hampton Roads. Planned secretly right under the noses of the large railroads, it was renamed the Virginian Railway, and was also known as the "richest little railroad in the world" for much of the 20th century. In 1890, Abram partnered with Edward Cooper and Hamilton M. Twombly in forming the American Sulphur Company, which then entered into a 50/50 agreement with Herman Frasch and his partners to form the Union Sulphur Company. Philanthropy As a philanthropist, Hewitt was especially interested in education. Columbia University gave him the degree of LL.D. in 1887, and he was the president of its alumni association in 1883, and a trustee from 1901 until his death. In 1876, he was elected president of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and was a founder and trustee of the Carnegie Institution of Science. He was also a trustee of Barnard College and of the American Museum of Natural History. Death and family Abram Hewitt died at his New York City home on January 18, 1903, and was interred at Green-Wood Cemetery. His last words, after he took his oxygen tube from his mouth, were "And now, I am officially dead." Hewitt's daughters, Amy, Eleanor, and Sarah Hewitt, built a decorative arts collection that was for years exhibited at the Cooper Union and later became the core collection of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. His son, Peter Cooper Hewitt (1861–1921), was a successful inventor, while another son, Edward Ringwood Hewitt (1866–1957), was also an inventor, a chemist and an early expert on fly-fishing. He published Telling on the Trout, among other books. Hewitt's youngest son, Erskine Hewitt (1871–1938), was also a lawyer and philanthropist in New York City. He donated Ringwood Manor to the State of New Jersey in 1936. On February 18, 1909, Erskine Hewitt was named a director of the newly formed National Reserve Bank