From their website...
Quaker’s history traces back to 1901, when several American pioneers in oat milling came together to incorporate under the name The Quaker Oats Company. It all started in the late 1800s when three different Midwest milling companies had independently begun to process and sell high-quality oats for the consumer giving the American family a product that would be superior in quality to the oats sold in open barrels at general stores.
In Ravenna, Ohio, Henry D. Seymour and William Heston had established the Quaker Mill Company and registered the now famous trademark.
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, John Stuart, his son Robert and their partner, George Douglas, operated the largest cereal mill of the time.
Ferdinand Schumacher, known as “The Oatmeal King,” founded German Mills American Oatmeal Company in 1856, after selling oats in his Akron, Ohio, store for two years.
Combining these companies after the turn of the century brought together the top oats milling expertise in the country and gave the newly formed corporation a name that even then was a symbol of quality and purity.