William Avery Rockefeller Jr. (May 31, 1841 – June 24, 1922) was an American businessman and financier. Rockefeller was a co-founder of

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...

along with his elder brother

John Davison Rockefeller John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He has been widely considered the wealthiest American of all time and the richest person in modern history. Rockefeller was ...

. He was also part owner of the

Anaconda Copper Company The Anaconda Copper Mining Company, known as the Amalgamated Copper Company between 1899 to 1915, was an American mining company headquartered in Butte, Montana. It was one of the largest trusts of the early 20th century and one of the largest mi ...

, which was the fourth-largest company in the world in the late 1920s. He was a prominent member of the

Rockefeller family The Rockefeller family () is an American industrial, political, and banking family that owns one of the world's largest fortunes. The fortune was made in the American petroleum industry during the late 19th and early 20th centuries by brothe ...

Early years

William Jr. was born in

Richford, New York Richford is a town in Tioga County, New York, United States. The population was 1,052 at the 2020 census. The town is named after Ezekial Rich, an early settler and benefactor of the town. The Town of Richford is the northernmost town in the cou ...

."William Rockefeller", Naval History and Heritage Command, November 2, 2014
/ref> He was the middle son of con artist William Avery Rockefeller Sr. and Eliza Davison. In addition to elder brother

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

, William Jr.'s siblings were Lucy, Mary, and twins Franklin (Frank) and Frances (who died young). He also had two elder half-sisters, Clorinda (who died young) and Cornelia, through his father's affairs with mistress and housekeeper Nancy Brown. In 1853 his family moved to

Strongsville, Ohio Strongsville is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, and a suburb of Cleveland. As of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, the city population was 44,750. The city's nickname 'Crossroads of the Nation,' originated from the Baltim ...

. As a young pupil in public school, he was inspired and motivated by his teacher-mentor,

Rufus Osgood Mason Rufus Osgood Mason (January 22, 1830, in Sullivan, New Hampshire – May 11, 1903, in New York City) was a physician, surgeon, and teacher and an early researcher in parapsychology and hypnotherapy.Carlos S. Alvarado, "Rufus Osgood Mason (1830– ...

, whom Rockefeller later named "A Rockefeller Patron."

Business career

At the age of sixteen, he began work as a clerk for a miller in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. About two years later, he joined his older brother's produce commission business, Clark and Rockefeller, which later supplied provisions to the Union Army.

Oil business

Rockefeller was very adept in business matters. When John D. formed

Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler was a business concern formed in 1867 in Cleveland, Ohio which was a predecessor of the Standard Oil Company. The principals and namesakes were John D. Rockefeller, William Rockefeller, Samuel Andrews, and Henry M. ...

in 1867, he invited William to take charge of the company's export business in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. In 1867, William Rockefeller and Co. was formed as a subsidiary to Rockefeller and Andrews. In 1870, that company became

. In 1911 Standard Oil of New Jersey was split up by the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

Copper mining

In 1899, Rockefeller joined fellow Standard Oil principal

Henry H. Rogers Henry Huttleston Rogers (January 29, 1840 – May 19, 1909) was an American industrialist and financier. He made his fortune in the oil refining business, becoming a leader at Standard Oil. He also played a major role in numerous corporations a ...

in forming the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company, a holding company that intended to control the copper industry. Rockefeller, along with Henry Rogers, devised a scheme which earned them a profit of $36 million. First, they purchased Anaconda Properties from

Marcus Daly Marcus Daly (December 5, 1841 – November 12, 1900) was an Irish-born American businessman known as one of the three " Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana, United States. Early life Daly emigrated from County Cavan, Ireland, to the United States ...

for $39 million, with the understanding that the check was to be deposited in the bank and remain there for a definite time (National City Bank was run by Rockefeller's friends). Rogers and Rockefeller then set up a paper organization, known as the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company, with their own clerks as dummy directors, saying the company was worth $75 million. They had Amalgamated Copper Company buy Anaconda from them for $75 million in capital stock, which was conveniently printed for the purpose. Then, they borrowed $39 million from the bank using Amalgamated Copper as collateral. They paid back Daly for Anaconda and sold $75 million worth of stock in Amalgamated Copper to the public. They paid back the bank's $39 million and had a profit of $36 million in cash. With help from banker John Dennis Ryan, Amalgamated acquired two large competitors, and soon controlled all the mines of

Butte, Montana Butte ( ) is a consolidated city-county and the county seat of Silver Bow County, Montana, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. The city covers , and, according to the ...

. By the late 1920s it had become

and was the fourth-largest company in the world. From 1912 to 1913, the

Pujo Committee The Pujo Committee was a United States congressional subcommittee in 1912–1913 that was formed to investigate the so-called "money trust", a community of Wall Street bankers and financiers that exerted powerful control over the nation's finance ...

investigated Rockefeller and others for allegedly earning $30 million in profit through cornering the copper market and "synchronizing with artificially enforced activity" in Amalgamated Copper stock in the New York Stock Exchange. When the newly formed

Mutual Alliance Trust Company The Mutual Alliance Trust Company was a trust company formed in New York City in 1902, with founders such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and William Rockefeller. On January 14, 1915, the company was acquired by Chatham-Phenix National and Alliance Trust ...

opened for business in New York on the Tuesday after June 29, 1902, there were 13 directors, including

Emanuel Lehman Emanuel Lehman (born Mendel Lehmann; February 15, 1827 – January 10, 1907) was a German-born American banker. The younger brother of Henry Lehman, he was a co-founder of Lehman Brothers. Biography Emanuel Lehman was born in Rimpar, Bavaria on ...

and Rockefeller.

Personal life

Rockefeller married Almira Geraldine Goodsell (March 19, 1844 – January 17, 1920) on May 25, 1864 in

Fairfield, Connecticut Fairfield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It borders the city of Bridgeport and towns of Trumbull, Easton, Weston, and Westport along the Gold Coast of Connecticut. Located within the New York metropolitan area ...

. There were many connections among this and other elite families. Her sister Esther Judson Goodsell was married to

Oliver Burr Jennings Oliver Burr Jennings (June 3, 1825 – February 12, 1893) was an American businessman and one of the original stockholders in Standard Oil. Early life Jennings was born in 1825 in Fairfield, Connecticut, to Abraham Gould Jennings and Anna (née ...

, who became one of the original stockholders of Standard Oil. Together, William and Almira had: #Lewis Edward Rockefeller (March 2, 1865 – August 3, 1866) #Emma Rockefeller (June 8, 1868 – August 11, 1934), who married Dr. David Hunter McAlpin #

William Goodsell Rockefeller William Goodsell Rockefeller (May 21, 1870 – November 30, 1922) was a director of the Consolidated Textile Company and a member of the prominent Rockefeller family. Early life He was born on May 21, 1870 in Manhattan, New York City. He was the ...

(May 21, 1870 – November 30, 1922), who married Sarah Elizabeth "Elsie" Stillman #John Davison Rockefeller II (March 8, 1872 – 1877) #

Percy Avery Rockefeller Percy Avery Rockefeller (February 27, 1878 — September 25, 1934) was a board director who founded and was vice president of Owenoke Corporation. He is the son of American Businessman William Avery Rockefeller Jr. and the nephew of Standard Oil ...

(February 27, 1878 – September 25, 1934), who married Isabel Goodrich Stillman # Ethel Geraldine Rockefeller (April 3, 1882 – August 13, 1973), who married Marcellus Hartley Dodge Sr. William Rockefeller, Jr. died of pneumonia on June 24, 1922 in Rockwood Hall. He had caught a cold during a car trip he took with brother

and nephew John, Jr. to visit his childhood home in

. He was interred in the

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York, is the final resting place of numerous famous figures, including Washington Irving, whose 1820 short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is set in the adjacent burying ground at the Old Dutch C ...

Sleepy Hollow, New York Sleepy Hollow is a village in the town of Mount Pleasant, in Westchester County, New York, United States. The village is located on the east bank of the Hudson River, about north of New York City, and is served by the Philipse Manor stop on ...

. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', in discussing a trust that Rockefeller set up for his born and yet-to-be born great-grandchildren, stated that he "left a gross estate of $102,000,000 which was reduced to $50,000,000 principally by $30,000,000 of debts and $18,600,000 of inheritance and estate taxes."''New York Times'', 5 August 1937, p. 1 "Estate of William Rockefeller Increasing $1,000,000 a Year" Rockefeller was a regular attendee of the

Saint Mary's Episcopal Church The Scarborough Historic District is a national historic district located in the suburban community of Scarborough-on-Hudson, in Briarcliff Manor, New York. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, and conta ...

in Scarborough in the last few years of his life.

Family and descendants

Rockefeller and Almira's second son,

, married Sarah Elizabeth "Elsie" Stillman, the elder daughter of

James Jewett Stillman James Jewett Stillman (June 9, 1850 – March 15, 1918) was an American businessman who invested in land, banking, and railroads in New York, Texas, and Mexico. He was chairman of the board of directors of the National City Bank. He forged all ...

and Sarah Elizabeth Stillman; her father was National City Bank president. The new couple's family included

James Stillman Rockefeller James Stillman Rockefeller (June 8, 1902 – August 10, 2004) was a member of the prominent U.S. Rockefeller family. He won an Olympic rowing title for the United States, then became president of what eventually became Citigroup. He was a ...

. He became a member of the

Jekyll Island Club The Jekyll Island Club was a private club on Jekyll Island, on Georgia's Atlantic coast. It was founded in 1886 when members of an incorporated hunting and recreational club purchased the island for $125,000 (about $3.1 million in 2017) from John E ...

(aka The millionaires Club) on

Jekyll Island, Georgia Jekyll Island is located off the coast of the U.S. state of Georgia, in Glynn County. It is one of the Sea Islands and one of the Golden Isles of Georgia barrier islands. The island is owned by the State of Georgia and run by a self-sustaining, s ...

, along with

J. P. Morgan John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known ...

Joseph Pulitzer Joseph Pulitzer ( ; born Pulitzer József, ; April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911) was a Hungarian-American politician and newspaper publisher of the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' and the ''New York World''. He became a leading national figure in ...

, and other business moguls of the day.

Residences

In 1886, Rockefeller bought property in Westchester County along the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

from General Lloyd Aspinwall. He renovated or rebuilt the mansion

Rockwood Hall Rockwood Hall was a Gilded Age mansion in Mount Pleasant, New York, on the Hudson River. It was best-known as the home of William Rockefeller, brother of John D. Rockefeller. Both brothers were co-founders of the Standard Oil Company. Other ow ...

. The Rockefeller Cottage is a house on

. It is also called ''Indian Mound'' and is next to the

. The house was built by

Gordon McKay Gordon McKay (1821–1903) was an American businessman and philanthropist. Biography He was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He was trained as an engineer, worked on a railroad, and then on the Erie Canal before he purchased a machine shop. ...

in 1892. McKay died in 1903 and the house was bought by William Rockefeller in 1905, who used it as a winter home. It was evacuated in 1942, along with the rest of the island. The house remained in the Rockefeller family until 1947, when the Jekyll Island Authority bought the property. It was open as a museum from 1950 until 1968, when it was closed for badly needed repairs. It is now a public museum. Decades later the former "Indian Mound" Cottage was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Rockefeller Cottage.

References

External links

*
William Rockefeller Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rockefeller, William American businesspeople in the oil industry American financiers Rockefeller family Standard Oil 1841 births 1922 deaths People from Butte, Montana People from Briarcliff Manor, New York Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery People from Strongsville, Ohio American people of English descent American people of German descent American people of Scotch-Irish descent Deaths from pneumonia in New York (state) People from Richford, New York Mutual Alliance Trust Company people Baptists from New York (state)