William Rockefeller, who resembles his brother in business skill, is a leader in Standard affairs and has his office in the Broadway building. He was a member of the first Board of Trustees and bore a prominent part in organizing and developing the Oil-Trust. He is largely interested in railroads, belongs to the best clubs, likes good horses and contributes liberally to worthy objects. The Standard folks don’t lock up their money, loan it on mortgages at extravagant rates, spend it in Europe or try to get a gold squeeze on the government. They employ it in manufactures, in railways, in commerce and in enterprises that promote the general welfare.
From the days of the little refinery in Cleveland, the germ of the Standard, Henry M. Flagler and John D. Rockefeller have been closely associated in oil. Samuel Andrews, a practical refiner and for some time their partner, retired from the firm with a million dollars as his share of the business. The organization of the Standard Oil-Company of Cleveland was the first step towards the greater Standard Oil-Company of which all the world knows something. Its growth surprised even the projectors of the combination, who “builded better than they knew.” Mr. Flagler devotes his time largely to beneficent uses of his great wealth. He recognizes the duty of the possessor of property to keep it from waste, to render it productive and to increase it by proper methods. A vast tract of Florida swamp, yielding only malaria and shakes[shakes], he has converted into a region suited to human-beings, producing cotton, sugar and tropical fruits and affording comfortable subsistence to thousands of provident settlers. He has transformed St. Augustine from a faded antiquity into a modern town, with the magnificent Ponce de Leon Hotel, paved streets, elegant churches, public halls, and all conveniences, provided by this generous benefactor at a cost of many millions. He has constructed new railroads, improved lines built previously, opened interior counties to thrifty emigrants and performed a work of incalculable advantage to the New South. He and his family attend the West Presbyterian Church, of which the Rev. John R. Paxton, formerly of Harrisburg, was pastor until 1894. Mr. Flagler is of average height, slight build and erect figure. His hair is white, but time has not dealt harshly with the liberal citizen whose career presents so much to praise and emulate.
JOHN D. ARCHBOLD.
John D. Archbold, vice-president of the Standard Oil-Company and its youngest trustee during the entire existence of the Oil-Trust, has been actively connected with petroleum from his youth. No man is better known and better liked personally in the oil-regions. From his father, a zealous Methodist minister, and his good mother, one of the noble women to whom this country owes an infinite debt of gratitude, he inherited the qualities of head and heart that achieved success and gained multitudes of friends. A mere lad when the reports of golden opportunities attracted him from Ohio to the land of petroleum, he first engaged as a shipping-clerk for a Titusville refinery. His promptness, accuracy, and pleasant address won him favor and promotion. He soon learned the whole art of refining and his active mind discovered remedies for a number of defects. Adnah Neyhart induced him to take charge of his warehouse in New York City for the sale of refined-oil. His energy and rare tact increased the trade of the establishment steadily. Mr. Rockefeller met the bright young man and offered him a responsible position with the Standard. He was made president of the Acme Refining Company, then among the largest in the United States. He improved the quality of its products and was entrusted with the negotiations that brought many refiners into the combination. He had resided at Titusville, where he married the daughter of Major Mills, and was the principal representative of the Standard in the producing section. When the Trust was organized he removed to New York and supervised especially the refining-interest of the united corporations. His splendid executive talent, keen perception, tireless energy and honorable manliness were simply invaluable. Mr. Archbold is popular in society, has an ideal home, represents the Standard in the directory of different companies and merits the high esteem ungrudingly bestowed by his associates in business and his acquaintances everywhere.
CHARLES PRATT.
The personal traits and business-successes of Charles Pratt, an original member of the Standard Trust, were typical of American civilization. The son of poor parents in Massachusetts, where he was born in 1830, necessity compelled him to leave home at the early age of ten and seek work on a farm. He toiled three years for his board and a short term at school each winter. For his board and clothes he next worked in a Boston grocery. His first dollar in money, of which he always spoke with pride as having been made at the work-bench, he earned while learning the machinist-trade at Newton, in his native state. With the savings of his first year in the machine-shop he entered an academy, studying diligently twelve months and subsisting on a dollar a week. Then he entered a Boston paints-and-oil store, devoting his leisure hours to study and self-improvement. Coming to New York in 1851, he clerked in Appleton’s publishing-house and later in a paint-store. In 1854 he joined C. T. Reynolds and F. W. Devoe in a paints-and-oil establishment. Petroleum refining became important and the partners separated in 1867, Reynolds controlling the paints-department and Charles Pratt & Co. conducting the oil-branch of the business. The success of the latter firm as oil-refiners was extraordinary. Astral-oil was in demand everywhere. The works at Brooklyn, continuous and surprising as was their expansion, found it difficult to keep pace with the consumption. The firm entered into the association with the Cleveland, Pittsburg and Philadelphia companies that culminated in the Standard Oil-Trust, Mr. Pratt holding the relation of president of the Charles-Pratt Manufacturing Company. He lived in Brooklyn and died suddenly at sixty-three, an attack of heart-disease that prostrated him in his New-York office proving fatal in three hours. For thirty years he devoted much of his time to the philanthropies with which his name will be perpetually identified. He built and equipped Pratt Institute, a school of manual arts, at a cost of two-million dollars. He spent a half-million to erect the Astral Apartment Buildings, the revenue of which is secured to the Institute as part of its endowment. He devoted a half-million to the Adelphia Academy and a quarter-million towards the new edifice of Emanuel Baptist Church, of which he was a devout, generous member. His home-life was marked by gentleness and affection and he left his family an estate of fifteen to twenty-millions. Charles Pratt was a man of few words, alert, positive and unassuming, sometimes blunt in business, but always courteous, trustworthy and deservedly esteemed for liberality and energy.
Jabez A. Bostwick, a member of the Standard Trust from its inception, was born in New York State, spent his babyhood in Ohio, whither the family moved when he was ten years old, and died at sixty-two. His business-education began as clerk in a bank at Covington, Ky. There he first came into public notice as a cotton-broker, removing to New York in 1864 to conduct the same business on a larger scale. He secured interests in territory and oil-wells at Franklin in 1860, organized the firm of J. A. Bostwick & Co. and engaged extensively in refining. The firm prospered, bought immense quantities of crude and increased its refining capacity extensively. Mr. Bostwick was active in forming the Standard Oil-Trust and was its first treasurer. He severed his connection with his oil-partner, W. H. Tilford, who also entered the Standard Oil-Company. Seven years before his death he retired from the oil-business to accept the presidency of the New York & New England Railroad. He held the position six years and was succeeded by Austin Corbin. Injuries during a fire at his country-seat in Mamaroneck caused his death. The fire started in Frederick A. Constable’s stables, in rear of Mr. Bostwick’s. Unknown to his coachman, who was pushing behind it, Mr. Bostwick seized the whiffletrees of a carriage. Suddenly the vehicle swerved and the owner was violently jammed against the side of the stable. The coachman saw his peril and pulled the carriage back. Mr. Bostwick reeled forward, his face white with pain and sank moaning upon a buckboard. “Don’t leave me, Mr. Williams,” he whispered to his son’s tutor, “I fear I am badly hurt.” The sufferer was carried to the house, became unconscious and died in ten minutes, surrounded by members of his household and his neighbors. In 1866 Mr. Bostwick married a daughter of Ford Smith, a retired Cincinnati merchant, who removed to New York during the war. They had a son and two daughters. The daughters married and were in Europe when their father met his tragic fate. The widow and children inherited an estate of twelve millions. Mr. Bostwick was liberal with his wealth, giving largely without ostentation. Forrest College, in North Carolina, and the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church of New York were special recipients of his bounty, while his private benefactions amounted to many thousands yearly. He was strict almost to sternness in his dealings, preferring justice to sentiment in business.
These were the six trustees of the Standard Oil-Trust as first constituted of whom the world has heard and read most. Many of the two-thousand stock-holders of the Standard Oil-Company are widely known. Benjamin Brewster, president of the National-Transit Company, retired with an ample fortune. His successor, H. H. Rogers, the present head of the pipe-line system, is noted alike for business-sagacity and sensible benefactions. The great structure at No. 26 Broadway, the largest office-building in New York occupied by one concern, is the Standard headquarters. Each floor has one or more departments, managed by competent men and all under supervision of the company’s chief officials. From the basement, with its massive vaults and steam-heating plant, to the roof every inch is utilized by hundreds of book-keepers, accountants, stenographers, telegraphers, clerks and heads of divisions. Everything moves with the utmost precision and smoothness. President Rockefeller has his private offices on the eighth floor, next the spacious room in which the Executive Committee meets every day at noon for consultation. Mr. Flagler, Mr. Archbold and Mr. Rogers are located conveniently. The substantial character of the building and the business-like aspect of the departments impress visitors most favorably. There is an utter absence of gingerbread and cheap ornamentation, of confusion and perplexing hurry. The very air, the clicking of the telegraph-instruments, the noiseless motion of the elevators and the prompt dispatch of business indicate solidity, intelligence and perfect system. From that building the movements of a force of employés, numbering twice the United States army and scattered over both hemispheres, are directed. The sails of the Standard fleet whiten every sea, its products are marketed wherever men have learned the value of artificial light and its name is a universal synonym for the highest development of commercial enterprise in any age or country.