William Rockefeller

1877, New York. 12 ¾” x 8 ½” stock Mortgage Bond for five thousand dollars. Brown. Engraved vignette of a male portrait flanked by a steam locomotive at left, wharf and ships at right. Issued to and signed on verso by William Rockefeller (1841-1922). William, an oil company executive and the brother of John D. Rockefeller, was an original partner and a founder of the Standard Oil Company. William built Standard Oil's vast export business in New York and was responsible for that entire operation. In 1872, he played an instrumental role in settling the battles between the refiner's combinations and the crude oil producers. During this time, he formed close alliances with many of the East's most important oil men such as Henry H. Rogers and Charles Pratt, eventually bringing them into Standard Oil. William was a trustee of the Standard Oil Trust until its dissolution in 1890. Upon his death in 1922, he left a fortune estimated between $150 million and $200 million. Punch cancelled.