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Birth
John D Rockefeller was born in on this day. His parents were William Avery Rockefeller and Eliza Davidson. He had 5 siblings. -
First Employment
When John was sixteen, he got employed at his first job as an assistant bookkeeper. He worked at a small produce commission firm called, named Hewitt & Tuttle. -
Went Into Produce Comission
Rockefeller went in the produce commission business with a Maurice B. Clark. They were partners in the business -
First Oil Refinery
The partners, John and Maurice, built an oil refinery in Cleveland in then Cleveland's burgeoning industrial area named, "The Flats", -
Partnership
His brother William built another oil refinery in Cleveland. He then brought John into the partnership. Soon another partner, Henry Flagler, and together joined them. -
Largest Oil Refinery
Rockefeller continued the practices of borrowing and reinvesting profits with controlling their cost and using the refineries' wastes, the company owned two Cleveland refineries as well as a marketing subsidiary in New York. With all of those combined, it became the largest oil refinery in the world. -
Standard Oil
Rockefeller made Standard Oil of Ohio, which became the most profitable refiner in Ohio. Standard Oil grew to become one of the largest shippers of oil and kerosene in the country. Each partner had their own share of the company:
John D. Rockefeller had (30%)
William Rockefeller (13.34%)
Henry Flagler (16.67%)
Samuel Andrews (16.67%)
Stephen Harkness (13.34%)
O. B. Jennings (the brother-in-law of William Rockefeller, 10%). -
Retirement
By 1896, Rockefeller stopped going to his office daily and in 1897 he retired. He was 58 at the time. John Archbold ran Standard Oil, though his policies of rasing prices with the monopoly was looked down upon, and the blame went to Rockefeller. -
Death
When Rockefeller died, his estate totaled an estimated $26,410,837. He was 98 years old at the time. Most of his money went to charities, his sons, some philanthropies and other relatives.
