Parrot Silver & Copper Co. issued to William G. Rockefeller and signed at back - 1904 dated Autograph Stock Certificate

Stock issued to William G. Rockefeller and signed on back. Printed on yellow paper for 10,000 shares!

William Goodsell Rockefeller, born on May 21, 1870, in Manhattan, New York City, was an American businessman and a prominent figure in the Rockefeller family. He served as the treasurer of the Standard Oil Company of New York and held various positions in the business world.

Rockefeller was the third child of William Avery Rockefeller Jr., a co-founder of Standard Oil, and Almira Geraldine Goodsell. His uncle was John D. Rockefeller, and his paternal grandfather was William Rockefeller Sr. Rockefeller attended Yale University, where he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi, and graduated in 1892.

Despite being predicted by Thomas W. Lawson to become the future head of Standard Oil, Rockefeller’s career took an unexpected turn. After graduating from Yale, he suffered a severe attack of typhoid fever before entering 26 Broadway. Despite this setback, Rockefeller went on to become the treasurer of the Standard Oil Company of New York for several years until his retirement in 1911.

Throughout his career, Rockefeller held various directorships in various companies. He served as a director of the Brooklyn Union Gas Company (of which he was also vice-president), the Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company, the New York Mutual Gas Light Company, the Oregon Short Line Railroad, the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, the Union Pacific Railroad, and the Consolidated Textile Company. Notably, he had only been elected a director of the Consolidated Textile Company shortly before his death in 1922.

On November 21, 1895, Rockefeller married Sarah Elizabeth “Elsie” Stillman, the daughter of National City Bank president James Jewett Stillman and Sarah Elizabeth Rumrill. Rockefeller’s father had become a significant shareholder of the National City Bank, and his alliance with the Stillman family was further strengthened by the marriages of his two sons to two Stillman daughters. Rockefeller’s brother, Percy Avery Rockefeller, married Elsie’s sister, Isabel Goodrich Stillman. Together, William and Elsie had four sons and a daughter:

• William Avery Rockefeller III (1896–1973) married Florence Lincoln (1897–1998), the sister of Frederic W. Lincoln IV, in 1918.
• Godfrey Stillman Rockefeller (1899–1983) married Helen Gratz, the brother-in-law of Edward H. Watson.
• James Stillman Rockefeller (1902–2004) married Nancy Carnegie (1900–1994), a grandniece of Andrew Carnegie.
• John Sterling Rockefeller (1904–1988) married Paula Watjen.
• Almira Geraldine Rockefeller, born in 1907, married M. Roy Jackson in 1929. After his passing in 1944, she remarried Samuel Weston Scott in 1945.

Rockefeller was a member of esteemed clubs such as the Union Club of the City of New York, the Union League Club, the Metropolitan Club, and the University Club.

William Goodsell Rockefeller, Almira’s father, succumbed to “double pneumonia” at his home on 292 Madison Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, on November 30, 1922. Tragically, he passed away five months after his father’s death. William’s remains were interred at the Rockefeller Mausoleum at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Read More

Read Less