Puget Sound and Alaska Steamship Co. signed by William Rockefeller - 1890 dated Autographed Stock Certificate

Stock issued to and signed on back by William Rockefeller. Signed by Colgate Hoyt as president. Nice! Rare!

William Avery Rockefeller Jr. (1841-1922) William was a cofounder with his older brother John D. Rockefeller of the prominent United States Rockefeller family. William Avery Rockefeller, Jr. was the son of William Avery Rockefeller, Sr. and Eliza (Davison) Rockefeller. He was born in Richford, New York and in 1853 his family moved to Strongsville, Ohio. He was to later build an ostentatious mansion called "Rockwood Hall", now demolished, which was subsequently located within the Rockefeller family estate of "Pocantico", in Westchester County New York. In 1865, he entered the oil business by starting a refinery. In 1867, his brother's company, Rockefeller & Andrews, absorbed this refinery, and in 1870, the company became Standard Oil. William Rockefeller 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. Rockefeller, along with Henry Rogers, devised a deceptive scheme which made them a profit of $36 million. First, they purchased Anaconda Properties from Marcus Daly 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 Company, with their own clerks as dummy directors, saying the company was worth $75 million. They then had the 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 stock to the public. They paid back the bank's $39 million and had a profit of $36 million in cash. So, by deceiving Daly, the bank, and the public, Rockefeller and Rogers had made Amalgamated Copper a $36 million profit before the company was even operating. Amalgamated controlled the mines of Butte, Montana, and later became the Anaconda Copper Company. Married to Almira Geraldine Goodsell, he built up the National City Bank of New York, now part of Citigroup. He had 6 children. Upon his death in 1922, he left a fortune estimated at between $150 million and $200 million.

Colgate Hoyt (1849-1922), banker, born in Cleveland, Ohio, March 2, 1849, is a son of James M. Hoyt, a lawyer and man of high position. The young man attended Phillips Academy, Andover, but, owing to the failure of his sight, left school at the end of the first year. He then secured a place in a hardware store in Cleveland, rose by his own merit, and finally joined his father in real estate operations, becoming himself the owner of desirable properties. During 1877-81, he engaged in loans of money on real estate security. In May, 1881, he removed to New York City to become a partner in the banking and bullion firm of J. B. Colgate & Co. He made his way here with marked success and remained an active member until the death of Mr. Trevor, in 1890. Banking soon led him into intimate relations with large corporations. A government director of The Union Pacific Railroad, 1882-84, he was thereafter a company director but resigned several years later. In 1884, he joined Charles L. Colby and Edwin H. Abbott in The Wisconsin Central Railroad enterprise, these three men becoming trustees of the entire stock of the corporation, and building a road to St. Paul and one from near Milwaukee to Chicago, thus making The Wisconsin Central a through line from Chicago to St. Paul and Milwaukee. They also built The Chicago & Northern Pacific Railroad as a terminal, with splendid passenger stations in Chicago. Mr. Hoyt has also been a director and active spirit in The Oregon Railway & Navigation Co., The Northern Pacific Railroad, and The Oregon & Transcontinental Co., and in 1890 reorganized the latter as The North America Co., with entire success, and under trying circumstances. The American Steel Barge Co., whose shipyard and docks are at West Superior, Wisconsin, is the creation of Mr. Hoyt, who bought the whaleback patents of Capt. Alex. McDougall in 1888, organized the company with a capital $500,000, becoming its president and treasurer, and has since employed about 1,500 men and constructed about thirty whalebacks and other vessels of importance. Another of his enterprises is The Spanish-American Iron Co., of which he is an organizer and treasurer, which, with a capital of $5,000,000, is working the Lola group of iron mines in Cuba. Mr. Hoyt was prominent socially, and was a member of the Metropolitan, Union League, Lawyers’, Riding, Fencers’, Country, Oyster Bay Yacht, Larchmont Yacht and Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht clubs, and The Ohio Socity. In 1873, he married Lida W. Sherman, daughter of Judge Charles T. Sherman, and a niece of Gen. William T. Sherman. They have four children living.

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