Standard Oil Trust Stock signed by John Dustin Archbold and Wesley Hunt Tilford - 1890's dated Autograph Stock Certificate

Stock signed by John Dustin Archbold and Wesley Hunt Tilford, 1890's. Archbold and Tilford were very important officers in the Standard Oil Trust. Biographical information accompanies this great piece of financial history!!! The number of shares vary. Excellent Condition and Very Rare!

John Dustin Archbold (July 26, 1848 in Leesburg, Ohio – December 6, 1916 in Tarrytown, New York) was an American businessman and one of the United States' earliest oil refiners. His small oil company was bought out by John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company. Archbold rose rapidly at Standard Oil, handling many of the complex secret negotiations over the years. By 1882, he was Rockefeller's closest associate, and typically acted as the company's primary spokesman. Rockefeller, after 1896, left business matters to Archbold while he pursued his philanthropy; as vice president, Archbold effectively ran Standard Oil until his death in 1916. Inspired by Rockefeller's policies, Archbold's main goals were stabilization, efficiency, and minimizing waste in refining and distributing petroleum products. The company was broken up by the Supreme Court in 1911 into 34 smaller operations, Archbold became president of the largest one, Standard Oil of New Jersey.

Archbold was born to Methodist minister Reverend Israel Archbold and Frances Foster Dana (Archbold) in Leesburg, Ohio. After being educated in public schools, he moved to Pennsylvania by 1864.

On February 20, 1870, Archbold married Annie Eliza Mills, "daughter of Samuel Myers Mills of Titusville and Lavinia Jenkins." The couple had four children:

• Mary Lavina Archbold (b 1871)
• Anne Mills Archbold (b 1873), mother of John Dana Archbold
• Frances Dana Archbold (b 1875)
• John Foster Archbold (b 1877-1930), father of zoologist Richard Archbold

In 1885, Archbold purchased a large mansion in Tarrytown, New York. The estate, called Cedar Cliff, was located at 279 S. Broadway just across from the Carmelite Transfiguration Church.

In 1864, Archbold went to the north-west Pennsylvania oil fields and spent 11 years in the oil industry there. When John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company began buying up refiners in this oil-rich region, many independent refiners felt squeezed out, and Archbold was among Standard's harshest and loudest critics. In 1885, after becoming skeptical of reports of oil discoveries in Oklahoma, he sold-out at a loss, saying "I'll drink every gallon produced west of the Mississippi!"

Archbold was subsequently recruited by Rockefeller to Standard Oil, where he became a director and served as its vice-president and president until its dissolution in 1911. Between 1911 and 1916, Archbold was president of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey.

A. Barton Hepburn was directed by the New York State Legislature in 1879 to investigate the railroads' practice of giving rebates within the state. Merchants without ties to the oil industry had pressed for the hearings. Prior to the committee's investigation, few knew of the size of Standard Oil's control and influence on seemingly unaffiliated oil refineries and pipelines - Hawke (1980) cites that only a dozen or so within Standard Oil knew the extent of company operations. The committee counsel, Simon Sterne, questioned representatives from the Erie Railroad and the New York Central Railroad and discovered that at least half of their long-haul traffic granted rebates, and that much of this traffic came from Standard Oil. The committee then shifted focus to Standard Oil's operations. John Dustin Archbold, as president of Acme Oil Company, denied that Acme was associated with Standard Oil. He then admitted to being a director of Standard Oil. The committee's final report scolded the railroads for their rebate policies and cited Standard Oil as an example. This scolding was largely moot to Standard Oil's interests since long-distance oil pipelines were now their preferred method of transportation.

In 1886, Archbold became a member of the board of trustees of Syracuse University, and was the board's president from 1893 until his death in 1916. From 1893 to 1914, he contributed nearly $6,000,000 for eight buildings, including the full cost of Archbold Stadium (opened 1907, demolished 1978; the Carrier Dome was built on this site), Sims Hall (men's dormitory, 1907), Archbold Gymnasium (1908, nearly destroyed by fire in 1947, but still in use), and the oval athletic field.

Archbold was involved in a scandalous affair involving monetary gifts to the Republican Party. In 1912, he was called to testify before a committee which was investigating political contributions made by the Standard Oil Company to the campaign funds of political parties. He claimed that President Theodore Roosevelt was aware of the $125,000 contribution made by Standard Oil Company to the 1904 campaign fund of the Republican Party, but President Roosevelt produced letters written by him which directed his campaign managers to return such monetary contributions if they were offered.

In 1915, an attempt was made by anarchists and Industrial Workers of the World radicals to assassinate Archbold at Cedar Cliff by planting a large dynamite bomb at the entrance to the estate. The bomb, which failed to go off, was discovered by Archbold's gardener. Police suspected that the attempted bombing was precipitated by the execution by firing squad of 'Joe Hill', alias Joseph Hillstrom in Salt Lake City, Utah the day before. Joe Hill was an IWW member, songwriter and labor organizer who had been convicted of murder.

Archbold died of complications from appendicitis in Tarrytown, New York on December 6, 1916. He is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

• In 1914, the "John Dustin Archbold College of Liberal Arts" at Syracuse University was renamed in his honor. The entrance to the university's Hall of Languages remains inscribed with this name.
• The John D. Archbold Memorial Hospital, now the Archbold Medical Center, in Thomasville, Georgia, was established in 1925, through a donation by his son, John Foster Archbold.
• His grandson, John Dana Archbold, was a member of the Board of Trustees of Syracuse University from 1976 to 1993.
• The John Dana Archbold Theatre at Syracuse Stage (Central New York's only professional theater) is named after his grandson.
• Another heir, grandson Richard Archbold, established Archbold Biological Station in 1941 on Lake Placid, Florida land donated by John A. Roebling II.
• Namesake of the tanker vessel John Dustin Archbold (1914).

Henry Morgan Tilford (June 14, 1856 – December 3, 1919) was an oilman who is considered the founder of Standard Oil of California (today known as Chevron).

Tilford was born in Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky on June 14, 1856. He was the son of Catherine Hunt (née Curd) Tilford (1824–1908) and John Boyle Tilford (1812–1878), a banker and founder of the First National Bank of Lexington. His siblings included Richard Curd Tilford, Mary Jane (née Tilford) Chastain, Wesley Hunt Tilford, Edward Alfred Tilford, and Frank Vincit Tilford.

As a child, his family home was next door to the home of Henry Clay and John Hunt Morgan, and Henry obtained his early education in the South and then moved north to New York City with his father and brothers.

With Jabez A. Bostwick, Tilford founded Bostwick & Tilford, a company that owned barges, lighters and a large refinery on the East River with headquarters at 138 Pearl Street in Manhattan. It was eventually acquired by John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company in 1887. After the merger, Tilford headed up Standard's operations on the West Coast, known as Pacific Coast Oil Company, which later became Standard Oil of California (and today is known as Chevron). Upon his return to the New York, the Tilfords purchased the Henry William Poor mansion at Tuxedo Park designed by T. Henry Randall and he served various Standard Oil companies, including as president of Central Oil Company of Denver, president of the Standard Oil of Ohio, vice president of the Standard Oil Company of New York, and a "director in nearly all of the subsidiaries of the parent organization." By 1907, Tilford owned 6,000 shares.

Tilford retired in the Spring of 1911, however, in 1917, he joined the company's board of directors following the death of John Dustin Archbold in 1916. Two years later, Tilford was succeeded by Walter C. Teagle, who served as president of Standard Oil of New Jersey from 1917 until 1937. At the time of his death, he was associated with the National Fuel Gas Company.

On November 12, 1885, Tilford was married to Isabelle Weart Giles (1856–1941). Isabelle was the daughter of John Chrystie Giles and Isabella Lee (née Weart) Giles. Together, they were the parents of:

• Isabelle Tilford (1887–1956), who married David Wagstaff (1882–1951), the son of Alfred Wagstaff Jr. and a Harvard graduate who was a member of the investment and merchant banking firm, Dominick & Dominick.
• Katherine Hunt Tilford (1890–1970), who married Stanley Grafton Mortimer (1890–1947), a son of Richard Mortimer, in 1910.
• Annette Tilford (1900–1946), who married Amory Lawrence Haskell (1893–1966) in September 1923.

Tilford died on December 3, 1919 at the age of 63 at his home, 24 West 52nd Street in Manhattan. He was buried at St. Mary's Church Cemetery in Tuxedo Park, New York. His estate was valued at over $20,000,000 and he left approximately $17,000,000 to his family. In his will, he created trusts for each of his daughters where they received income from the trust until age 48 at which point they received the principal.

After his death, his widow, who at $5,000,000 in 1920 had "the largest personal possessions among New Yorkers", remained socially prominent in Tuxedo Park and Palm Springs. She was known as "one of the reigning dowagers of Tuxedo Park" for four decades. According to author Sally Bedell Smith, "her annual debutante dinners before the Autumn Ball determined which young women were approved for New York society." Mrs. Tilford, who gave up her New York townhouse to live at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, died at Woodland, her Tuxedo estate in 1941.

Through his daughter Isabelle, he was the grandfather of Hunt Tilford Wagstaff (1909–1971) and David Wagstaff (1910–1984).

Through his daughter Katherine, he was the grandfather of Stanley G. Mortimer Jr. (1913–1999), who was married to Babe Paley, and then Kathleen Harriman; Henry Tilford Mortimer (1916–1993), Richard Mortimer, Eve Mortimer (1918–2007), who married Clarence Pell, Jr., and later Lewis Cass Ledyard III; Katharine Mortimer (1923–2003), who married three times (including to Francis Xavier Shields and becoming grandmother of actress Brooke Shields); and John Jay Mortimer (1935–2013), a prominent financier.

Through his daughter Annette, he was the grandfather of Anne (née Haskell) Ellis (1924–2006); Margaret Riker (née Haskell) Ross (1925–1999), whose family home, the Boudinot-Southard Farmstead, was located next to Lord Stirling Park; and Amory Lawrence Haskell Jr. (1928–1970).

Tilford was reportedly the basis for the 2007 American drama film, There Will Be Blood, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano. The film was inspired by Upton Sinclair's novel Oil! and tells the story of a silver miner-turned-oilman on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California's oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A fictionalized version of Tilford himself is portrayed in the film by David Warshofsky.

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