William Avery Rockefeller Sr.

William Avery Rockefeller Sr. (1810–1906) was the father of Standard Oil Standard OilStandard Oil was an oil company founded in 1870 in Cleveland, Ohio, by John D. Rockefeller and others. Through mergers and expansion, and organizational forms including the trust of 1882 and the New Jersey holding company of 1899, it at one time controlled most of the refining capacity in the United States. In 1911 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of its holding company under the Sherman Anti-trust Act, and the companies split off from it later evolved into oil companies including ExxonMobil and Chevron.Open the full entry founder John D. Rockefeller John D. RockefellerJohn D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) was an American entrepreneur and philanthropist. In 1870 he and his partners founded Standard Oil, which through mergers and the trust form of organization grew into one of the earliest large trusts in the United States, and its business methods and organizational form drew wide controversy. After withdrawing from day-to-day management in 1896, he turned to organized philanthropy on a large scale, founding institutions including the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, the General Education Board and The Rockefeller Foundation.Open the full entry. For many years he peddled patent medicines in the American countryside as a self-styled “herbal doctor,” and under the alias William Levingston he started a second family. Newspapers pursued his whereabouts from 1901, and in 1905 Ida Tarbell exposed his early life; he died in 1906, and two years later, in 1908, newspapers revealed his alias and double life, which became a controversial chapter in Rockefeller family history.

Contents12 sections

Key facts

1810Born in Granger, New York

William Avery Rockefeller was born in 1810 to a poor farming family in Granger, New York; cemetery records made after his death give his date of birth as November 13, 1810. Tall and powerfully built, he was good at hunting, fishing, storytelling and playing the fiddle but had no interest in farming. In his twenties he left home and traveled about selling trinkets and so-called cure-alls. At times he posed as a deaf-mute peddler, wearing a slate that read “I am deaf and dumb.”⁠[1][2][1][1][1]

1837Marriage to Eliza Davison

In 1837, in the area around Moravia, New York, he married Eliza Davison, who came from a better-off family, receiving a $500 dowry, and the couple settled in nearby Richford. Around the same time, the family’s housekeeper, Nancy Brown, also bore him two children and was later sent away by Eliza. He and Eliza had six children together; their second child, John D. Rockefeller, was born on July 8, 1839.⁠[1][1][1][3]

Thereafter he often left without notice and was gone in the countryside for months at a time, returning wearing diamonds and carrying large sums of cash. Calling himself an “herbal doctor” or “botanic physician,” he peddled homemade patent medicines in small towns in upstate New York, claiming they could cure every ailment; he sometimes also used the name Dr. William Levingston. Neighbors called him “Devil Bill.” At home he ran a lumber business, did not drink, and supported the six children he had with Eliza.⁠[1][1][1][1]

1849Indicted for Rape

In 1849 he was accused of raping a young woman employed by Eliza and was indicted, but he was never arrested or tried. He then moved his family several times, relocating to Ohio in 1853.⁠[4][2][3]

1850sA Second Family Under the Alias William Levingston

In the 1850s, under the name Dr. William Levingston, he married Margaret Allen, who was much younger than he was; accounts place the marriage anywhere between 1852 and 1856. He never divorced Eliza and thereafter moved back and forth between his family in New York (later Ohio) and his family in Illinois. Margaret lived with him for about 50 years and learned only after his death that their marriage had not been legally valid.⁠[1][5][2][4][4]

1859Lending Money to John D. Rockefeller to Start a Business

In 1859, when John D. Rockefeller went into business in partnership with Maurice B. Clark, he borrowed $1,000 from his father. According to his son’s recollection, the father had intended to give each child $1,000 on turning 21 and agreed to advance the money early, but charged 10% annual interest and often demanded repayment at unexpected moments to test his son’s business ability.⁠[3][6][6][7]

1881–1889The Park River Farm in North Dakota

From 1881 to 1889 he owned a farm near Park River, North Dakota, which locals called the “Standard Oil Ranch,” and which rumor held actually belonged to John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. Each fall he returned to Margaret and each spring went back to North Dakota; about six months after Eliza’s death in 1889, he sold the farm and thereafter lived with Margaret.⁠[2][1][2][2][1][2]

1901The World Offers a Reward for His Whereabouts

From 1901, Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper the World offered an $8,000 reward to anyone who could reveal the whereabouts of John D. Rockefeller’s father and sent reporters out to search for him, but without success for years.⁠[4][4][4]

1905Ida Tarbell’s Investigation

In 1905, in two character studies of John D. Rockefeller published in McClure’s magazine, the journalist Ida Tarbell portrayed him as having posed as a doctor to make money and mentioned the rape and horse-stealing charges against him, but she was unable to find out where he had gone afterward. John D. Rockefeller was furious.⁠[4][4][4]

May 11, 1906Death Under the Name William Levingston

On May 11, 1906, he died under the name William Levingston at his home in Freeport, Illinois, and was buried in an unmarked grave in Illinois. When Margaret died she was buried with him, and only then was the name Levingston carved on the headstone.⁠[2][2][1][2][2]

1908The New York World Reveals His Double Life

In 1908, A. B. Macdonald, a reporter for the New York World, published a story headlined “Secret Double Life of Rockefeller’s Father Revealed by The World,” exposing his practice of medicine under an alias, his peddling of patent medicines and his bigamy, and asserting that his sons had known his whereabouts for years and had been supporting him. His son Frank Rockefeller issued a statement calling the account an “unqualified lie”; John D. Rockefeller declined to comment.⁠[4][1][4][4][4][1]

Relationship with John D. Rockefeller

In his 1909 memoir, John D. Rockefeller said that his father had explained the various businesses he ran and taught him the principles and methods of doing business, from which he had benefited greatly. He also recalled that his father never carried less than $1,000 in cash. On the other hand, when his mother died in 1889 he publicly described her as a widow, and for many years he avoided discussing his father’s life.⁠[6][6][4][1][4]