John D. was born in Tioga County, New York, near the village of Richford, 25 miles from the Pennsylvania border, where he lived until 14 years of age, then he moved to a farm near Moravia, at the southern tip of Lake Owasco, and in late 1852 or early 1853 moved to Strongsville, Ohio.
When in Owega he attended the Academy, walked three miles to and from school and in warm weather, like the other children, arrived barefoot with his shoes slung over his shoulders to save wear. After moving to Strongsville, Ohio, he and his brother William attended high school in Cleveland where they stayed in a boardinghouse. John D. left school two weeks before commencement to enroll in Folsom's Commercial College. After completing Folsom his parents considered sending him to either Western Reserve, Hudson or Oberlin College. His mother wanted him to become a Baptist minister, his father felt he had enough education and should step out into the world and support himself. At Folsom John D. had focused on mathematics and rudimentary sciences.
At age 16, John D. tramped the city streets in the humid summer heat. No one wanted a young man who could keep books and who wrote a good hand. Cleveland was feeling the effect of "hard times", but he felt anything was better than farming. After a month of turndowns "one man on the docks told him he might come back after the noon meal". He went back and they gave him a chance, there was no mention of wages. He started work at Hewitt-Tuttle, September 26, 1855 and observed the date every year for the rest of his life. He felt it was as significant as family birthdays and Christmas. He worked from September to the end of the year with no word of wages. In January he received $50 and was promised $25 a month from then on.
In 1859 he went into business for himself, a commission house with partner Maurice B. Clark 28, Rockefeller not yet 20. He borrowed $1,000 from his father at 10% common rate at that time.
In 1859 the first drilled well was in Titusville, Pennsylvania. In 1863 Rockefeller went into oil convinced petroleum properly made into kerosene would surpass all other illuminants. He purchased land near the railroad which had just been completed to Titusville and whose oil shipments constituted the road's heaviest freight. This property later became "The Standard Oil Company" with over a hundred by-products. As the company expanded by the purchase of many smaller companies, he was severally criticized for the collapse of many of the smaller companies. Mr. Rockefeller retorted that they had already collapsed and were near bankruptcy.
Within a few years, several of the important oil men who had been loudest in their castigation joined the Standard. Notable was the Titusville refiner, John D. Archbold, who succeeded Rockefeller as president of the Standard. In 1896 John D. moved into the background of the Standard Oil business and officially retired September 26, 1905 at the age of 66 and a billionaire.
John D. Rockefeller was appreciative of his father, repeatedly declaring he owed him a great deal. The astute parent sensed the opportunities in an economy emerging from the pioneer era. Something of his parent's aggressive imagination seems to have been passed on to John. His father loved the out-doors and taught his sons to appreciate it.
Eliza Rockefeller was frugal by nature and taught her oldest son to be so. Eliza passed on to her son a great deal of herself, strong will, unfailing self-control, and obsession for order and abhorrence of waste. The children were required to contribute to Sunday collection if only a penny from their earnings.
John D. maintained a record of money received and spent throughout his life. In no sense did he scale his charity to tithing for such a practice had no appeal for him, "that one-tenth of a man's income must be devoted to good works..is but a rough yardstick to go by. To give a tenth of one's income is well nigh an impossibility for some, while to others it means a miserable pittance. I believe it is every man's duty to be all he honestly can and to give all he can."
