James Jewett Stillman was an American businessman, banker, and capitalist. He is known for his investments in land, banking, and railroads in New York, Texas, and Mexico.
Background
James was born on June 9, 1850 at Brownsville, Texas, United States. His parents, Charles and Elizabeth Pamela (Goodrich) Stillman, both came from families long settled at Wethersfield, Connecticut Thither in 1703 had gone George Stillman, the first of the line in America, who had settled in Hadley, Massachussets, in 1690. Charles Stillman, as a young cotton merchant, had ventured into the Rio Grande valley before the Mexican War, settling at Matamoros, Mexico, and later at Brownsville on the Texas side of the river, where he acquired large tracts of land.
Education
About 1855 or 1856 the boy was brought to Connecticut and there he got his early schooling. Before the Civil War the family settled in New York City. During the war James continued his studies in private schools at Cornwall-on-Hudson and Sing Sing (now Ossining), New York.
Career
At sixteen Stillman went to work with the mercantile firm, Smith, Woodward & Stillman, of which his father had long been a member and which had traded in cotton during the war. Young Stillman consorted with older men and in particular gained much from consultation with Moses Taylor, the president of the National City Bank. Charles Stillman having been forced by impaired health to retire from business, the son early assumed many responsibilities of the family's head.
In 1872 Stillman received from his father a power of attorney. He became a member of the cotton firm, which enjoyed prosperity over a long period. As his surplus gradually increased and his outside investments were expanded, he naturally formed contacts with financiers and industrialists.
Personally known to only a few of his business associates and not at all to the general public, Stillman reached and passed his fortieth year.
Early in that era of consolidation Stillman allied himself with the Standard Oil group of financiers headed by H. H. Rogers and William Rockefeller. In 1899 the sales of stock of the Amalgamated Copper Company and the Consolidated Gas Company of New York were both conducted by the National City, although even Wall Street gasped when a national bank engaged in such promotions. The copper operation, designed to secure a monopoly, proved disastrous and became notorious.
There was considerable rivalry between the Harriman-Stillman-Rockefeller-Schiff group and the Morgan-Hill combination until 1907, when a greater "community of interest" developed. In connection with the money panic of that year, Stillman, though overshadowed in the popular mind by J. P. Morgan, was one of the more influential leaders, being particularly notable for his advocacy of the support of weaker New York banks by the stronger. (For an interesting contrast between Stillman and Morgan, see Corey, post, p. 260. ) Two years later he retired from the presidency of the bank, retaining the chairmanship of the board of directors, and for several years passed most of his time in France, where he was able more fully to gratify his esthetic tastes.
In the World War he identified himself fully with the Allied cause, giving generously from his private fortune in support of French effort. Late in 1917 he returned to America and for a few months devoted himself to the management of the bank while its president was busy in Washington.
On March 15, 1918, in New York City, he died of heart disease.
Achievements
James Stillman has been listed as a noteworthy banker by Marquis Who's Who.
Works
book
book
Views
Everything Stillman did on assuming the office indicated adherence to the code and practice of Taylor, his first mentor in finance. The bank's reserves were increased far beyond the technical requirements. Gold accumulated in its vaults and the huge surplus caught the attention of conservative business men. Deposits grew with the surplus (in a few years they more than quadrupled) and the National City rose from the second to the first rank among Wall Street institutions. While it was being built up through the application of old and tried banking principles, it became a leader in a new field, as the foremost bank in the service of the great industrial and financial combines that marked the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth.
Personality
His unusual reticence and hatred of publicity may have hidden even from associates his real character. There were those who thought they detected, beneath an affected hardness of manner, a vein of emotionalism, but he gave the general impression of coldness.
Connections
On June 14, 1871, he married Sarah Elizabeth Rumrill. She bore him three sons and two daughters, all of whom survived him; separated from him in 1894, she was not mentioned in his will. Together they had: Sarah Elizabeth "Elsie" Stillman (1872–1935), who married William Goodsell Rockefeller (1870–1922), the son of William Rockefeller, a senior executive of Standard Oil. James Alexander Stillman (1873–1944), who married Anne Urquhart Potter.
