Career
Born in Delhi, New York, while still a boy his family moved to a farm in Ohio. As a young man, Jabez Bostwick first worked in a hardware store then opened his own. He next ventured into the cotton brokerage business in Cincinnati but soon moved to New York City where he became involved in the production side of the oil business through his firm, Tilford & Bostwick established in 1866.
Jabez Bostwick served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the Standard Oil Trust.
He donated money to his church and to educational institututions such as Wake Forest College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Richmond College in Richmond, Virginia. Jabez Bostwick died in a freak stable fire at Friedheim, his summer residence in Mamaroneck, New York, in Westchester County.
During the fire he tried to save his horses and carriages. As he and the stable hands pushed a coach from the carriage house he got overrun by a Private Coach weighing 2000/3000 lbs.
His widow, Helen C. Bostwick, upon her death on April 27, 1920 left an estate per public record that was valued at $29,264,181.00, including nearly $20 million of Standard Oil stock.
