John D. Rockefeller

John Davidson Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York in July 8, 1839. His father’s name was William Avery Rockefeller and his mother’s name was Eliza Davison. He was second of the six children in the Rockefeller family. Some of his ancestors can be traced back to France. His father owned farm property and traded in many goods, including lumber and patent medicines. His mother was quite the opposite of his father's fun-loving ways. She brought up her large family very strictly. She was religious and later, following his mother’s footsteps, John became religious too.
When he was a boy, his family moved to Owego in 1851, where he attended Owego Academy. In 1853, his family moved again. Then in Strongsville, Rockefeller attended Cleveland's Central High School and took a ten week business course at Folsom's Commercial College. There he studied about bookkeeping. He got his first job as an assistant bookkeeper in September 1855. He was really good at calculating transportation costs, which helped him later in his career.
In 1859, at age nineteen, he started his first company, Clark and Rockefeller. With the building of a railroad to Cleveland, they branched out into oil refining with Samuel Andrews, who was smart about the machines and technical stuff. Within two years Rockefeller became the senior partner and Clark was bought out. That’s how Rockefeller and Andrews became Cleveland's largest refinery. Rockefeller survived the bitter competition in the oil industry with financial help from S. V. Harkness and from a new partner, H. M. Flagler.
The Standard Oil of Ohio was formed by Rockefeller, his brother William, Flagler, Harkness, and Andrews in 1870.To make his company become better and succeed, Rockefeller started buying the competing refiners, making his company better and stronger. He made many secret deals, and bought many of the oil company owners out who competed against him. In less than four months in 1872, Standard Oil had owned 22 of 26 Cleveland competitors. If the owners would refuse his offer of selling