Biography
John William Sterling was born in Stratford, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in 1864 and was a member of Skull and Bones. He was admitted to the bar three years later. He obtained an M.A. degree in 1874 and an LL.D. from Columbia Law School in 1893. He became a corporate lawyer in New York, and helped found the law firm of Shearman & Sterling in 1871, a firm that represented Jay Gould, Henry Ford, the Rockefeller family, and Standard Oil.
On his death in 1918, Sterling left a residuary estate of $15 million to Yale, at the time the "largest sum of money ever donated to an institution of higher learning in history"—equivalent to about $200 million in 2011 dollars. After the estate appraisal was complete a year later, the Yale bequest was "about $18 million." He required Yale to fund "at least one enduring, useful and architecturally beautiful building, which will constitute a fitting Memorial of my gratitude to and affection for my alma mater" and "the foundation of Scholarships, Fellowships or Lectureships, the endowment of new professorships and the establishment of special funds for prizes"—these mandates led to the construction of the Sterling Memorial Library, Sterling Law Building, the Hall of Graduate Studies, and the Sterling Hall of Medicine, and the endowment of the Sterling Professorships.
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