Business
Dr. David M. Harkness had a younger brother, Dr. Lamon G. Harkness, who was also a doctor but who became a successful businessman in Bellevue, Ohio. At age twenty-one, after finishing his apprenticeship as a harnessmaker, Stephen Harkness moved to Bellevue, Ohio with his uncle Lamon. Stephen worked for a time in harnessmaking but in 1855 he set up a distillery in Monroeville, Ohio that was a success. In 1864 Stephen formed a partnership with Wm. Halsey Doan to provide crude oil to refineries and that made him a rich man.
In 1866 he sold his Monroeville businesses and moved to Millionaires Row in Cleveland. He organized a bank, The Euclid Avenue National Bank and was president of Belt Mining Company. There, he also invested heavily with Henry Flagler and JD Rockefeller in Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler, the firm that became Standard Oil. Harkness became its second largest shareholder; the company's success made him enormously wealthy. Although Stephen Harkness was a silent partner, he was a member of Standard Oil's Board of Directors until his death in 1888.
Stephen was active in the development of Cleveland, Ohio. He collaborated with Charles Brush and JD Rockefeller to build the Cleveland Arcade one of the first enclosed shopping malls in the United States, modeled after the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy.
Read more about this topic: Stephen V. Harkness
Famous quotes containing the word business:
“Gratitude among friends is like credit among tradesmen: it keeps business up, and maintains commerce. And we pay not because it is just to discharge our debts, but that we might the more easily find lenders on another occasion.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“God forgive me, I do still see that my nature is not to be quite conquered, but will esteem pleasure above all things; though, yet in the middle of it, it hath reluctancy after my business, which is neglected by my following my pleasure. However, music and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is.”
—Samuel Pepys (1633–1703)
“It is possible that the telephone has been responsible for more business inefficiency than any other agency except laudanum.... In the old days when you wanted to get in touch with a man you wrote a note, sprinkled it with sand, and gave it to a man on horseback. It probably was delivered within half an hour, depending on how big a lunch the horse had had. But in these busy days of rush-rush-rush, it is sometimes a week before you can catch your man on the telephone.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)