James Jewett Stillman was elected President of First National City Bank(Citibank), New York, NY for 1891-1909 and served as chairman (1909–1918)
James Jewett Stillman was listed in Who's Who in America
James Jewett Stillman was one of the wealthiest men in the USA and was very generous - giving a hospital to Harvard University and establishing many scholarships in both the USA and in France
James Jewett Stillman donated considerable money to the French War Widows and Orphans in 1917

STILLMAN, JAMES (1850-1918). James Stillman, son of Elizabeth Pamela (Goodrich) and Charles Stillman,qv was born on June 9, 1850, at Brownsville, Texas. He took over his father's financial and mercantile empire in New York, Texas, and Mexico in 1872 and turned it into the controlling interest in the National City Bank in New York and the most powerful force in the development of the Rio Grande valley. He greatly expanded the interests in Texas that he inherited from his father. His Texas holdings included the bonds of sixteen banks; control of land-development companies in the lower Rio Grande valley,qv Corpus Christi, and Kerrville; an interest in the Swenson Ranch; and, with the other three members of the "Big Four"- W. H. Harriman, Jacob Henry Schiff,qv and William Rockefeller-control of most Texas railroads. The Big Four served as directors under his chairmanship on the board, put together by Stillman, of the National City Bank. They controlled the Texas and Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the International-Great Northern, the Union Pacific Southern, the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico, and the Mexican National, which ran from Corpus Christi to Mexico City and from the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico terminus on the border at Brownsville to the Mexican capital.

In 1876 Stillman supported the successful Revolution of Tuxtepec, conducted by Mexican general Porfirio Díaz from Brownsville, which resulted in the overthrow of the Mexican government. Díaz's partisans called themselves the "railroaders." During the fighting Stillman purchased 100 percent of the riparian rights to the Rio Grande at Brownsville and up the river for an indeterminate distance. He sold two-thirds interest in those rights to the Mexican National Railroad in the 1890s. In 1880 Stillman, his employee Thomas Carson, who was the mayor of Brownsville, James Belden, and other Brownsville men received the concession from the Mexican president for the railroad to be built from Matamoros to Monterrey, where Stillman and Belden had large investments. During the twentieth century Stillman's enormous properties along the border were developed and sold by the American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company of Mercedes, a confidential subsidiary of the National City Bank. Although Stillman's interests became global and he held more than 20 percent of the stock in the world's largest bank, he retained his father's $200,000 share in George W. Brackenridge'sqv San Antonio National Bank throughout his life. He used that and his father's long ties with Brackenridge to develop property in West Texas and Mexico. His heirs expressed surprise when Brackenridge's will returned the $200,000 to them; they had apparently lost track of it. Stillman's two daughters married sons of his lifelong close friend William Rockefeller, the chairman of the board of the Standard Oil Company. Stillman died on March 15, 1918, in New York City.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: John K. Winkler, The First Billion: The Stillmans and the National City Bank (New York: Vanguard, 1934).

John Mason Hart
The Handbook of Texas Online 2002

Forbes Magazine Early American Rich List

Sarah Elizabeth "Elsie" Stillman
Born: 7 Mar 1872
Place: New York, NY
Died: 17 May 1935
Place: Greenwich, CT
Married: William Goodsell Rockefeller
Born: 21 May 1870
Place: New York, NY
Died: 30 Nov 1922
Date Married: 21 Nov 1895 in New York City

James Alexander Stillman
Born: 18 Aug 1873
Place: New York, NY
Died: 12 Jan 1944
Place: New York, NY
Married: Anne Urquhart Potter
Born: 14 Nov 1879
Place: New York, NY
Died:
Place:
Date Married: 3 Jun 1901 - divorced 1930

Isabel Goodrich Stillman
Born: 29 Apr 1876
Place: New York, NY
Died: 22 Aug 1935
Place: Greenwich, CT
Married: Percy Avery Rockefeller
Born: 27 Feb 1878
Place: New York, NY
Died: 25 Sep 1934
Date Married: 23 Apr 1901

Charles Chauncey Stillman
Born: 29 Sep 1877
Place: Irvington-on-Hudson, NY
Died: 16 Aug 1926
Place: at sea on SS Aquitiana
Married: Mary Wight
Born: 27 Nov 1870
Place: Windsor, ME
Died: 24 Sep 1925
Date Married: 15 Oct 1903

Ernest Goodrich Stillman
Born: 14 Jul 1884
Place: Newport, RI
Died: 16 Dec 1949
Place: New York, NY
Married: Mildred Margaret Whitney
Born: 19 Aug 1890
Place: San Francisco, CA
Died: 21 Aug 1950
Place: Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY
Date Married: 7 Jun 1911