Cedar Cliff: Estate home to top Rockefeller aide, fellow robber baron J.D. Archbold

The Cedar Cliff mansion of J.D. Archbold is shown ca. 1950 when it had already become St. Vincent de Paul Academy, a Roman Catholic boarding school. (Westchester County Historical Society)

John Dustin "J.D." Archbold made Cedar Cliff his home in 1885 while still working directly under John D. Rockefeller Sr. and 11 years before taking the day-to-day reins of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil trust upon Rockefeller’s retirement at age 57.

Cedar Cliff stood at what was then 279 South Broadway, directly opposite what is now the Roman Catholic Church of the Transfiguration. That church was founded by the Carmelite Fathers and Brothers of the North American Province of St. Elias in 1894.

Cedar Cliff was split in half after Archbold purchased it. It was about 26 acres while owned by WIlliam Earl Dodge Sr. from sometime before 1872 and it remained in the Dodge family until Dodge's 1883 death and Archbold’s arrival.

Dodge (1805-83) was an American businessman, Republican politician and Native American rights activist. He served as president of the National Temperance Society from 1865 to 1883. 

This 1911 map shows John Dustin Archbold’s Cedar Cliff estate in Tarrytown which he purchased in 1885. The property at the time was held by the heirs of William Earl Dodge Sr. and encompassed the Ilda House estate of Josephine del Drago to its immediate south. The Cedar Cliff site is close to the New York State Thruway Interstate 87/287 entrance to the new Tappan Zee Bridge, which fully replaced the old Tappan Zee Bridge in 2018 after a 63-year run. (1911 map by George Washington Bromley, David Rumsey Historical Maps Collection)

Dodge contested his disputed 1864 election loss to New York's incumbent one-term 8th District New York U.S. Representative, Democrat James Brooks, who had been seated on March 4, 1865. Dodge's loss was overturned in the Republican majority House and Brooks resigned. Dodge replaced Brooks for about the last 11 months of the 39th Congress (April 7, 1866 to March 3, 1867) but did not seek re-election. Brooks recaptured the seat in that election and held it until his death. As a footnote, Brooks, who had served two terms in the House (1849-1853) as a Whig Party member, was censured by the House on Feb. 27, 1873 for attempted bribery involving the Credit Mobilier of America scandal. Brooks died on April 30, 1873.

Dodge was a founder of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) of the USA.

When Dodge owned Cedar Cliff, the estate included its mansion, two summer houses near the Hudson River, a cottage for a gardener, a stables and a greenhouse in addition to a small farm.

William Earl Dodge Sr., the original owner of the Cedar Cliff property.

(Wikimedia Commons)

In 1833, Dodge, his father-in-law Anson Green Phelps, and Dodge’s brother-in-law, Daniel James, founded the import-export trading firm Phelps, Dodge & Co. In 1908 they became one of America’s largest mining companies, Phelps Dodge Corporation.

If these names sound familiar, they should. Phelps Memorial Hospital in Sleepy Hollow stands on the former Phelps James Estate and the Phelps James House mansion remains as an event venue on that property today.

When Archbold took the helm of Standard Oil in 1896, Rockefeller retained the title of president. Archbold wielded power in Rockefeller’s name as vice president.

This news photo from April 10, 1913 shows the launching of the steam yacht Vixen belonging to Standard Oil of New Jersey president J.D. Archbold at Morris Heights in the Bronx. An avid yachtsman, Archbold was a member of the New York and Larchmont yacht clubs. (Library of Congress, Bain News Service)

According to the Associated Press report of Archbold’s death on Dec. 5, 1916, John D. Rockefeller related in his autobiography "Random Reminiscences of Men and Events" how he first met Archbold. In stopping at a hotel sometime before 1875, Rockefeller noticed this inscription written on the hotel register: "JOHN D.ARCHBOLD $4 A BBL."

"Four dollars a barrel" was Archbold's battle cry. While he didn't succeed in getting crude oil prices to rise to the figure named, he did attract the attention of Rockefeller and that led to the pair’s later business affiliation.

Archbold had founded an independent oil company in Pennsylvania after moving to the state as a 16-year-old in 1864 and working there for about a decade. Faced with oppressive competition from Standard Oil, he sold out to the trust and Rockefeller and was then recruited to work for the oil magnate himself.

During the federal government’s trust busting efforts during the administration (1901-09) of President Theodore Roosevelt, Archbold was often the Standard Oil man forced to take the witness stand under ferocious prosecutorial attack. While the government’s case eventually led to the breakup of the Standard Oil trust, Archbold’s efforts were appreciated by Rockefeller.

The corridor linking buildings at St. Vincent de Paul Academy on the original Cedar Cliff estate of John D. Archbold, c. 1949. (Westchester County Historical Society)

Rockefeller said of his associate: "Mr. Archbold has always had a well-developed sense of humor, and on one occasion when he was on the witness stand, he was asked by the opposing lawyer:

" 'Mr. Archbold, are you a director of this company?'

'I am.’

‘What is your occupation with this company?’

‘To clamor for dividends.’ “

The 1910 federal census shows that Archbold and his wife, Annie Eliza, were sharing their mansion with their son John F., 34, his wife and two grandsons as well as four servants, including a cook, three of them from Ireland. Also living on the estate in a separate house were the estate’s gardener, Frank Heid, and his wife, immigrants from Austria-Hungary.

In this 1912 editorial cartoon by Thomas E. Powers, "Lefty Louis" and "Gyp the Blood" row a small boat and call out to Standard Oil executive John D. Archbold, standing against the rail of a ship identified as The Oil Line, holding a copy of Hearst's Magazine. An iceberg with antlers is visible in the distance. The cartoon contrasts the state of the wealthy and the poor under suspicion for illegal acts. Archbold had written to President Theodore Roosevelt on behalf of Standard Oil, regarding contributions for TR's presidential campaign of 1904, in return for favors. Although no evidence of favoritism existed, Hearst's Magazine published Archbold's letters to Roosevelt just prior to the 1912 presidential election in which Roosevelt ran — and lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson — as the or Progressive Party, a.k.a. "Bull Moose" candidate, hence the antler on the iceberg. Footnote: Roosevelt, a former Republican, did come in ahead of incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft, his successor as president in 1909. (Wikimedia Commons and the Library of Congress, public domain)

John Foster Archbold was the youngest of four Archbold children and their only son.

The Rockefeller-Archbold power structure at Standard Oil remained intact until 1911 when the U.S. Supreme Court, backing the Sherman Antitrust Act, ended Standard Oil’s monopoly, and split the company into 34 new companies, with Archbold designated president of the largest of them, Standard Oil of New Jersey, parent of today’s ExxonMobil. Other spinoff companies included what we recognize as Amoco, Chevron, Marathon, Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), ConocoPhillips (Phillips 66),

Ironically, the breakup of Standard Oil lined the pockets of both Rockefeller and Archbold. The monolithic trust had deflated the company’s stock price and shareholders in the newly independent companies -- including Rockefeller and Archbold -- reaped windfall profits as the newly issued stock values doubled and then tripled by about 1915.

John Dustin Archbold, ca. 1908. (Wikimedia Commons)

Archbold’s final couple of years were not without drama.

On November 19, 1915, a bomb was discovered at Cedar Cliff. Authorities believed it was part of a plot by members of the Industrial Workers of the World (“Wobblies”) and anarchists to protest the firing-squad execution that day of IWW member and muse Joe Hill (born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund, a.k.a Joseph Hillström, in Sweden in 1879), a convicted murderer, in Utah.

Hill famously wrote protest songs for the Wobblies, including "The Preacher and the Slave," to the tune of "The Sweet By-and-By," in which he penned the phrase “pie in the sky.”

Archbold was believed to have been the target of the bomb.

The explosive device was discovered by Archbold’s gardener at the time, John Walquist. Walquist discovered four one-pound sticks of dynamite wrapped up in wire and accompanied by blasting caps. The bomb was wrapped in paper matching the color of the driveway and obscured by a rut in the driveway about fifty feet from the front door of Archbold’s mansion.

Police said the driveway was the access to the house used by Archbold’s car and driver.

Rockefeller (July 8, 1839-May 23, 1937), who had retired at age 57, lived on his own Tarrytown estate, Kykuit, for another 41 years, dying shortly before his 98th birthday. His net estate, adjusted for inflation, was valued at about $409 billion.

The estate of Archbold, who died in Tarrytown of surgical complications a couple of weeks after a bout of appendicitis in December 1916, was worth an inflation-adjusted $2.4 billion. His philanthropy was most obvious at Syracuse University.

J.D. Archbold became a trustee of Syracuse University in 1886 and served as president of the school’s board of trustees from 1893 until his death in 1916. He paid of the school’s football facility, Archbold Stadium (pictured), which was in use from 1907 until it was replaced after the 1978 season by the Carrier Dome. (Wikimedia Commons)

Archbold was a Syracuse trustee from 1886 and served as president of its board of trustees from 1893 until his death in 1916. During that span, he contributed $6 million -- approximately $187 million today -- towards the construction of eight buildings at the school including the full cost of the school’s football facility, Archbold Stadium, which was in use from 1907 until it was replaced after the 1978 season by the Carrier Dome, home to the school’s basketball and football programs today.

Archbold’s widow, Annie Eliza Mills Archbold, married Ohio Court of Appeals Judge Charles W. Dustin in 1918. She died in 1920 and her heirs sold Cedar Cliff.

From 1918 to as late as 1921, the estate briefly served as the home of the Elizabeth Duncan School of Dance. Duncan was the sister of famed early 20th century dancer Isadora Duncan.

The Orphanage of St. Vincent de Paul, later the St. Vincent de Paul Academy -- a boarding school for boys and girls in elementary grades, operated in the former Archbold mansion and its approximately 12 acres after its purchase by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York in 1922 until the school’s closing in about 1976 and its sale to developers in 1980.

Kindergarten students play in front of a wing of the former Cedar Cliff mansion of J.D. Archbold under the watchful eye of a teaching nun at the St. Vincent de Paul Academy on June 2, 1947. (Library of Congress)

The school was operated by the Marianite Sisters of the Holy Cross, an order of nuns specializing in health care and teaching.

The school was razed in 1980 to make way for The Quay of Tarrytown condominium complex, an 89-unit townhome development just north of the entrance to the Tappan Zee Bridge that stands on the former Cedar Cliff site today.

The Quay of Tarrytown condominiums across the street from the Roman Catholic Church of the Transfiguration on South Broadway just north of the New York Thruway, are located in the footprint of the old Cedar Cliff estate of J.D. Archbold. The estate was converted into the St. Vincent de Paul Academy and subsequently razed in 1980 to make room for this 89-unit townhome development. (Google Maps Street View)