Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

by Ron Chernow

The Nancy Brown affair wasn’t the only indignity visited upon Eliza, for she was often abandoned by Bill during her three cheerless years in Richford. He remained a restless and defiant individualist who preferred life beyond the pale of society. Early in the marriage, he stayed put for a while, operating a small sawmill on Michigan Hill and dealing in salt, fur, horses, and timber, but he soon resumed the footloose life of a peddler, his trips cloaked in unfathomable mystery. Like a fugitive, he would depart furtively under cover of night and return after dark, weeks or months later, flinging pebbles at the window to signal his return. To tide over his family in his absence, he arranged for credit at the general store. “Give my family anything they want while I’m away,” he instructed Chauncey Rich, whose father, Ezekiel, had founded Richford, “and when I come back I’ll settle.”15 Never knowing when this credit might be canceled, Eliza became extremely frugal and drilled her children in thrifty maxims such as “Willful waste makes woeful want.”