Charles W. Harkness

Charles William Harkness (December 17, 1860 – May 1, 1916)^[1] was the son of Stephen V. Harkness, an original investor in the company that became Standard Oil, and his second wife, the former Anna M. Richardson.

Charles was born in Monroeville, Ohio, and his early education was in Cleveland. He earned a B.A. from Yale College with the Class of 1883. Harkness, his half-brother William L. Harkness (Yale Class of 1881), and others help found Wolf's Head Society, known originally as The Third Society, at Yale in 1883.^[2] Harkness married Miss Mary Warden.

While at Yale he was described as "care-free, happy, irresponsible as the rest of us."^[3] On his father's death in 1888, Charles inherited stock in Standard Oil amounting to the second largest holding in the company, surpassed only by that of the Rockefeller family.^[4] Harkness became a director at Standard Oil and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad company, and managed his father's immense holdings.^[3]

Harkness was a member of the University Club of New York and the Morris County Golf Club of Morristown, NJ.

He died suddenly in 1916, leaving a fortune estimated at $170,000,000.^[4]

Legacy

Harkness Tower at Yale is named after Harkness because his mother, Anna Harkness, provided a $3,000,000 donation to build the Memorial Quadrangle of dormitories in his memory. Harkness tower contains a carillon of 10 bells, the largest of which is inscribed "In Memory of Charles W. Harkness, Class of 1883, Yale College."^[3]

The Cleveland Museum of Art has a $100,000 permanent endowment known as the Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund,^[5] which was created through a donation from his widow, Mary Warden Harkness.

References

1. ^ "Chas. W. Harkness Left An Estate of 60,000,000," New York Times, December 8, 1916
2. ^ Phelps Association Membership Directory, 2006
3. ^ ^{a b c} Yale University, A History of the Yale Memorial Carillon
4. ^ ^{a b} Forbes, America's Richest
5. ^ The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Vol. 15, No. 2, February 1928

Persondata
Name	Harkness, Charles W.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	December 17, 1860
Place of birth
Date of death	May 1, 1916
Place of death