Stone played a critical role in helping the Standard Oil company form its monopoly, and he was a major force in the Cleveland banking, steel, and iron industries.

[3] Stone worked on the family farm during the growing and harvest seasons, and attended local public schools when not engaged in agricultural labor.

After several false starts at construction, in November 1848 the company finally issued a request for proposals to build the first leg of the line from Cleveland to Columbus, Ohio.

[40] He oversaw the construction of the Union Depot (named because all railroads in the city would use the same station) in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1866,[41] and became a director of the J&FR (probably for a single year) in 1868.

Just one month after Stone took over as general manager, he learned that the 1873 dividend (which cost $2 million) had been paid for with a loan from the Union Trust Company (a Cleveland bank).

[45] Stone remained construction superintendent of the CP&A until July 1853,[46] and of the CC&C until 1854,[5] when he resigned both offices (retaining his directorships) due to poor health.

[5] The following year, Stone and Witt signed a contract to clear and grade the 44.6-mile (71.8 km) Chicago and Milwaukee Railway from Waukegan, Illinois, to the border with Wisconsin.

The contract also required the Central to pay the Hudson River Railroad $100,000 a year ($1,948,085 in 2023 dollars) for keeping extra rolling stock on hand in the summer to handle the increased traffic moving north.

This forced Keep to pay his lenders out of his own pocket, hurting him financially, and allowed the Vanderbilt group to gain control of the Central.

Vanderbilt wanted control of the Lake Shore Railway, which had formed out of a combination of smaller Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois railroads on March 31, 1868.

[36] In May 1868, Vanderbilt's proxies attended the first Lake Shore stockholders' meeting, and discovered that LeGrand Lockwood had a sizeable financial interest in the company.

This steam streetcar line cost $68,000 ($1,556,520 in 2023 dollars) to build, and ran for 3.3 miles (5.3 km) down Willson Avenue (now East 55th Street) and then Kinsman Road to Newburgh (now the South Broadway neighborhood).

[92] Cornelius Vanderbilt picked up large blocs of stock in the road as part of the Erie War,[93] and the TW&W and LS&MS had effectively agreed to merge in 1869.

The wooden cars burst into flame when their kerosene-fed heating stoves overturned, but rescue personnel made no attempt to extinguish the fire.

They also found extensive evidence that the bridge had been poorly constructed: Struts were not in the correct place, braces were not tied together, and the bearings had been improperly laid.

[156] In the fall of 1871, Rockefeller learned of a conspiracy[i] being promoted by Thomas A. Scott (First Vice President of the Pennsylvania Railroad)[152] and Peter H. Watson (then a director of the LS&MS).

The monopoly would allow Standard Oil to dominate the national refining market, garner significantly higher profits, and drive competitors out of business.

To secure the cash, Rockefeller allowed Amasa Stone, Stillman Witt, Benjamin Brewster, and Truman P. Handy[k]—all of whom were officers in Cleveland banks—to buy shares in Standard Oil at par in December 1871.

[167] Events moved so quickly that additional capital was needed, and Rockefeller felt that the Cleveland banks could not be counted on to keep his loan requests confidential.

At a meeting between Rockefeller and the bank's directors, Stone demanded that Standard Oil be appraised and its financial condition assessed before any loan was issued.

[205] Other business interests included a Cleveland woolen mill (established in 1861),[5][22][10] and a position on the board of directors of the Buckeye Insurance Company (which he held in 1869).

[209][p] Both historic and modern sources say that Amasa Stone also invested in a wide range of factories, including those which manufactured automobiles,[22][10][5] railroad cars,[198] and bridges.

[199] It was widely assumed by the press and the public that lingering poor health brought about by the 1867 carriage accident, guilt over the Ashtabula River railroad disaster, and overwork caused his suicide.

In addition to his friendship with Abraham Lincoln, he was a key financial backer of James A. Garfield in his bid for the 1880 Republican nomination and his successful campaign for the presidency.

[230] Local architect Joseph Ireland designed a two-story, 8,500-square-foot (790 m2), Italianate mansion replete with modern conveniences and innovative safety features.

Subsequently, on April 19, 1873, Stone purchased several hundred acres of land near the villages of Elko and Red House, New York.

[251] At the time of his death, Amasa Stone was widely regarded by the press as the richest man in Cleveland,[198][252] and modern historians have called him a nationally prominent economic leader.

The city of Cleveland had no major institution of higher learning in the 1870s, and in 1880 a community commission issued a report advocating that one be founded or induced to move there.

Determined to provide women with an education, Flora Stone Mather donated a large sum of money to establish a women-only college at Western Reserve.

The novel was an attack on robber barons and industrialists, and its main character was an idealistic journalist who marries into a wealthy family and abandons his progressive values for greed, power, and materialism.