John William Sterling

John William Sterling (May 12, 1844 – July 5, 1918) was a corporate attorney and major benefactor to Yale University. John William Sterling was born in Stratford, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in 1864 and was a member of Skull and Bones. He was admitted to the bar three years later. He obtained an M.A. degree in 1874 and an LL.D. from Columbia Law School in 1893. He became a corporate lawyer in New York, and helped found the law firm of Shearman & Sterling in 1871, a firm that represented Jay Gould, Henry Ford, the Rockefeller family, and Standard Oil. On his death in 1918, Sterling left a residuary estate of $15 million to Yale, at the time the "largest sum of money ever donated to an institution of higher...