page_title: Marshall Ayres Jr.
section_title: Business
hierarchical_section_title: Marshall Ayres Jr. / Business
caption_attribution_description: English: Ayres &amp; Lombard Bank &amp; Store, Griggsville, Illinois, 1847
context_page_description: Marshall Ayres Jr. was an industrial financier.
context_section_description: After graduation, Ayres went to New York as a financier in the oil industry.  In 1869, he partnered with cousin, friend, and classmate Josiah Lombard to create the Lombard, Stevens & Co., then the Lombard & Ayres, and finally the Lombard, Ayres & Company.  The two families had already been successful business partners back in Illinois with the Ayres & Lombard Bank & Store, and also a steamboat ferry called Prairie State. This, at the time, was the only other oil investment company to stand out against the giant Standard Oil Company.  Lombard, Ayers & Co. then consolidated with the Tidewater Oil Company, which later became part of ExxonMobil. Lombard, Ayers & Co. became extremely successful, and both partners became very rich.
  In 1887, they built the 20,000 square feet (1,900 m²) corporate vacation home Villa Maria  Water Mill, Long Island, where the two families could relax for the summer, but Ayres' wife Louise died in September and never got to enjoy it.
  In 1888, Lombard, Ayers & Co. became one of the incorporators of Tidewater Oil Company, which also absorbed three smaller oil houses. In 1889 the company was sold to Tidewater Oil Co.
  For the next 6 years Ayres became Vice President and New York manager of the Elwell Mercantile Company that mainly did business in Santiago de Cuba.
  In 1891, the company Lombard & Ayres was worth $1,250,000 and owned the Seaboard Lumber Company, and were heavy exporters of oil to Mexico where they had refineries in Veracruz and San Luis Potosí.
  In 1893, still acting as a separate company under the Tidewater Oil Company, Lombard & Ayres transferred its form from a corporation to a copartnership.
  In 1894, the Lombard & Ayres company was worth $1,000,000, as the majority of its wealth was kept in the Phenix National Bank in London, where Lombard was the Director.  The company also owned the New York, Mobile, and Mexican Steamship Company, as well as a small line in Alabama called the Seaboard Railway Company.
  According to the New York Times article on December 18, 1895, Att. Randoph Parmly of 160 Broadway St. in New York was appointed receiver. The law firm Marsten & Nichols handled the transaction, as Josiah Lombard and Marshall Ayres were in a "friendly" business dispute over various company handling.  At the time, the firm's assets were just under a million dollars, with about $200,000 in liabilities.  The major dispute was over the owning of the Seaboard Lumber Company worth about $500,000 in stock.
caption: Ayres & Lombard Bank & Store-Griggsville, IL 1847
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