James O. Bloss

James O. Bloss (September 30, 1847 – December 15, 1918) was the president of the New York Cotton Exchange and domestic partner of John William Sterling, founding partner of Shearman & Sterling LLP and major benefactor to Yale University.

Biography Bloss was a member of a New England family, the progenitor of which, Edmund Bloss or Bloys, became a freeman of Watertown, Mass., in 1639. One of his grandfathers, Joseph Bloss, was a member of the detachment assigned to duty by Washington when the death sentence was executed upon Major John André.

One of the intimate friends of Bloss and Sterling was James Stillman. After the death of James Gordon Bennett Jr. in May 1918, it was learned by the administrators of his estate that he had appointed Stillman one of the administrators and trustees. Stillman had little or no opportunity to act under the authority of Bennett's will, as he had died in March 1918, two months before Bennett's death. Stillman named Sterling one of his executors. Sterling could hardly have begun his duties under Stillman's will when he too died suddenly in July 1918. The Bennett estate, the Stillman estate and the Sterling estate totaled about $76,000,000. After Sterling's death it was learned that he had appointed his long time intimate companion, Bloss, one of the executors. And a few months after Sterling's death, Bloss died. In his will Sterling left said that Bloss could be buried in his Woodlawn Cemetery mausoleum: "in case my said friend, James O. Bloss, who has lived with me for more than forty years, should desire to be interred in the said mausoleum and should die without ever having been married." But instead Bloss was buried back in Rochester, where he was born.