Class History

How to preserve YOUR LEGACY? There are people for that.

- William Middleton

In December 1975, when Peter Johnson was at Syracuse University working on a Ph.D. in American and British history, he was invited by someone who worked with John D. Rockefeller III to the Rockefeller Family Office. Founded in 1882, and probably the oldest office of its kind in the United States, it was known by insiders as 5600, because since 1934 it had been housed on the 56th floor at Rockefeller Center. Johnson was offered a job working on historical research for J.D. Rockefeller III. But he was set on the idea of going to Washington, DC, so he thanked the Rockefeller people and said he would let them know. Today Johnson recalls, “About a week later I said to myself, ‘Did I just tell the Rockefellers that I wasn’t sure I wanted to work for them?’ ”

Johnson left school and, on May 10, 1976, began working at 5600; he retired this June, more than four decades later. Over the years he worked for John D. Rockefeller III, Laurence Rockefeller, Nelson Rockefeller, and, from 1984 until 2017, David Rockefeller. In the flurry of press around this spring’s record-breaking Christie’s auction of David and Peggy Rockefeller’s collections, Johnson was often referred to as the family historian. He bristles a little at the title, suggesting that it would be more precise to say that he was a historian who worked for the Rockefeller family.