John D. Rockefeller, along with a few associates, founded the Standard Oil Company in 1870. The company's origins date to 1863, when Rockefeller joined Maurice B. Clark and Samuel Andrews in a Cleveland, Ohio, oil-refining business. In 1865 Rockefeller bought out Clark, and two years later he invited Henry M. Flagler to join as a partner in the venture. By 1870 the firm of Rockefeller, Andrews, and Flagler was operating the largest refineries in Cleveland, and these and related facilities became the property of the new Standard Oil Company, incorporated in Ohio in 1870.