Wadsworth & Phelps

John Villiers Farwell joined the firm of Wadsworth and Phelps (later known as Cooley, Wadsworth, & Company), of which he was made general manager.

In 1854 he married Emeret Cooley, a sister of a business associate; they had three sons and a daughter. In 1862 the firm became known as Cooley, Farwell, and Company, then in 1865, after he took it over, John V. Farwell and Company. Marshall Field, Potter Palmer, Levi Z. Leiter, and S.N. Kellogg were numbered among Farwell's partners at one time or another, and the Farwell Company was for many years Chicago's leading dry goods store.

Having thus received his bent towards a mercantile career, John Villiers Farwell entered the concern of Wadsworth & Phelps as a clerk, at a salary of $600 a year; but was admitted to a partnership in 1850, the title of the firm becoming Cooley, Farwell & Company, in 1860.