Bull was born on August 23, 1844, in New York City. He was the seventh child and youngest son of Frederic Bull and Mary Huntington Bull. Among his siblings were Elizabeth Atwater Bull, Frederic Bull, and Anna Chester Bull. His paternal grandparent were Elizabeth Bull and Jireh Bull and his maternal grandparents were Peter Lanman and Abigail Lanman. Through his mother, he was a first cousin of scholar Charles Rockwell Lanman. After receiving a preparatory education, he studied at the College of the City of New York, where he graduated in 1864.
Career
After graduation, Bull began his business career by joining Edward Sweet & Co., a banking house founded in 1854 where his brother-in-law was the senior partner. In 1867, he became a partner, a position he held uninterruptedly for over forty-five years. The prominent firm became known as "a Vanderbilt and Rockefeller house" and E. H. Harriman did business for the firm when he was a broker. Bull served as a director of several companies, including the Northern Pacific Railway, the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway, the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway, and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. In 1869, Bull joined the New York Stock Exchange and was "one of fifty brokers who secured his membership for $1,000 a piece when the Stock Exchange was consolidated with the gold board." He later became a member of the Exchange's board of governors and in May 1888, he was elected president of the Exchange, and served two terms until he was succeeded by Watson B. Dickerman in 1890. He retired from business in 1908. Shortly after his death, Edward Sweet & Co., which was then at 34 Pine Street, was dissolved and its business taken over by Chandler Brothers & Co. of New York and Philadelphia. Sweet partner Lewis E. Waring became a partner in Chandler, although his fellow partners Frederic Bull and Louis Livingston did not.
Personal life
On February 15, 1871, Bull was married to Sara Newton "Tasie" Worthington . Tasie was the daughter of prominent businessman and inventor Henry Rossiter Worthington and Sara Jane Worthington. Together, they resided at 805 Fifth Avenue and were the parents of:
Frederic Bull, who married his second cousin, Mary Helen Robinson in 1895. They divorced on December 2, 1926, and six days later he married Susan Fish Dresser, daughter of D. LeRoy Dresser and niece of Edith Stuyvesant Gerry. After her death, he married Corinne Strange, a widow of Albert Bruton Strange, in 1938.
Henry Worthington Bull, who married Maud Maria Livingston, a daughter of Robert Cambridge Livingston and Maria Livingston, in 1904. Her niece, Phyllis Livingston Potter, was the wife of Fred Astaire.
William Lanman Bull Jr., who married Matilda E. Heppenheimer, a daughter of Otto Heppenheimer, in 1904.
