History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root PillsShaw, Robert B.
History
History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills
Shaw, Robert B.
Patent medicines -- United States; W.H. Comstock Co.
Since no copy of this agreement was found, we do not know what
inducement was offered to Moore and White. However, hundreds of
announcements of the settlement, directed "To the debtors of the late
firm of A.J. WHITE & CO." were printed, advising that
The controversy and the difficulties between the members of the old
firm of A.J. White & Co. of No. 50 Leonard Street, New York, being
ended, we hereby notify all parties to whom MORSE'S INDIAN ROOT
PILLS were sent or delivered prior to January 1, 1859, and all
parties holding for collection or otherwise, any of said claims or
demands for said Pills, that we the undersigned have forever
relinquished, and have now no claim, right, title or interest in
said debts or claims, and authorize the use of the names of said
firm whenever necessary in recovering, collecting and settling such
debts and claims.
The announcement was signed by Andrew J. White and Andrew B. Moore.
This should have been the end of this wearisome affair, but it was not.
It soon appeared that Moore had violated this agreement by concealing a
number of accounts, together with a quantity of pills, circulars,
labels, and a set of plates, and, in the words of Comstock's complaint,
transferred them "to James Blakely, an irresponsible person in Canada
West." And Blakely evidently continued to collect such accounts for the
benefit of himself and Moore. However, the Comstocks also entered the
scene of strife, and sometime during the summer of 1862 William Henry
Comstock, then traveling in Ontario, collected a note in the amount of
$7.50 in favor of A.J. White & Co., as he had every right to do, but
endorsed it "James Blakely for A.J. White & Co." Blakely, when he
learned of this, charged Comstock with forgery; Comstock in turn charged
Blakely with libel. Comstock probably defended his somewhat questionable
endorsement by the agreement of March 26 of the previous year; in any
event the case was dismissed by a Justice of the Peace in Ottawa without
comment. In New York City, on November 25, the Comstocks had Moore
arrested again, with White at this time testifying in their support.
There was also an attempt to prosecute Blakely in Canada; his defense
was that he had bought the disputed accounts and notes from Moore on
March 11, 1861--a few days before the agreement with the Comstocks--and
that his ownership of these notes was thereafter absolute and he was no
longer working as an agent for Moore.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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