History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morses Indian Root Pills | Page 8

Robert B. Shaw
this much about Moore's antecedents, a very considerable mystery remains. If Moore was the proprietor of his own apparently prosperous drug and medicine business in Buffalo in 1854, with White as one of his clerks, how did it happen that in the following year White represented himself to the Comstocks as the sole owner of Dr. Morse's (Moore's) Indian Root Pills? And Moore, although he initially disputed this claim, left his own business in Buffalo and ultimately joined White and the Comstocks, not even in the capacity of a partner, but merely as an employee.
These events would seem, however, to date the origin of the Indian Root Pills fairly closely. Moore was already manufacturing them in Buffalo prior to White's initial agreement with the Comstocks, but as he did not mention them by name in his Commercial Advertiser announcement in 1854, it is a fair presumption that the pills were new at this time. But they must have caught on very rapidly to induce the Comstocks to enter a partnership with White, under his name, when he contributed only the Indian Root Pills but no cash or other tangible assets.
[Illustration: FIGURE 7.--Wrapper for Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills, A.J. White & Co., sole proprietor.]
[Illustration: FIGURE 8.--Indian Root Pill labels: _a_, original used by Moore, the originator of the pills; _b_, initial label used by A.J. White & Co. under Comstock ownership, 1855-1857; _c_, revised label adopted by Comstocks in June 1857 after Moore changed the color of his label to blue; _d_, label adopted by Moore and White for selling in competition with the Comstocks, 1859. Obviously printed from the same plate as _c_, but with an additional signature just above the Indian on horseback; _e_, new label adopted by the Comstocks after the departure of Moore and White; _f_, label used in the final years of the business; _g_, label, in Spanish, used in final years for export trade to Latin America.]
While manufacturing the pills in Buffalo, Moore had been packaging them under a yellow label bearing a pictorial representation of the British coat-of-arms, flanked on one side by an Indian and on the other by a figure probably supposed to represent a merchant or a sea captain. The labels also described Moore as the proprietor, "without whose signature none can be genuine." And after the formation of A.J. White & Co. and the purported transfer of Dr. Morse's pills to it, Moore still continued to sell the same medicine and to denounce the White-Comstock product as spurious. The latter was packaged under a white label showing an Indian warrior riding horseback and was signed "A.J. White & Co." While the color was shortly changed to blue and the name of the proprietor several times amended through the ensuing vicissitudes, the label otherwise remained substantially unchanged for as long as the pills continued to be manufactured, or for over 100 years.
The nuisance of Moore's independent manufacture of the pills was temporarily eliminated when, on June 21, 1858, Moore was hired by A.J. White & Co.[5] and abandoned competition with them. The Comstocks, in employing him, insisted upon a formal, written agreement whereunder Moore agreed to discontinue any manufacture or sale of the pills and to assign all rights and title therein, together with any related engravings, cuts, or designs, to A.J. White & Co. As previously stated, the two Comstock brothers, Judson, and White had offered either to sell the Indian Root Pill business in its entirety to Moore, or to buy it from him. Moore's employment by A.J. White & Co. presumably followed his election not to purchase and operate the business himself.
So far so good. The Comstocks' claim to the Indian Root Pills through the 75 percent controlled A.J. White & Co. now seemed absolutely secure and the disparagement of their products at an end. But new dissension must have occurred, for on New Year's Day of 1859, without prior notice, Moore and White absented themselves from the Comstock office, taking with them as many of the books, accounts, records, and other assets of A.J. White & Co. as they could carry. Forthwith they established a business of their own, also under the name of A.J. White & Co., at 10 Courtlandt Street, where they resumed the manufacture and distribution of Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills, under a close facsimile of the label already being used by the A.J. White-Comstock firm.
These events left the Comstocks in an embarrassing position. For over three years they had been promoting the A.J. White trade name, but now they could hardly keep a competitor from operating under his own name. Their official attitude was that the old firm of A.J. White & Co. was still in existence and controlled by the Comstocks. But shortly they conceded this point tacitly when they
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