History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills Part 1

History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills.

by Robert B. Shaw.

SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY NUMBER 22

COVER: Changing methods of packaging Comstock remedies over the years.--Lower left: Original packaging of the Indian Root Pills in oval veneer boxes. Lower center: The gla.s.s bottles and cardboard and tin boxes. Lower right: The modern packaging during the final years of domestic manufacture. Upper left: The Indian Root Pills as they are still being packaged and distributed in Australia. Upper center: Dr.

Howard's Electric Blood Builder Pills. Upper right: Comstock's Dead Shot Worm Pellets.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Shaw, Robert B., 1916--

History of the Comstock patent medicine business and of Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills. (Smithsonian studies in history and technology, no.

22)

Bibliography: p.

1. Comstock (W.H.) Company. I. t.i.tle. II. Series: Smithsonian Inst.i.tution. Smithsonian studies in history and technology, no. 22.

HD9666.9.C62S46 338.7'6'615886 76 39864

_Official publication date is handstamped in a limited number of initial copies and is recorded in the Inst.i.tution's annual report_, Smithsonian Year.

For sale by the Superintendent of Doc.u.ments, U.S. Government Printing Office Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. 20402--Price 65 cents (paper cover) Stock Number 4700-0204

*History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and of Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills*

For nearly a century a conspicuous feature of the small riverside village of Morristown, in northern New York State, was the W.H.

Comstock factory, better known as the home of the celebrated Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills. This business never grew to be more than a modest undertaking in modern industrial terms, and amid the congestion of any large city its few buildings straddling a branch railroad and its work force of several dozens at most would have been little noticed, but in its rural setting the enterprise occupied a prominent role in the economic life of the community for over ninety years. Aside from the omnipresent forest and dairy industries, it represented the only manufacturing activity for miles around and was easily the largest single employer in its village, as well as the chief recipient and s.h.i.+pper of freight at the adjacent railroad station. For some years, early in the present century, the company supplied a primitive electric service to the community, and the Comstock Hotel, until it was destroyed by fire, served as the princ.i.p.al village hostelry.

But the influence of this business was by no means strictly local. For decades thousands of boxes of pills and bottles of elixir, together with advertising circulars and almanacs in the millions, flowed out of this remote village to druggists in thousands of communities in the United States and Canada, in Latin America, and in the Orient. And Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills and the other remedies must have been household names wherever people suffered aches and infirmities. Thus Morristown, notwithstanding its placid appearance, played an active role in commerce and industry throughout the colorful patent-medicine era.

Today, the Indian Root Pill factory stands abandoned and forlorn--its decline and demise brought on by an age of more precise medical diagnoses and the more stringent enforcement of various food and drug acts. After abandonment, the factory was ransacked by vandals; and records, doc.u.ments, wrappers, advertising circulars, pills awaiting packaging, and other effects were thrown down from the shelves and scattered over the floors. This made it impossible to recover and examine the records systematically. The former proprietors of the business, however, had for some reason--perhaps sheer inertia--apparently preserved all of their records for over a century, storing them in the loft-like attic over the packaging building. Despite their careless treatment, enough records were recovered to reconstruct most of the history of the Comstock enterprise and to cast new light upon the patent-medicine industry of the United States during its heyday.

The Comstock business, of course, was far from unique. Hundreds of manufacturers of proprietary remedies flourished during the 1880s and 1890s the Druggists' Directory for 1895 lists approximately 1,500. The great majority of these factories were much smaller than Comstock; one suspects, in fact, that most of them were no more than backroom enterprises conducted by untrained, but ambitious, druggists who, with parttime help, mixed up some mysterious concoctions and contrived imaginative advertising schemes. A few of these businesses were considerably larger than Comstock.

However, the Comstock company would seem to be typical of the more strongly established patent-medicine manufacturers, and therefore a closer examination of this particular enterprise should also illuminate its entire industry.

*The Origin of the Business*

The Indian Root Pill business was carried on during most of its existence by two members of the Comstock family--father and son--and because of unusual longevity, this control by two generations extended for over a century. The plant was also located in Morristown for approximately ninety years. The Indian Root Pills, however, were not actually originated by the Comstock family, nor were they discovered in Morristown. Rather, the business had its genesis in New York City, at a time when the city still consisted primarily of two-or three-story buildings and did not extend beyond the present 42nd Street.

According to an affidavit written in 1851--and much of the history of the business is derived from doc.u.ments prepared in connection with numerous lawsuits--the founder of the Comstock drug venture was Edwin Comstock, sometime in or before 1833. Edwin, along with the numerous other brothers who will shortly enter the picture, was a son of Samuel Comstock, of b.u.t.ternuts, Otsego County, New York. Samuel, a fifth-generation descendant of William Comstock, one of the pioneer settlers of New London, Connecticut, and ancestor of most of the Comstocks in America, was born in East Lyme, Connecticut, a few years before the Revolution, but sometime after the birth of Edwin in 1794 he moved to Otsego County, New York.

Edwin, in 1828, moved to Batavia, New York, where his son, William Henry Comstock, was born on August 1, 1830. Within four or five years, however, Edwin repaired to New York City, where he established the extensive drug and medicine business that was to be carried on by members of his family for over a century. Just why Edwin performed this brief sojourn in Batavia, or where he made his initial entry into the drug trade, is not clear, although the rapid growth of his firm in New York City suggests that he had had previous experience in that field. It is a plausible surmise that he may have worked in Batavia in the drug store of Dr. Levant B. Cotes, which was destroyed in the village-wide fire of April 19, 1833; the termination of Edwin's career in Batavia might have been a.s.sociated either with that disaster or with the death of his wife in 1831.

The Comstocks also obviously had some medical tradition in their family.

Samuel's younger brother, John Lee Comstock, was trained as a physician and served in that capacity during the War of 1812--although he was to gain greater prominence as a historian and natural philosopher. All five of Samuel's sons partic.i.p.ated at least briefly in the drug trade, while two of them also had careers as medical doctors. A cousin of Edwin, Thomas Griswold Comstock (born 1829), also became a prominent homeopathic physician and gynecologist in St. Louis.[1] It might also be significant that the original home of the Comstock family, in Connecticut, was within a few miles of the scene of the discovery of the first patent medicine in America--Lee's "Bilious Pills"--by Dr. Samuel Lee (1744-1805), of Windham, sometime prior to 1796.[2] This medicine enjoyed such a rapid success that it was soon being widely imitated, and the Comstocks could not have been unaware of its popularity.

So it seems almost certain that Edwin was no longer a novice when he established his own drug business in New York City. Between 1833 and 1837 he employed his brother, Lucius S. Comstock (born in 1806), as a clerk, and for the next fifteen years Lucius will figure very conspicuously in this story. He not merely appended the designation "M.D." to his name and claimed members.h.i.+p in the Medical Society of the City of New York, but also described himself as a Counsellor-at-Law.

Edwin, the founder of the business, did not live long to enjoy its prosperity--or perhaps we should say that he was fortunate enough to pa.s.s away before it experienced its most severe vicissitudes and trials.

After Edwin's death in 1837, Lucius continued the business in partners.h.i.+p with another brother, Albert Lee, under the style of Comstock & Co. Two more brothers, John Carlton (born 1819) and George Wells (born 1820), were employed as clerks.

[Footnote 1: _National Cyclopedia of American Biography_, VII: 280.]

[Footnote 2: The Comstock brothers' grandmother, Esther Lee, was apparently unrelated to Dr. Samuel Lee, the inventor of the Bilious Pills.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURE 1.--Original wrapper for Carltons Liniment, 1851.]

The partners.h.i.+p of Comstock & Co. between Lucius and Albert was terminated by a dispute between the two brothers in 1841, and Albert went his own way, taking up a career as a physician and living until 1876. Lucius next went into business with his mother-in-law, Anne Moore, from 1841 to 1846; after the dissolution of this firm, he formed a new partners.h.i.+p, also under the name of Comstock & Co., with his brother John (generally known as J. Carlton). This firm again employed as clerks George Wells Comstock and a nephew, William Henry, a son of Edwin.

William Henry was to eventually become the founder of the business at Morristown.

In March of 1849, still a new partners.h.i.+p was formed, comprising Lucius, J. Carlton, and George Wells, under the name of Comstock & Co. Brothers, although the existing partners.h.i.+p of Comstock & Co. was not formally terminated. a.s.sets, inventories, and receivables in the process of collection were a.s.signed by Comstock & Co. to Comstock & Co. Brothers.

But before the end of 1849 the partners quarreled, Lucius fell out with his brothers, and after a period of dissension, the firm of Comstock & Co. Brothers was dissolved as of August 1, 1850. On or about the same date J. Carlton and George Wells formed a new partners.h.i.+p, under the name of Comstock & Brother, doing business at 9 John Street in New York City, also taking their nephew, William Henry, as a clerk. Lucius continued in business at the old address of 57 John Street. As early as June 30, 1851, the new firm of Comstock & Brother registered the following trade names[3] with the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution: Carlton's Liniment, a certain remedy for the Piles; Carlton's Celebrated Nerve and Bone Liniment for Horses; Carlton's Condition Powder for Horses and Cattle; Judson's Chemical Extract of Cherry and Lungwort.

The repet.i.tion of his name suggests that J. Carlton was the princ.i.p.al inventor of his firm's remedies.

Suits and Countersuits

All of the foregoing changes in name and business organization must have been highly confusing to the wide array of agents and retail druggists over many states and the provinces of Canada with whom these several firms had been doing business. And when George Wells and J. Carlton split off from Lucius and established their own office down the street, it was not at all clear who really represented the original Comstock business, who had a right to collect the numerous accounts and notes still outstanding, and who owned the existing trade names and formulas.

Dispute was inevitable under such circ.u.mstances, and it was aggravated by Lucius' irascible temper. Unfortunately for family harmony, these business difficulties also coincided with differences among the brothers over their father's will. Samuel had died in 1840, but his will was not probated until 1846; for some reason Lucius contested its terms. There had also been litigation over the estate of Edwin, the elder brother.

With the inability of the two parties to reach friendly agreement, a lawsuit was initiated in June 1850 between Lucius on the one hand and J.

Carlton and George Wells on the other for the apportionment of the property of Comstock & Co. Brothers, which was valued at about $25,000 or $30,000. Subsequently, while this litigation was dragging on, Lucius found a more satisfying opportunity to press his quarrel against his brothers. This arose out of his belief that they were taking his mail out of the post office.

On May 26, 1851, one of the New York newspapers, the _Day Book_, carried the following item:

United States Marshal's Office--Complaint was made against J.

Carlton Comstock and Geo. Wells Comstock, of No. 9 John Street, and a clerk in their employ, for taking letters from the Post Office, belonging to Dr. L.S. Comstock, of 57 in the same street.

Dr. Comstock having missed a large number of letters, on inquiry at the Post Office it was suspected that they had been taken to No. 9 John Street.

By an arrangement with the Postmaster and his a.s.sistants, several letters were then put in the Post Office, containing orders addressed to Dr. Comstock, at 57 John Street, for goods to be sent to various places in the city to be forwarded to the country. The letters were taken by the accused or their clerk, opened at No. 9, the money taken out and the articles sent as directed, accompanied by bills in the handwriting of Geo. Wells Comstock. Warrants were then issued by the U.S. Commissioner and Recorder Talmadge, and two of the accused found at home were arrested and a large number of letters belonging to Dr. C. found on the premises. J.C. Comstock has not yet been arrested. It is said he is out of the city.

These two young men have for some months been trading sometimes under the name of "Comstock & Brother", and sometimes as "Judson & Co." at No. 9 John Street.

The same episode was also mentioned in the _Express_, the _Commercial Advertiser_, and the _Tribune_. In fact, a spirited debate in the "affair of the letters" was carried on in the pages of the press for a week. The brothers defended themselves in the following notice printed in the _Morning Express_ for May 31:

OBTAINING LETTERS

Painful as it is, we are again compelled to appear before the public in defense of our character as citizens and business men.

The two letters referred to by L.S. Comstock (one of which contained One Dollar only) _were both directed "Comstock & Co."

which letters we claim; and we repeat what we have before said, and what we shall prove that no letter or letters from any source directed to L.S. Comstock or Lucius S. Comstock have been taken or obtained by either of us or any one in our employ_.