of Rockefeller, Andrews,
and Flagler, joining hands with several large capitalists in Cleveland
and New York, was incorporated under the name of the Standard Oil
Company of Ohio. In 1870 about twenty-five independent refineries, many
of them prosperous and powerful, were manufacturing oil in the city
of Cleveland; two years afterward this new Standard Oil Company had
absorbed all of them except five: In these two critical years the oil
business of the largest refining center in the United States had thus
passed into Rockefeller's hands. By 1874 the greatest refineries in New
York and Philadelphia had likewise merged their identity with his own.
When Rockefeller began his acquisition, there were thirty independent
refineries operating in Pittsburgh, all of which, in four or five years,
passed one by one under his control. The largest refineries of Baltimore
surrendered in 1875.

These capitulations left only one important refining headquarters in the
United States which the Standard had not absorbed. This was that section
of western Pennsylvania where the oil business had had its origin. The
mere fact that this area was the headquarters of the oil supply gave it
great advantages as a place for manufacturing the finished product.
The oil regions regarded these advantages as giving them the right to
dominate the growing industry, and they had frequently proclaimed the
doctrine that the business belonged to them. They hated Rockefeller
as much as they feared him, yet at the very moment when the Titusville
operators were hanging him in effigy and posting the hoardings with
cabalistic signs against his corporation, this mysterious, almost
uncanny power was encircling them: Men who one night were addressing
public meetings denouncing the Standard influence would suddenly sell
out their holdings the next day. In 1875 John D. Archbold, a brilliant
young refiner who had grown up in the oil regions and who had gained
much local fame as opponent of the Standard, appeared in Titusville
as the President of the Acme Oil Company. At that time there were
twenty-seven independent refineries in this section. Archbold began
buying and leasing these establishments for his Acme Company, and in
about four years practically every one had passed under his control. The
Acme Company was merely a subsidiary of the Standard Oil. These rapid
purchasing campaigns gave the Standard ninety per cent of all the
refineries in the United States, but Rocke