rd by the public, were never mentioned in the
newspapers, never ran for public office, their names never listed in any
directories, biographies or encyclopedias, and in fact they were not
noticed anywhere--except in the advertising material of Comstock & Co.
and B.L. Judson. Perhaps such credulity was not unusual in the 1850s,
before the advent of widely distributed newspapers and other means of
communication, but more than fifty years later, in the early years of
the present century, essentially the same version of the history of Dr.
Morse was still being printed in the Comstock almanacs.

*The Struggle for Control of the Indian Root Pills*

The agreement of August 10, 1855, between Andrew J. White and the
Comstocks established a partnership "for the purpose of manufacturing
and selling Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills and for no other purpose," the
partners thereof being A.J. White as an individual and Comstock &
Brother as a firm. The new partnership was named A.J. White & Co., but
White contributed no money or property--nothing but the right to Dr.
Morse's Indian Root Pills. The Comstock firm supplied all of the
tangible assets, together with the use of their existing business
premises. In turn, Comstock was to receive three fourths and White one
fourth of the profits. In brief, the new firm, although bearing White's
name, was controlled by the Comstocks.

It is not clear why Moore, the originator of the pills, was not taken
into the new business or otherwise recognized in the agreement. As we
have seen, White claimed absolute ownership of Dr. Morse's Indian Root
Pills, but Moore evidently did not agree, for he continued to
manufacture and peddle his own pills, at the same time denouncing those
prepared by A.J. White & Co. under Comstock control as forgeries. Moore
had previously been in business in Buffalo, at 225 Main Street, under
his own name; an announcement in the 1854 Buffalo City Directory (the
_Commercial Advertiser_) describes his firm as successor both to C.C.
Bristol and to Moore, Liebetrut & Co. The same directory shows White as
merely a clerk at Moore's place of business, although he was made a
partner sometime during 1854.

Cyrenius C. Bristol, whose business Moore took over, had entered the
drug trade in 1832, initially in partnership with a Dr. G.E. Hayes. In
the drug field his best known preparation was Bristol's renowned
sarsaparilla, and he is credited with having originated the
patent-medicin