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*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
shipper 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 principal 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, documents, 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 documents 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 Butternuts, 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 associated 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 participated 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 membership 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
pass away before it experienced its most severe vicissitudes and trials.
After Edwin's death in 1837, Lucius continued the business in
partnership 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.]
[Illustration: FIGURE 1.--Original wrapper for Carltons Liniment,
1851.]
The partnership 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
partnership, 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 partnership was formed, comprising Lucius,
J. Carlton, and George Wells, under the name of Comstock & Co. Brothers,
although the existing partnership of Comstock & Co. was not formally
terminated. Assets, inventories, and receivables in the process of
collection were assigned 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 partnership, 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 Institution: 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 repetition of his name suggests that J. Carlton was the principal
inventor of his firm's remedies.