B died. What happened afterwards has been told in full in affidavits made in 188o,1 and they shall tell the story; the only change made in the documents being to transfer them for the sake of clarity from the legal third person to the first, and to condense them on account of space.
Mrs. B 's story as told in her affidavit is as follows: husband having contracted a debt not long prior to his death for the first time in his life, I, for the interest of my fatherless children, as well as myself, thought it my duty to endeavour to continue the business, and accordingly took $92,000 of the stock of the B— Oil Company and afterwards reduced it to $72,000 or $75,000, the whole stock of the company being $roo,000, and continued business from that time until November, 1878, making handsome profits out of the business during perhaps the hardest years of the time since Mr. B— had commenced. Some time in November, 1878, the Standard Oil Company sent a man to me by the name of Peter S. Jennings, who had been engaged in the refining business and had sold out to the Standard Oil Company. I told Mr. Jennings that I would carry on no negotia tions with him whatever, but that if the Standard Oil Company desired to buy my stock I must transact the business with its principal officer, Mr. Rockefeller. Mr. Jennings, as representing the Standard Oil Company, told me that the president of the company, Mr. Rockefeller, said that said company would control the refining business, and that he hoped it could be done in one or two years; but if not, it would be done, anyway, if it took ten years to do it.
"After two or three days' delay Mr. Rockefeller called upon me at my residence to talk over the negotiation with regard to the purchase of my stock. I told Mr. Rockefeller that I realised the fact that the B— Oil Company was entirely in the power of the Standard Oil Company, and that all I could do would be to appeal to his honour as a gentleman and to his sympathy to do with me the best that he could; and I begged of him to consider his wife in my position—that I had been left with this business and with my fatherless children, and with a large indebtedness that Mr. B— had just contracted for the first time in his life; that I felt that I could not do without the income arising from this business, and that I had taken it up and gone on and been successful, and I was left with it in the hardest years since my husband commenced the business. He said he was aware of what I had done, and that his wife
could never have accomplished so much. I called his attention to the contract that my husband had made with him in relation to carbon oil, whereby the Standard Oil Company agreed not to touch the lubricating branch of the trade carried on by my husband, and reminded him that I had held to that contract rigidly, at a great loss to the B— Oil Company, but did so because I regarded it a matter of honour to live up to it. I told him that I had become alarmed because the Standard Oil Company was getting control of all the refineries in the country, and that I feared that the said Standard Oil Company would go into the lubricating trade, and reminded him that he had sent me word that the Standard Oil Company would not interfere with that branch of the trade. He promised, with tears in his eyes, that he would stand by me in this transaction, and that I should not be wronged; and he told me that, in case the sale was made, I might retain whatever amount of the stock of the B— Oil Com pany I desired, his object appearing to be only to get the controlling stock of the com pany. He said that while the negotiations were pending he would come and see me, and I thought that his feelings were such on, the subject that I could trust him and that he would deal honourably by me.
"Seeing that I was compelled to sell out, I wanted the Standard Oil Company to make me a proposition, and endeavoured to get them to do so, but they would not make a proposition. I then made a proposition that the whole stock of the B— Oil Company with accrued dividends should be sold to said Standard Oil Company for $200,000, which was, in fact, much below what the stock ought to have been sold for; but they ridiculed the amount, and at last offered me only $79,00o, not including accounts, and required that each stockholder in the B— Oil Company should enter into a bond that within the period of ten years he or she would not directly or indirectly engage in or in any way be concerned in the refining, manufacturing, pro ducing, piping, or dealing in petroleum or in any of its products within the county of Cuyahoga and state of Ohio, nor at any other place whatever.