On the 23d of June Miller made the transfer of property ad vised by the Everests, talked over things with Truesdale, and a week later left the Buffalo Works suddenly on receipt of a telegram, and joined H. B. Everest at the Union Square Hotel in New York. Here Everest advised him to telegraph his wife to move at once to Rochester lest Matthews attach their household goods, and then proposed the two go to Boston. The only event of interest at the Union Square Hotel was an entirely casual meeting with H. H. Rogers, one of the directors of the Vacuum Oil Company. Mr. Rogers seems to have had no conversation with Miller other than to remark, in leaving, that he would see him the next day if he did not go to Boston. The men did, however, go to Boston, where they registered as "H. B. Everest and friend," and where several times, at least, Everest introduced Miller under an assumed name. They junketed about for some days on what Everest tried, with indifferent success, to persuade Miller was a pleas ure excursion! While they were amusing themselves, Everest hired Miller at $1,soo a year to "do any fair job we put him at, either at Rochester or some other place." The job turned out to be a rambling one—a few weeks of semi-idleness in Boston—then nothing until September, when he undertook to supervise the drilling of a salt well in Leroy, New York. This lasted until February, 1882; then nothing until May, when, on the advice of H. B. Everest, who had returned to California, Miller went there : "Pack up, sell your property there and come on. Come right to my house and I will help you to get a place and show you how to raise fruit and be an independent man." Miller went, the Vacuum Oil Company paying his expenses. On his arrival he was put to work in a cannery. The Everests explained that they made this arrange ment because they thought it would put Miller where he could not be brought back to trouble them any more.
In the meantime things were going badly with the Buffalo Lubricating Works. Miller's loss was a severe one. The men were all novices in making oil, save Wilson, and he was on the road, and they seem to have been unable to find a competent manager. The Everests soon succeeded, too, in getting Wilson out of the new firm by bringing a suit against him for damag ing its business by unlawfully leaving it. The suit was with drawn and the costs paid, when Wilson consented, in Decem ber, 1881, to leave the Buffalo Works. Wilson's loss was particularly serious, as he was a salesman of experience.
The suits for infringing the Vacuum patents and processes, which Everest at the start had warned Matthews would be brought, were begun in September, 188 i—four separate suits within a year. Matthews, as has been said, had convinced him self that the patents were not valid, and some time in the spring of 1882 he saw H. H. Rogers in New York concerning the suits. "I told him I had come in to talk with him about the patent litigation, or suits that were begun by the Vacuum Oil Company against my company," Matthews said in his testi mony. " 'Well,' he said, 'well, what about it?'—something like that. I told him that the product patent, that I well knew, was
without merit, and that he kfiew it was without merit, and I could not see what object or good they could get out of it by bringing suit on that patent. And also the steam Patent I considered was without value, and that he knew it was without value. He said that if one court did not sustain the patents they would carry along up until we got enough of it—that was the substance of that talk." Matthews was evidently discouraged by the result of his talk with Mr. Rogers, for, meeting Benjamin Brewster, of the Standard Oil Company, he offered to sell the Buffalo Lubri cating Works for $too,000. The offer was refused, and the suits against which Mr. Matthews protested were pushed. On the 21st of February, 1882, the Vacuum Oil Company filed a complaint in the United States Circuit Court of the North ern District of New York, asking that the Buffalo company be prevented from manufacturing lubricating oils, on the ground that the Vacuum Oil Company had a patent covering the pro cess of manufacturing lubricating oils. The action was re garded as unfounded by the court, and was dismissed on July 16, 1884, "the ground being that the letters sued on in this cause are void." April 25, 1882, another action was commenced by the Vacuum Oil Company against the Buffalo company to obtain an injunction and an accounting for damages upon the ground that the Buffalo company was using an apparatus covered by a patent belonging to the Vacuum Oil Company, but this action also was dismissed March 17, 1885, upon the ground that the letters patent sued upon were "null and void." On February 23, 1883, the Vacuum Oil Company commenced still another action against the Buffalo company asking for an injunction to prevent the Buffalo company from using a label advertising "The Acme Harness Oil made by the Vacuum Process," because the Vacuum Company had long used a somewhat similar label advertising "The Vacuum Harness Oil manufactured by Vacuum Oil Company," but the judge in the case decided that the Vacuum Company had no more right to use labels than the Buffalo company. This deci sion has since been affirmed by the General Term of the Su preme Court. Still another action was brought against the Buf falo company April 25, 1882, for infringing a patent on a steam process, also a patent upon a fire test. This action resulted in a decree sustaining the fire-test patent, but declaring the steam patent void. The case was then referred to James Breck Per kins, of the Rochester bar, to decide the amount which the Buffalo company had infringed on this patent. Mr. Per kins on a number of different occasions took a large amount of proof there in behalf of the Vacuum Company upon which its counsel claimed that it was entitled to $12,000 damages upon the accounting. The Buffalo company submitted no proof in contradiction, but insisted that the whole proof showed nothing more than a purely technical infringement of the pat ent, and this view was sustained by Mr. Perkins in his report which awarded six cents damages against the Buffalo com pany.