Suits and Countersuits

All of the foregoing changes in name and business organization must have been highly confusing to the wide array of agents and retail druggists over many states and the provinces of Canada with whom these several firms had been doing business. And when George Wells and J. Carlton split off from Lucius and established their own office down the street, it was not at all clear who really represented the original Comstock business, who had a right to collect the numerous accounts and notes still outstanding, and who owned the existing trade names and formulas. Dispute was inevitable under such circumstances, and it was aggravated by Lucius' irascible temper. Unfortunately for family harmony, these business difficulties also coincided with differences among the brothers over their father's will. Samuel had died in 1840, but his will was not probated until 1846; for some reason Lucius contested its terms. There had also been litigation over the estate of Edwin, the elder brother.

United States Marshal's Office—Complaint was made against J. Carlton Comstock and Geo. Wells Comstock, of No. 9 John Street, and a clerk in their employ, for taking letters from the Post Office, belonging to Dr. L.S. Comstock, of 57 in the same street.

Dr. Comstock having missed a large number of letters, on inquiry at the Post Office it was suspected that they had been taken to No. 9 John Street.

By an arrangement with the Postmaster and his assistants, several letters were then put in the Post Office, containing orders addressed to Dr. Comstock, at 57 John Street, for goods to be sent to various places in the city to be forwarded to the country. The letters were taken by the accused or their clerk, opened at No. 9, the money taken out and the articles sent as directed, accompanied by bills in the handwriting of Geo. Wells Comstock. Warrants were then issued by the U.S. Commissioner and Recorder Talmadge, and two of the accused found at home were arrested and a large number of letters belonging to Dr. C. found on the premises. J.C. Comstock has not yet been arrested. It is said he is out of the city.

These two young men have for some months been trading sometimes under the name of "Comstock & Brother", and sometimes as "Judson & Co." at No. 9 John Street.

The same episode was also mentioned in the Express, the Commercial Advertiser, and the Tribune. In fact, a spirited debate in the "affair of the letters" was carried on in the pages of the press for a week. The brothers defended themselves in the following notice printed in the Morning Express for May 31:

OBTAINING LETTERS

Painful as it is, we are again compelled to appear before the public in defense of our character as citizens and business men. The two letters referred to by L.S. Comstock (one of which contained One Dollar only) were both directed "Comstock &Co." which letters we claim; and we repeat what we have before said, and what we shall prove that no letter or letters from any source directed to L.S. Comstock or Lucius S. Comstock have been taken or obtained by either of us or any one in our employ.

The public can judge whether a sense of "duty to the Post Office Department and the community", induced our brother to make this charge against us (which if proved would consign us to the Penitentiary) and under the pretence of searching for letters, which perhaps never existed; to send Police Officers to invade not only our store, but our dwelling house, where not even the presence of our aged Mother could protect from intrusion. These are the means by which he has put himself

FIGURE 2.—Wrapper for Oldridge's Balm of Columbia, Comstock & Co., druggists.

Lucius, for his part, never deigned to recognize his opponents as brothers but merely described them as "two young men who claim relationship to me."

It was the position of J. Carlton and George that as they, equally with Lucius, were heirs of the dissolved firm of Comstock & Co. Brothers, they had as much right as Lucius to receive and open letters so addressed. Moreover, since the predecessor firm of Comstock & Co. had never been dissolved, J. Carlton also shared in any rights, claims, or property of this firm. In a more personal vein, the brothers also asserted in their brief that Lucius "is not on speaking terms with his aged mother nor any one of his brothers or sisters, Nephews or Nieces, or even of his Uncles or Aunts, embracing quite a large circle all of whom have been estranged from him, either by personal difficulties with him, or his improper conduct towards his brothers." Lucius, in turn, had copies of his charges against his brothers, together with aspersions against their character and their medicines, printed as circulars and widely distributed to all present or former customers in the United States and Canada.

Meanwhile the civil litigation respecting the division of the assets of the old partnership, broken down into a welter of complaints and countercomplaints, dragged on until 1852. No document reporting the precise terms of the final settlement was discovered, although the affair was obviously compromised on some basis, as the surviving records do speak of a division of the stock in New York City and at St. Louis. The original premises at 57 John Street were left in the possession of Lucius. In this extensive litigation, J. Carlton and George were represented by the law firm of Allen, Hudson & Campbell, whose bill for $2,132 they refused to pay in full, so that they were, in turn, sued by the Allen firm. Some of the lengthy evidence presented in this collection suit enlightened further the previous contest with Lucius. He was described as an extremely difficult person: "at one time the parties came to blows—and G.W. gave the Dr. a black eye." The action by the law firm to recover its fee was finally compromised by the payment of $1,200 in January 1854.

The settlement of the affairs of Comstock & Co. Brothers failed to bring peace between Lucius and the others. The rival successor firms continued to bicker over sales territory and carried the battle out into the countryside, each contending for the loyalty of former customers. Letters and circulars attacking their opponents were widely distributed by both parties. As late as December 1855, more than four years after the event, Lucius was still complaining, in a series of printed circulars, about the "robbery" of his mail from the post office, although the case had been dismissed by the court.

But somehow the new firm of Comstock & Brother triumphed over Comstock & Co., for in the summer of 1853 Lucius found it necessary to make an assignment of all of his assets to his creditors. Thereafter he removed his business from John Street to 45 Vesey Street, in the rear of St. Paul's Churchyard, but although he put out impressive new handbills describing his firm as "Wholesale Chemists, Druggists and Perfumers," he apparently no longer prospered in the drug trade, for old New York City directories show that he shortly turned his main energies to the practice of law. Versatile as he was, Lucius entered the Union Army as a surgeon during the Civil War, and upon his return he resumed his legal career, continuing to his death in 1876. Aside from his role in the Comstock medicine business, Lucius also rates a footnote in United States political history as the foreman of the grand jury that indicted Boss Tweed in 1872.