Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 1.djvu/259

Rh "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, producing, 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.

'Seeing that the property had to go, I asked that I might, according to the understanding with the president of the company, retain $15,000 of my stock, but the reply to this request was; 'No outsiders can have any interest in this concern; the Standard Oil Company has 'dallied' as long as it will over this matter; it must be settled up to-day or go,' and they insisted upon my signing the bond above referred to.

'The promises made by Mr. Rockefeller, president of the Standard Oil Company, were none of them fulfilled; he neither allowed me to retain any portion of my stock, nor did he in any way assist me in my negotiations for the sale of my stock; but, on the contrary, was largely instrumental in my being obliged to sell the property much below its true value, and requiring me to enter into the oppressive bond above referred to.

'After the arrangements for the sale of the refinery and of my stock were fully completed and the property had been sold by myself and the other stockholders, and after I had made arrangements for the disposition of my money, I received a note from Mr. Rockefeller, in reply to one that I had written to him threatening to make the transaction public, saying that he would give me back the business as it stood, or that I might retain stock if I wished to, but this was after the entire transaction was closed, and such arrangements had been made for my money that I could not then conveniently enter into it; and I was so indignant over the offer being made at that late day, after my request for the stock having been made at the proper time, that I threw the letter into the fire and paid no further attention to it.'"

The letter which Mrs. B destroyed was included in the affidavit in which Mr. Rockefeller answered Mrs. B's statement. It reads:

"'November 13, 1878. : I have held your note of nth inst., received yesterday, until to-day, as I wished to thoroughly review every point connected with the negotiations for the purchase of the stock of the B Oil Company, to satisfy myself as to whether I had unwittingly done anything whereby you could have any"