e manufacturing the pills in Buffalo, Moore had been packaging them
under a yellow label bearing a pictorial representation of the British
coat-of-arms, flanked on one side by an Indian and on the other by a
figure probably supposed to represent a merchant or a sea captain. The
labels also described Moore as the proprietor, "without whose signature
none can be genuine." And after the formation of A.J. White & Co. and
the purported transfer of Dr. Morse's pills to it, Moore still continued
to sell the same medicine and to denounce the White-Comstock product as
spurious. The latter was packaged under a white label showing an Indian
warrior riding horseback and was signed "A.J. White & Co." While the
color was shortly changed to blue and the name of the proprietor several
times amended through the ensuing vicissitudes, the label otherwise
remained substantially unchanged for as long as the pills continued to
be manufactured, or for over 100 years.

The nuisance of Moore's independent manufacture of the pills was
temporarily eliminated when, on June 21, 1858, Moore was hired by A.J.
White & Co.[5] and abandoned competition with them. The Comstocks, in
employing him, insisted upon a formal, written agreement whereunder
Moore agreed to discontinue any manufacture or sale of the pills and to
assign all rights and title therein, together with any related
engravings, cuts, or designs, to A.J. White & Co. As previously stated,
the two Comstock brothers, Judson, and White had offered either to sell
the Indian Root Pill business in its entirety to Moore, or to buy it
from him. Moore's employment by A.J. White & Co. presumably followed his
election not to purchase and operate the business himself.

So far so good. The Comstocks' claim to the Indian Root Pills through
the 75 percent controlled A.J. White & Co. now seemed absolutely secure
and the disparagement of their products at an end. But new dissension
must have occurred, for on New Year's Day of 1859, without prior notice,
Moore and White absented themselves from the Comstock office, taking
with them as many of the books, accounts, records, and other assets of
A.J. White & Co. as they could carry. Forthwith they established a
business of their own, also under the name of A.J. White & Co., at 10
Courtlandt Street, where they resumed the manufacture and distribution
of Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills, under a close facsimile of the label
already being used by the A.J. White-Comstoc