powerful, were manufacturing oil in the city of Cleveland; two
years afterward this new Standard Oil Company had absorbed all of
them except five: In these two critical years the oil business of
the largest refining center in the United States had thus passed
into Rockefeller's hands. By 1874 the greatest refineries in New
York and Philadelphia had likewise merged their identity with his
own. When Rockefeller began his acquisition, there were thirty
independent refineries operating in Pittsburgh, all of which, in
four or five years, passed one by one under his control. The
largest refineries of Baltimore surrendered in 1875.

These capitulations left only one important refining headquarters
in the United States which the Standard had not absorbed. This
was that section of western Pennsylvania where the oil business
had had its origin. The mere fact that this area was the
headquarters of the oil supply gave it great advantages as a
place for manufacturing the finished product. The oil regions
regarded these advantages as giving them the right to dominate
the growing industry, and they had frequently proclaimed the
doctrine that the business belonged to them. They hated
Rockefeller as much as they feared him, yet at the very moment
when the Titusville operators were hanging him in effigy and
posting the hoardings with cabalistic signs against his
corporation, this mysterious, almost uncanny power was encircling
them: Men who one night were addressing public meetings
denouncing the Standard influence would suddenly sell out their
holdings the next day. In 1875 John D. Archbold, a brilliant
young refiner who had grown up in the oil regions and who had
gained much local fame as opponent of the Standard, appeared in
Titusville as the President of the Acme Oil Company. At that time