Six years after its inauguration, it already acquired the greater part of the crude oil produced in the United States. Moreover, its capital had been twice increased, in 1872 and 1874.
At the end of ten years, it transported and distributed 95 per cent. of the American output.
In 1881 it amalgamated thirty-nine oil companies. The trust was constituted and already disposed of a capital of 75 million dollars. The first cycle of its growth was finished. Supreme in the United States market and sure of its monopoly, it completed the laying of its first pipe-line to the Atlantic. The _Standard Oil_ was about to lay claim to Europe.
Such fortunes were not built up by entirely honourable methods. The directors of the _Standard Oil of Ohio_ had formed pools. They imposed buying and selling prices on every company which participated. This system, which in a dozen years gave such wonderful results, was not without its faults. There was friction between members of the pool. The need for establishing unity of direction was soon felt. It was with this object that the _Standard Oil Trust_ was founded in 1882.
It was the first time that the word "Trust" appeared in the name of a firm. A Committee of nine members, or trustees, was formed. It comprised all the Rockefeller family: John Rockefeller, Payne, William Rockefeller, Bestwick, Flager, Warden, Pratt, Brewster, Archbold. The nine trustees became the sole delegates and depositories of all the 39 companies conjointly engaged. They received from each concern the shares and the corresponding voting powers. Trust Certificates, of a nominal value of 100 dollars, were exchanged for shares only in the proportion of the value of each undertaking to the total value of all the undertakings constituting the Trust.
The Agreement of 1882 which sealed the pact, provided for the admission into the Trust of new companies and the eventual formation of a _Standard Oil Company_ in each State of the Union.
Companies of four kinds entered the combine of 1882:--
1. Fourteen companies in which _the whole_ of the shares were held by the trustees. Among these were the _Atlantic Refining Company_, the _Standard of Ohio_, and the _Standard of Pittsburgh_. The first of these companies succeeded in recovering its liberty in 1911.