Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1870-05-31
A CARD.
Office Of O. II. MCCORMICK 4 BRO,
Chicago, May 10th, 1870.

Anindividual, named Jno.Strachan,
of Mineral Point, Wis, seems bent
on making himself ridiculous with
noisy demonstrations, because we
have taken our reaper agency away
from him. That he feels sore at los
ing the agency is evident from the
great outcry he makes about il. II
is likely the first instance on record
wherein man insisted on being an
agent by force and against the
wishes Of principal. Now, since
the U. S. Court has put an injunction
on him, restraining him from acting
as agent, and ordered him to give
uppossession of our property through
a receiver, he attempts to give vent
to his bad temper by abusing us and
our machines, in unmersured terms.
We suppose we can survive IL! Re-
decting farmers will know how far
John is sincere or honest in his de-
nunciation of our machines, when
they consider tnat he plead hard for
the agency of them this year, and
that his abuse commenced only when
he found he could not get leave to
sell them. We hesitated about even
noticing this mans abuse, but con-
cluded that it was due to our friends
in the district to give the following
facts in the case, and having done so,
we shall not attempt to answer any
biilingsgatc that may be launched at
us. John Strachan refused to con-
tinue as agent in 1870, unless we
would promise large increase in
commissions for selling. This we
declined doing, and after giving him
a reasonable time for reflection, we
appointed other parties to succeed
him-a thing everybody will admit
we had right to dol Strachan just
then wanted to continue at the old
rates, and wrote US the following
letter.
Messrs. c. II. NcCoRNIck a BRO:
DEAR SIRs You can send on the
contract as you say. and / will see
you and talk matters over generally,
soon. Truly yours,
J. STRAcHAN.
Mineral Point. March 22nd, 1870.
1t was too late however, as we
had contracted the district to other
agents. A few days later he became
so alarmed at losing the agency, that
he came to Chicago, and begged hard
TO be dttO0cd TO act eUen as local agent
at Mineral Point. When he found
that he had really lost the agency,
he became abusively angry, and
threatened we should never get pos
session of our property he held, until
we paid him same immense sum for
damages-although not two weeks
before we had settled up his account
IN full. How summarilv the u S.
Court dealt with him, and how
quickly he was ordered TO give up
our property through the formaIi,y
of receiver, and how soon the IN
junction was placed on his inter-
meddling with our affairs hereafter,
the following extract will show:
milwaukee Sentinel, May 9th, 1901
AIN the United States Circuit
Court, Judge Miller presiding, the
case Of G. II. Mccormick and Lean
der ]. Mccormick, of Chicago,
againsr John Strachan, of Mineral
Point, in equity, came up yesterday
on motion of compliments for an
injunction against defendant and
of receiver, and the
same having been argued by Finches,
Lynde and Miller, for oomplainants,
and Messrs. Palmer, Hooksr and
Pitkin, for defendant-the Court
thereupor allowed the Injunction
and also appointed Frederick G.
Smyth, of Madison, receiver.
This is very important case, in
volving nearly 100000 in amount,
and grows out of transactions while
defendant was acting as the agent of
complainaDts in the sale of their
Harvesting Machines, during the
years 1867, 1868 and 1869. The or
der appointing the receiver requires
the defendant, Strachan, forthwith
to turn over all notes, accounts,
machines and other property in his
hands to the said receiver, Smyth /;
and the injunction allowed, restraints
the defendant, Strschan, from inter-
meddling with any of the property
in any way or manner. Thus all
who are owing for the machines sold
by Strachan. must make payment to
the receiver, Smyth."
His SANDERS about our machines
are best met by his own letter, de-
string the agency for 1870. 1t is no
secret, that some castings on our
Advance Machine, last year, were
defective and broke an accident not
at all unusual in Producing a new
machine the first season. These
breakages caused trouble where
agents like Strachan gave machines
little or no attention, personally. All
our customers know that we spared
neither time nor money to replace
them with improved castings, max
ing the machines as perfect as they
were intended to be. This was, and
is being done, free of expense to GUS
toners. In districts where agents
co-operated with us in remedying
the difficulty, the machines proved q
most triumphant success.