p. 16 | Still at His Old Tricks by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 11, 1877

Still at His Old Tricks.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

WHILE visiting the churches in Michigan last winter, in a good many places we received grievous complaints against one D. W. Bartholomew, the brethren stating that he was swindling both brethren and outsiders by peddling patent rights, &c. In my reports I made some references to this. He came to our Rome camp-meeting, Sept. 7, and had a long talk with me, contradicting all these reports, and claiming to be a very honest man. He declared that he was not at the meeting to prosecute his business, that he should not go among Seventh-day Adventists, nor in any way use his profession as an Adventist to induce people to trade with him. But at the close of that meeting he came across one of our new brethren here, who had seen him on the ground, told him he was a Seventh-day Adventist, that he had been attending the camp-meeting, &c., and then induced him to buy the territory of two counties for a certain patent right, for which he gave his note for quite a sum. Then he took from him a watch also for a few samples of the article.

Mr. Bartholomew represented it, as patent right men always do, as a great money making affair, and said that if it did not prove to be all that he recommended, he would take it back, or at least give our brother so to understand. The brother took his patent and spent a long time in his very best territory without being able to sell a single one. Upon trial he found that it would not work. He then wrote Mr. B. that he was dissatisfied and wanted to give up his territory. Mr. Bartholomew wrote him that if he would deed over to another man one county, the best of the two, he would credit him on the note with one-half the demand of the note. Rather than lose it all, the brother did this, and got out of one-half of it, with the loss of his watch besides.

Then Mr. Bartholomew came immediately to Rome and sold the note to a merchant. He showed the merchant how much he had already endorsed upon it and stated to him that our brother had made all this in a few days by selling the article, and that he was doing so well with it that probably he would pay up the rest of the note in a few weeks,—all of which was utterly false.

As soon as the merchant found that it was a swindle he wrote to Mr. B., but can get no answer. Our brother has also written to him and gets no reply. Mr. Bartholomew claims to be a Seventh-day Adventist, and is traveling everywhere over the country, and so far as I have ever heard of him, the above is only a sample of what he does. If our older brethren, with all the warnings they have had upon the subject of patent rights, are foolish enough to allow themselves to be deceived by such men, I do not pity them; but for the benefit of our young, inexperienced friends, like this brother in Rome, I think it is justice that the above facts should be stated.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

Rome, N. Y., Dec. 26, 1876.