A trust was formed, consisting of nine trustees, who held, for the benefit of the Standard Oil stockholders, all the stock in the Standard and in the subsidiary companies.

Instead of certificates of stock the trustees issued certificates of trust amounting to $70,000,000.

Each Standard stockholder received twenty of these certificates for each share which he held of Standard stock.

These certificates could be bought and sold and passed on by inheritance precisely the same as stocks.
Ingenious as was this legal device, it did not stand the test of the courts.

In 1892 the Ohio Supreme Court declared the Standard Oil Trust a violation of the law and demanded its dissolution.