Chapter XIX: Just Odds and Ends 429-452 (5)

That was the proudest hour in “Uncle Billy” Smith’s forty-seven years’ pilgrimage. Not daring to leave the spot, he ran the spout again and again, each time bringing it to the surface full of oil. A straggler out for a stroll approached, heard the story, sniffed the oil and bore the tidings to the village. Darkness was setting in, but the Smith boys sprinted to the scene. When Colonel Drake came down, bright and early next morning, they and their father were guarding three barrels of the precious liquid. The pumping apparatus was adjusted and by noon the well commenced producing at the rate of twenty barrels a day! The problem of the ages was solved, the agony ended and petroleum fairly launched upon its astonishing career.

The news flew like a Dakota cyclone. Villagers and country-folk flocked to the wonderful well. Smith wrote to Peterson, his former employer: “Come quick, there’s oceans of oil!” Jonathan Watson jumped on a horse and galloped down the creek to lease the McClintock farm, where Nathanael Cary dipped oil and a timbered crib had been constructed. Henry Potter, still a citizen of Titusville, tied up the lands for miles along the stream, hoping to interest New York capital. William Barnsdall secured the farm north of the Willard. George H. Bissell, who had arranged to be posted by telegraph, bought all the Pennsylvania Rock-Oil stock he could find and in four days was at the well. He leased farm after farm on Oil Creek and the Allegheny River, regardless of surface-indications or the admonition of meddling wiseacres.

The rush for property resembled the wild scramble of the children when the Pied Piper of Hamelin blew his fatal reed. Titusville was in a whirlpool of excitement. Buildings arose as if by magic, the hamlet became a borough and the borough a city of fifteen-thousand inhabitants. Maxwell Titus sold lots at two-hundred dollars, people acquired homes that doubled in value and speculation held undisputed sway. Jonathan Titus, from whom it was named, lived to witness the farm he cleared transformed into “The Queen City,” noted for its tasteful residences, excellent schools, manufactories, refineries and active population. One of his neighbors in the bush was Samuel Kerr, whose son Michael went to Congress and served as Speaker of the House. Many enterprising men settled in Titusville for the sake of their families. They paved the streets, planted shade-trees, fostered local industries, promoted culture and believed in public improvements. When Christine Nilsson enraptured sixteen-hundred well-dressed, appreciative listeners in the Parshall Opera-House, the peerless songstress could not refrain from saying that she never saw an audience so keen to note the finer points of her performance and so discriminating in its applause. “Praise from Sir Hubert is praise indeed” and the compliment of the Swedish Nightingale compressed a whole encyclopedia into a sentence. Titusville has had its ups and downs, but there is no more desirable place in the State.

“Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses.”

Matches are supposed to be made in Heaven and the inspiration that led to the choice of such a site for the future city must have been derived from the same source. Healthfulness and beauty of location attest the wisdom of the selection. Folks don’t have to climb precipitous hills or risk life and limb crossing railway-tracks whenever they wish to exercise their fast nags. Driving is a favorite pastime in fine weather, the leading thoroughfares often reminding strangers of Central Park on a coaching-day. Main, Walnut and Perry streets are lined with trees and residences worthy of Philadelphia or Baltimore. Comfortable homes are the crowning glory of a community and in this respect Titusville does not require to take a back-seat. Near the lower end of Main street is Ex-Mayor Caldwell’s elegant mansion, built by Jonathan Watson in the days of his prosperity. Farther up are John Fertig’s, the late Marcus Brownson’s, Mrs. David Emery’s and Mrs. A. N. Perrin’s. Franklin S. Tarbell, a former resident of Rouseville, occupies an attractive house. Joseph Seep, who has not changed an iota since the halcyon period of Parker and Foxburg, shows his faith in the town by building a home that would adorn Cleveland’s aristocratic Euclid Avenue. The host is the cordial Seep of yore, quick to make a point and not a bit backward in helping a friend. David McKelvy, whom everybody knew in the lower oil-fields, remodeled the Chase homestead, a symphony in red brick. Close by is W. T. Scheide’s natty dwelling, finished in a style befitting the ex-superintendent of the National-Transit Pipe-Lines. Byron D. Benson—he died in 1889—nine times elected president of the Tidewater Pipe-Line-Company, lived on the corner of Oak and Perry streets. Opposite is John L. McKinney’s luxurious residence, a credit to the liberal owner and the city. J. C. McKinney’s is “one of the finest.” James Parshall, W. B. Sterrett, O. D. Harrington, J. P. Thomas, W. W. Thompson, Charles Archbold and hundreds more erected dwellings that belong to the palatial tribe. Dr. Roberts—he’s in the cemetery—had a spacious place on Washington street, with the costliest stable in seventeen counties. E. O. Emerson’s house and grounds are the admiration of visitors. The grand fountain, velvet lawns, smooth walks, tropical plants, profusion of flowers, mammoth conservatory and Marechal-Niel rose-bushes bewilder the novice whose knowledge of floral affairs stops at button-hole bouquets. George K. Anderson—dead, too—constructed this delightful retreat. Col. J. J. Carter, whose record as a military officer, merchant, railroad-president and oil-operator will stand inspection, has an ideal home, purchased from John D. Archbold and refitted throughout. It was built and furnished extravagantly by Daniel Cady, once a leading spirit in the business and social life of Titusville. He was a man of imposing presence and indomitable pluck, the confidant of Jay Gould and “Jim” Fisk, dashing, speculative and popular. For years whatever he touched seemed to turn into gold and he computed his dollars by hundreds of thousands. Days of adversity overtook him, the splendid home was sacrificed and he died poor. To men of the stamp of Watson, Anderson, Abbott, Emery, Fertig and Cady Titusville owes its real start in the direction of greatness. Much of the froth and fume of former days is missing, but the baser elements have been eliminated, trade is on a solid basis and important manufactures have been established. There are big refineries, Holly water-works, a race-track, ball-grounds, top-notch hotels, live newspapers, inviting churches and a lovely cemetery in which to plant good citizens when they pass in their checks. Pilgrims who expect to find Titusville dead or dying will be as badly fooled as the lover whose girl eloped with the other fellow.

Unluckily for himself, Colonel Drake took a narrow view of affairs. Complacently assuming that he had “tapped the mine”—to quote his own phrase—and that paying territory would not be found outside the company’s lease, he pumped the well serenely, told funny stories and secured not one foot of ground! Had he possessed a particle of the prophetic instinct, had he grasped the magnitude of the issues at stake, had he appreciated the importance of petroleum as a commercial product, had he been able to “see an inch beyond his nose,” he would have gone forth that August morning and become “Master of the Oil Country!” “The world was all before him where to choose,” he was literally “monarch of all he surveyed,” but he didn’t move a peg! Money was not needed, the promise of one-eighth or one-quarter royalty satisfying the easy-going farmers, consequently he might have gathered in any quantity of land. Friends urged him to “get into the game;” he rejected their counsel and never realized his mistake until other wells sent prices skyward and it was everlastingly too late for his short pole to knock the persimmons. Yet this is the man whom numerous writers have proclaimed “the discoverer of petroleum!” Times without number it has been said and written and printed that he was “the first man to advise boring for oil,” that “his was the first mind to conceive the idea of penetrating the rock in search of a larger deposit of oil than was dreamed of by any one,” that “he alone unlocked one of nature’s vast storehouses” and “had visions of a revolution in light and lubrication.” Considering what Kier, Peterson, Bissell and Watson had done years before Drake ever saw—perhaps ever heard of—a drop of petroleum, the absurdity of these claims is “so plain that he who runs may read.” Couple with this his incredible failure to secure lands after the well was drilled—wholly inexcusable if he supposed oil-operations would ever be important—and the man who thinks Colonel Drake was “the first man with a clear conception of the future of petroleum” could swallow the fish that swallowed Jonah!

Above all else history should be truthful and “hew to the line, let chips fall where they may.” Mindful that “the agent is but the instrument of the principal,” why should Colonel Drake wear the laurels in this instance? Paid a salary to carry out Bissell’s plan of boring an artesian-well, he spent sixteen months getting the hole down seventy feet. For a man who “had visions” and “a clear conception” his movements were inexplicably slow. He encountered obstacles, but salt-wells had been drilled hundreds of feet without either a steam-engine or professional “borer.” The credit of suggesting the driving-pipe to overcome the quicksand is justly his due. Quite as justly the credit of suggesting the boring of the well belongs to George H. Bissell. The company hired Drake, Drake hired Smith, Smith did the work. Back of the man who possessed the skill to fashion the tools and sink the hole, back of the man who acted for the company and disbursed its money, back of the company itself is the originator of the idea these were the means employed to put into effect. Was George Stephenson, or the foreman of the shop where the “Rocket” was built, the inventor of the locomotive? Was Columbus, or the man whose name it bears, the discoverer of America? In a conversation on the subject Mr. Bissell remarked: “Let Colonel Drake enjoy the pleasure of giving the well his name; history will set us all right.” So it will and this is a step in that direction. If the long-talked-of monument to commemorate the advent of the petroleum-era ever be erected, it should bear in boldest capitals the names of Samuel M. Kier and George H. Bissell.

Edwin L. Drake, who is linked inseparably with the first oil-well in Pennsylvania, was born on March eleventh, 1819, at Greenville, Greene county, New York. His father, a farmer, moved to Vermont in 1825. At eighteen Edwin left home to begin the struggle with the world. He was night-clerk of a boat running between Buffalo and Detroit, worked one year on a farm in the Wolverine state, clerked two years in a Michigan hotel, returned east and clerked in a dry-goods store at New Haven, clerked and married in New York, removed to Massachusetts, was express-agent on the Boston & Albany railroad and resigned in 1849 to become conductor on the New-York & New-Haven. His younger brother died in the west and his wife at New Haven, in 1854, leaving one child. While boarding at a hotel in New Haven he met James M. Townsend, who persuaded him to draw his savings of two-hundred dollars from the bank and buy stock of the Pennsylvania Rock-Oil-Company, his first connection with the business that was to make him famous. Early in 1857 he married Miss Laura Dow, sickness in the summer compelled him to cease punching tickets and his memorable visit to Titusville followed in December. In 1860 he was elected justice-of-the-peace, an office worth twenty-five-hundred dollars that year, because of the enormous number of property-transfers to prepare and acknowledge. Buying oil on commission for Shefflin Brothers, New York, swelled his income to five-thousand dollars for a year or two. He also bought twenty-five acres of land from Jonathan Watson, east of Martin street and through the center of which Drake street now runs, for two-thousand dollars. Unable to meet the mortgage given for part of the payment, he sold the block in 1863 to Dr. A. D. Atkinson for twelve-thousand dollars. Forty times this sum would not have bought it in 1867! With the profits of this transaction and his savings for five years, in all about sixteen-thousand dollars, in the summer of 1863 Colonel Drake left the oil-regions forever.

Entering into partnership with a Wall-street broker, he wrecked his small fortune speculating in oil-stocks, his health broke down and he removed to Vermont. Physicians ordered him to the seaside as the only remedy for his disease, neuralgic affection of the spine, which threatened paralysis of the limbs and caused intense suffering. Near Long Branch, in a cottage offered by a friend, Mr. and Mrs. Drake drank the bitter cup to the dregs. Their funds were exhausted, the patient needed constant attention and helpless children cried for bread. The devoted wife and mother attempted to earn a pittance with her needle, but could not keep the wolf of hunger from the door. Medicine for the sick man was out of the question. All this time men in the region the Drake well had opened to the world were piling up millions of dollars! One day in 1869, with eighty cents to pay his fare, Colonel Drake struggled into New York to seek a place for his twelve-year-old boy. The errand was fruitless. The distressed father was walking painfully on the street to the railway-station, to board the train for home, when he met “Zeb” Martin of Titusville, afterwards proprietor of the Hotel Brunswick. Mr. Martin noted his forlorn condition, inquired as to his circumstances, learned the sad story of actual privation, procured dinner, gave the poor fellow twenty dollars and cheered him with the assurance that he would raise a fund for his relief. The promise was redeemed.

At a meeting in Titusville the case was stated and forty-two hundred dollars were subscribed. The money was forwarded to Mrs. Drake, who husbanded it carefully. The terrible recital aroused such a feeling that the Legislature, in 1873, granted Colonel Drake an annuity of fifteen-hundred dollars during his life and his heroic wife’s. California had set a good example by giving Colonel Sutter, the discoverer of gold in the mill-race, thirty-five-hundred dollars a year. The late Thaddeus Stevens, “the Great Commoner,” hearing that Drake was actually in want, prepared a bill, found among his papers after his death, intending to present it before Congress for an appropriation of two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars for Colonel Drake. In 1870 the family removed to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Years of suffering, borne with sublime resignation, closed on the evening of November ninth, 1881, with the release of Edwin L. Drake from this vale of tears. A faithful wife and four children survived the petroleum-pioneer. They lived at Bethlehem until the spring of 1895 and then moved to New England. Colonel Drake was a man of pronounced individuality, affable, genial and kindly. He had few superiors as a story-teller, neither caroused nor swore, and was of unblemished character. He wore a full beard, dressed well, liked a good horse, looked every man straight in the face and his dark eyes sparkled when he talked. Gladly he laid down the heavy burden of a checkered life, with its afflictions and vicissitudes, for the peaceful rest of the grave.

“Since every man who lives is born to die * * *
Like pilgrims to the appointed place we tend;
The world’s an inn, and death the journey’s end.”

George H. Bissell, honorably identified with the petroleum-development from its inception, was a New-Hampshire boy. Thrown upon his own resources at twelve, by the death of his father, he gained education and fortune unaided. At school and college he supported himself by teaching and writing for magazines. Graduating from Dartmouth College in 1845, he was professor of Greek and Latin in Norwich University a short time, went to Washington and Cuba, did editorial work for the New Orleans _Delta_ and was chosen superintendent of the public schools. Impaired health forced him to return north in 1853, when his connection with petroleum began. From 1859 to 1863 he resided at Franklin, Venango county, to be near his oil-interests. He operated largely on Oil Creek, on the Allegheny river and at Franklin, where he erected a barrel-factory. He removed to New York in 1863, established the Bissell Bank at Petroleum Centre in 1866, developed oil-lands in Peru and was prominent in financial circles. His wife died in 1867 and long since he followed her to the tomb. Mr. Bissell was a brilliant, scholarly man, positive in his convictions and sure to make his influence felt in any community. His son and daughter reside in New York.

“Pass some few years,
Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer’s ardent strength,
Thy sober Autumn fading into age,
And pale concluding Winter comes at last
And shuts the scene.”

William A. Smith, born in Butler county in 1812, at the age of twelve was apprenticed at Freeport to learn blacksmithing. In 1827 he went to Pittsburg and in 1842 opened a blacksmith-shop at Salina, below Tarentum. Samuel M. Kier employed him to drill salt-wells and manufacture drilling-tools. After finishing the Drake well, he drilled in various sections of the oil-regions, retiring to his farm in Butler a few years prior to his death, on October twenty-third, 1890. “Uncle Billy,” as the boys affectionately called him, was no small factor in giving to mankind the illuminator that enlightens every quarter of the globe. The farm he owned in 1859 and on which he died proved good territory.

Dr. Francis B. Brewer was born in New Hampshire, studied medicine in Philadelphia and practiced in Vermont. His father in 1840 purchased several thousand acres of land on Oil Creek for lumbering, and the firm of Brewer, Watson & Co. was promptly organized. Oil from the “spring” on the island at the mouth of Pine Creek was sent to the young physician in 1848 and used in his practice. He visited the locality in 1850 and was admitted to the firm. Upon the completion of the Drake well he devoted his time to the extensive oil-operations of the partnership for four years. In 1864 Brewer, Watson & Co. sold the bulk of their oil-territory and the doctor, who had settled at Westfield, Chautauqua county, N. Y., instituted the First National Bank, of which he was chosen president. A man of solid worth and solid wealth, he has served as a Member of Assembly and is deservedly respected for integrity and benevolence.

Jonathan Watson, whose connection with petroleum goes back to the beginning of developments, arrived at Titusville in 1845 to manage the lumbering and mercantile business of his firm. The hamlet contained ten families and three stores. Deer and wild-turkeys abounded in the woods, John Robinson was postmaster and Rev. George O. Hampson the only minister. Mr. Watson’s views of petroleum were of the broadest and his transactions the boldest. He hastened to secure lands when oil appeared in the Drake well. At eight o’clock on that historic Monday morning he stood at Hamilton McClintock’s door, resolved to buy or lease his three-hundred-acre farm. A lease was taken and others along the stream followed during the day. Brewer, Watson & Co. operated on a wholesale scale until 1864, after which Watson continued alone. Riches poured upon him. He erected the finest residence in Titusville, lavished money on the grounds and stocked a fifty-thousand dollar conservatory with choicest plants and flowers. A million dollars in gold he is credited with “putting by for a rainy day.” He went miles ahead, bought huge blocks of land and drilled scores of test-wells. In this way he barely missed opening the Bradford field and the Bullion district years before these productive sections were brought into line. His well on the Dalzell farm, Petroleum Centre, in 1869, renewed interest in that quarter long after it was supposed to be sucked dry. An Oil-City clairvoyant indicated the spot to sink the hole, promising a three-hundred-barrel strike. Crude was six dollars a barrel and Watson readily proffered the woman the first day’s production for her services. A check for two-thousand dollars was her reward, as the well yielded three-hundred-and-thirty-three barrels the first twenty-four hours. Mrs. Watson was an ardent medium and her husband humored her by consulting the “spirits” occasionally. She became a lecturer and removed to California long since. The tide of Watson’s prosperity ebbed. Bad investments and dry-holes ate into his splendid fortune. The gold-reserve was drawn upon and spent. The beautiful home went to satisfy creditors. In old age the brave, hardy, indefatigable oil-pioneer, who had led the way for others to acquire wealth, was stripped of his possessions. Hope and courage remained. He operated at Warren and revived some of the old wells around the Drake, which afforded him subsistence. Advanced years and anxiety enfeebled the stalwart fame. His steps faltered, and in 1893 protracted sickness closed the busy, eventful life of the man who, more than any other, fostered and developed the petroleum-industry.

“I am as a weed
Flung from the rock, on ocean’s foam to sail
Where’er the surge may sweep, the tempest’s breath prevail.”

The Drake well declined almost imperceptibly, yielding twelve barrels a day by the close of the year. It stood idle on Sundays and for a week in December. Smith had a light near a tank of oil, the gas from which caught fire and burned the entire rig. This was the first “oil-fire” in Pennsylvania, but it was destined to have many successors. Possibly it brought back vividly to Colonel Drake the remembrance of his childish dream, in which he and his brother had set a heap of stubble ablaze and could not extinguish the flames. His mother interpreted it: “My son, you have set the world on fire.”

The total output of the well in 1859 was under eighteen-hundred barrels. One-third of the oil was sold at sixty-five cents a gallon for shipment to Pittsburg. George M. Mowbray, the accomplished chemist, who came to Titusville in 1860 and played a prominent part in early refining, disposed of a thousand barrels in New York. The well produced moderately for two or three years from the first sand, until shut down by low prices, which made it ruinous to pay the royalty of twelve-and-a-half cents a gallon. A compromise was effected in 1860, by which the Seneca Oil-Company retained a part of the land as fee and surrendered the lease to the Pennsylvania Rock-Oil-Company. Mr. Bissell purchased the stock of the other shareholders in the latter company for fifty-thousand dollars. He drilled ten wells, six of which for months yielded eighty barrels a day, on the tract known thenceforth as the Bissell farm, selling it eventually to the Original Petroleum-Company. The Drake was deepened to five-hundred feet and two others, drilled beneath the roof of the sawmill in 1862, were pumped by water.

The Drake machinery was stolen or scattered piecemeal. In 1876 J. J. Ashbaugh, of St. Petersburg, and Thomas O’Donnell, of Foxburg, conveyed the neglected derrick and engine-house to the Centennial at Philadelphia, believing crowds would wish to look at the mementoes. The exhibition was a fizzle and the lumber was carted off as rubbish. Ex-Senator Emery saved the drilling-tools and he has them in his private museum at Bradford. They are pigmies compared with the giants of to-day. A man could walk away with them as readily as Samson skipped with the gates of Gaza. Sandow and Cyril Cyr done up in a single package couldn’t do that with a modern set. The late David Emery, a man of heart and brain, contemplated reviving the old well—the land had come into his possession—and bottling the oil in tiny vials, the proceeds to be applied to a Drake monument. He put up a temporary rig and pumped a half-barrel a week. Death interrupted his generous purpose. Except that the trees and the saw-mill have disappeared, the neighborhood of the Drake well is substantially the same as in the days when lumbering was at its height and the two-hundred honest denizens of Titusville slept without locking their doors. There is nothing to suggest to strangers or travelers that the spot deserves to be remembered. How transitory is human achievement!

William Barnsdall, Boone Meade and Henry R. Rouse started the second well in the vicinity, on the James Parker farm, formerly the Kerr tract and now the home of Ex-Mayor J. H. Caldwell. The location was north and within a stone’s throw of the Drake. In November, at the depth of eighty feet, the well was pumped three days, yielding only five barrels of oil. The outlook had an indigo-tinge and operations ceased for a week or two. Resuming work in December, at one-hundred-and-sixty feet indications were satisfactory. Tubing was put in on February nineteenth, 1860, and the well responded at the rate of fifty barrels a day! In the language of a Hoosier dialect-poet: “Things wuz gettin’ inter-restin’!” William H. Abbott, a gentleman of wealth, reached Titusville on February ninth and bought an interest in the Parker tract the same month. David Crossley’s well, a short distance south of the Drake and the third finished on Oil Creek, began pumping sixty barrels a day on March fourth. Local dealers, overwhelmed by an “embarrassment of riches,” could not handle such a glut of oil. Schefflin Brothers arranged to market it in New York. Fifty-six-thousand gallons from the Barnsdall well were sold for seventeen-thousand dollars by June first, 1860. J. D. Angier contracted to “stamp down a hole” for Brewer, Watson & Co., in a pit fourteen feet deep, dug and cribbed to garner oil dipped from the “spring” on the Hamilton-McClintock farm. Piercing the rock by “hand-power” was a tedious process. December of 1860 dawned without a symptom of greasiness in the well, from which wondrous results were anticipated on account of the “spring.” One day’s hand-pumping produced twelve barrels of oil and so much water that an engine was required to pump steadily. By January twentieth, 1861, the engine was puffing and the well producing moderately, the influx of water diminishing the yield of oil. These four, with two getting under way on the Buchanan farm, north of the McClintock, and one on the J. W. McClintock tract, the site of Petroleum Centre, summed up all the wells actually begun on Oil Creek in 1859.

Three of the four were “kicked down” by the aid of spring-poles, as were hundreds later in shallow territory. This method afforded a mode of development to men of limited means, with heavy muscles and light purses, although totally inadequate for deep drilling. An elastic pole of ash or hickory, twelve to twenty feet long, was fastened at one end to work over a fulcrum. To the other end stirrups were attached, or a tilting platform was secured by which two or three men produced a jerking motion that drew down the pole, its elasticity pulling it back with sufficient force, when the men slackened their hold, to raise the tools a few inches. The principle resembled that of the treadle-board of a sewing-machine, operating which moves the needle up and down. The tools were swung in the driving-pipe or the “conductor”—a wooden tube eight or ten inches square, placed endwise in a hole dug to the rock—and fixed by a rope to the spring-pole two or three feet from the workmen. The strokes were rapid and a sand-pump—a spout three inches in diameter, with a hinged bottom opening inward and a valve working on a sliding-rod, somewhat in the manner of a syringe—removed the borings mainly by sucking them into the spout as it was drawn out quickly. Horse-power, in its general features precisely the kind still used with threshing-machines, was the next step forward. Steam-engines, employed for drilling at Tidioute in September of 1860, reduced labor and expedited work. The first pole-derricks, twenty-five to thirty-five feet high, have been superseded by structures that tower seventy-two to ninety feet.

Drilling-tools, the chief novelty of which are the “jars”—a pair of sliding-bars moving within each other—have increased from two-hundred pounds to three-thousand in weight. George Smith, at Rouseville, forged the first steel-lined jars in 1866, for H. Leo Nelson, but the steel could not be welded firmly. Nelson also adopted the “Pleasantville Rig” on the Meade lease, Rouseville, in 1866, discarding the “Grasshopper.” In the former the walking-beam is fastened in the centre to the “samson-post,” with one end attached to the rods in the well and the other to the band-wheel crank, exactly as in side-wheel steamboats. George Koch, of East Sandy, Pa., patented numerous improvements on pumping-rigs, drilling-tools and gas-rigs; for which he asked no remuneration. Primitive wells had a bore of three or four inches, half the present size. To exclude surface-water a “seed-bag”—a leather-bag the diameter of the hole—was tied tightly to the tubing, filled with flax-seed and let down to the proper depth. The top was left open and in a few hours the flax swelled so that the space between the tubing and the walls of the well was impervious to water. Drilling “wet holes” was slow and uncertain, as the tools were apt to break and the chances of a paying well could not be decided until the pump exhausted the water. It is surprising that over five-thousand wells were sunk with the rude appliances in vogue up to 1868, when “casing”—a larger pipe inserted usually to the top of the first sand—was introduced. This was the greatest improvement ever devised in oil-developments and drilling has reached such perfection that holes can be put down five-thousand feet safely and expeditiously. Devices multiplied as experience was gained.

The tools that drilled the Barnsdall, Crossley and Watson wells were the handiwork of Jonathan Lock, a Titusville blacksmith. Mr. Lock attained his eighty-third year, died at Bradford in March of 1895 and was buried at Titusville, the city in which he passed much of his active life. He was a worthy type of the intelligent, industrious American mechanics, a class of men to whom civilization is indebted for unnumbered comforts and conveniences. John Bryan, who built the first steam-engine in Warren county, started the first foundry and Machine-shop in Oildom and organized the firm of Bryan, Dillingham & Co., began the manufacture of drilling-tools in Titusville in 1860.

Of the partners in the second well William Barnsdall survives. He has lived in Titusville sixty-four years, served as mayor and operated extensively. His son Theodore, who pumped wells on the Parker and Weed farms, adjoining the Barnsdall homestead, is among the largest and wealthiest producers. Crossley’s sons rebuilt the rig at their father’s well in 1873, drilled the hole deeper and obtained considerable oil. Other wells around the Drake were treated similarly, paying a fair profit. In 1875 this spasmodic revival of the earliest territory died out—Machinery was removed and the derricks rotted. Jonathan Watson, in 1889, drilled shallow wells, cleaned out several of the old ones and awakened brief interest in the cradle of developments. Gas burning and wells pumping, thirty years after the first strike, seemed indeed strange. Not a trace of these repeated operations remains. The Parker and neighboring farms north-west and north of Titusville proved disappointing, owing to the absence of the third sand, which a hole drilled two-thousand feet by Jonathan Watson failed to reveal. The Parker-Farm Petroleum Company of Philadelphia bought the land in 1863 and in 1870 twelve wells were producing moderately. West and south-west the Octave Oil-Company has operated profitably for twenty years and Church Run has produced generously. Probably two-hundred wells were sunk above Titusville, at Hydetown, Clappville, Tryonville, Centerville, Riceville, Lincolnville and to Oil-Creek Lake, in vain attempts to discover juicy territory.

Ex-Mayor William Barnsdall is the oldest living pioneer of Titusville. Not only has he seen the town grow from a few houses to its present proportions, but he is one of its most esteemed citizens. Born at Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, England, on February sixth, 1810, he lived there until 1831, when he came to America. In 1832 he arrived at what is known as the English Settlement, seven miles north of Titusville. The Barnsdalls founded the settlement, Joseph, a brother of William, clearing a farm in the wilderness that then covered the country. Remaining in the settlement a year, in 1833 William Barnsdall came to the hamlet of Titusville, where he has ever since resided. He established a small shop to manufacture boots and shoes, continuing at the business until the discovery of oil in 1859. Immediately after the completion of the Drake strike he began drilling the second well on Oil Creek. Before this well produced oil, in February of 1860, he sold a part interest to William H. Abbott for ten-thousand dollars. He associated himself with Abbott and James Parker and, early in 1860, commenced the first oil-refinery on Oil Creek. It was sold to Jonathan Watson for twenty-five-thousand dollars. From those early days to the present Mr. Barnsdall has been identified with the production of petroleum. At the ripe age of eighty-seven years, respected as few men are in any community and enjoying an unusual measure of mental and physical strength, he calmly awaits “the inevitable hour.”

Hon. David Emery, the last owner of the Drake well, was for many years a successful oil-operator. At Pioneer he drilled a number of prime wells, following the course of developments along Oil Creek. He organized the Octave Oil-Company and was its chief officer. Removing to Titusville, he erected a fine residence and took a prominent part in public affairs. His purse was ever open to forward a good cause. Had the Republican party, of which he was an active member, been properly alive to the interests of the Commonwealth, he would have been Auditor-General of Pennsylvania. In all the relations and duties of life David Emery was a model citizen. Called hence in the vigor of stalwart manhood, multitudes of attached friends cherish his memory as that “of one who loved his fellow-men.”

Born in England in 1818, David Crossley ran away from home and came to America as a stowaway in 1828. He found relatives at Paterson, N.J., and lived with them until about 1835, when he bound himself out to learn blacksmithing. On March seventeenth, 1839, he married Jane Alston and in the winter of 1841-2 walked from New York to Titusville, walking back in the spring. The following autumn he brought his family to Titusville. For a few years he tried farming, but gave it up and went back to his trade until 1859, when he formed a partnership with William Barnsdall, William H. Abbott and P. T. Witherop, under the firm-name of Crossley, Witherop & Co., and began drilling the third well put down on Oil Creek. The well was completed on March tenth, 1860, having been drilled one-hundred-and-forty feet with a spring-pole. It produced at the rate of seventy-five barrels per day for a short time. The next autumn the property was abandoned on account of decline in production. In 1865 Crossley bought out his partners and drilled the well to a depth of five-hundred-and-fifty feet, but again abandoned it because of water. In 1872 he and his sons drilled other wells upon the same property and in a short time had so reduced the water that the investment became a paying one. In 1873 he and William Barnsdall and others drilled the first producing well in the Bradford oil-field. His health failed in 1875 and he died on October eleventh, 1880, esteemed by all for his manliness and integrity.

Z. Martin, who befriended Drake in his sad extremity, landed at Titusville in March of 1860 and pumped the Barnsdall, Mead & Rouse well on Parker’s flat, the first well in Crawford county that produced oil. In 1861 he went to the Clapp farm, above Oil City, as superintendent of the Boston Rock-Oil-Company, only three of whose eighteen wells were paying ventures. The Company quitting, Martin bought and shipped crude to Pittsburg for Brewer, Burke & Co., traveling to the wells on horseback to secure oil for his boats. He bought the Eagle Hotel at Titusville in 1862, conducted it two years and sold the building to C. V. Culver for bank-purposes. Mr. Martin resided at Titusville many years and was widely known as the capable landlord of the palatial Hotel Brunswick. He was the intimate friend of Colonel Drake, Jonathan Watson, George H. Bissell and the pioneer operators on Oil Creek. His son, L. L. Martin, is running the Commercial Hotel at Meadville, where the father makes his home, young in everything but years and always pleased to greet his oil-region acquaintances.

Thus dawned the petroleum-day that could not be hidden under myriads of bushels. The report of the Drake well traveled “from Greenland’s icy mountains” to “India’s coral strands,” causing unlimited guessing as to the possible outcome. Crude-petroleum was useful for various things, but a farmer who visited the newest wonder hit a fresh lead. Begging a jug of oil, he paralyzed Colonel Drake by observing as he strode off: “This’ll be durned good tew spread onto buckwheat-cakes!”

Bishop Simpson once delivered his lecture on “American Progress,” in which he did not mention petroleum, before an immense Washington audience. President Lincoln heard it and said, as he and the eloquent speaker came out of the hall: “Bishop, you didn’t ‘strike ile’!”

When the Barnsdall well, on the Parker farm, produced hardly any oil from the first sand, the coming Mayor of Titusville quietly clinched the argument in favor of drilling it deeper by remarking: “It’s a long way from the bottom of that hole to China and I’m bound to bore for tea-leaves if we don’t get the grease sooner!”

“De Lawd thinks heaps ob Pennsylvany,” said a colored exhorter in Pittsburg, “fur jes’ ez whales iz gettin’ sca’ce he pints outen de way fur Kunnel Drake ter ’scoveh petroleum!” A solemn preacher in Crawford county held a different opinion. One day he tramped into Titusville to relieve his burdened mind. He cornered Drake on the street and warned him to quit taking oil from the ground. “Do you know,” he hissed, “that you’re interfering with the Almighty Creator of the universe? God put that oil in the bowels of the earth to burn the world at the last day and you, poor worm of the dust, are trying to thwart His plans!” No wonder the loud check in the Colonel’s barred pantaloons wilted at this unexpected outburst, which Drake often recounted with extreme gusto.

The night “Uncle Billy” Smith’s lantern ignited the tanks at the Drake well the blaze and smoke of the first oil-fire in Pennsylvania ascended high. A loud-mouthed professor of religion, whose piety was of the brand that needed close watching in a horse-trade, saw the sight and scampered to the hills shouting: “It’s the day of judgment!” How he proposed to dodge the reckoning, had his surmise been correct, the terrified victim could not explain when his fright subsided and friends rallied him on the scare.

The Drake well blazed the path in the wilderness that set petroleum on its triumphant march. This nation, already the most enlightened, was to be the most enlightening under the sun. An Atlantic of oil lay beneath its feet. America, its young, plump sister, could laugh at lean Europe. War raged and the old world sought to drain the republic of its gold. The United States exported mineral-fat and kept the yellow dross at home. Petroleum was crowned king, dethroning cotton and yielding a revenue, within four years of Drake’s modest strike, exceeding that from coal and iron combined! Talk of California’s gold-fever, Colorado’s silver-furore and Barney Barnato’s Caffir-mania.

American petroleum is a leading article of commerce, requiring hundreds of vessels to transport it to distant lands. Its refined product is known all over the civilized world. It has found its way to every part of Europe and the remotest portions of Asia. It shines on the western prairie, burns in the homes of New England and illumines miles of princely warehouses in the great cities of America. Everywhere is it to be met with, in the Levant and the Orient, in the hovel of the Russian peasant and the harem of the Turkish pasha. It is the one article imported from the United States and sold in the bazaars of Bagdad, the “City of the Thousand-and-One-Nights.” It lights the dwellings, the temples and the mosques amid the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh. It is the light of Abraham’s birthplace and of the hoary city of Damascus. It burns in the Grotto of the Nativity at Bethlehem, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, on the Acropolis of Athens and the plains of Troy, in cottage and palace along the banks of the Bosphorus, the Euphrates, the Tigris and the Golden Horn. It has penetrated China and Japan, invaded the fastnesses of Tartary, reached the wilds of Australia and shed its radiance over African wastes. Pennsylvania petroleum is the true cosmopolite, omnipresent and omnipotent in fulfilling its mission of illuminating the universe! A product of nature that is such a controlling influence in the affairs of men may well challenge attention to its origin, its history and its economic uses.

All this from a three-inch hole seventy feet in the ground!

A grape-seed is a small affair,
Yet, swallow’d when you sup,
In your appendix it may stick
Till doctors carve you up.

A coral-insect is not large,
Still it can build a reef
On which the biggest ship that floats
May quickly come to grief.

A hint, a word, a look, a breath
May bear envenom’d stings,
From all of which the moral learn:
Despise not little things!

IN A NUTSHELL.

Colonel Drake used the first driving pipe.

Adolph Schreiner, of Austria, made the first petroleum-lamp.

The first oil-well drilled by steam power was opposite Tidioute, in 1860.

Jonathan Watson put down the first deep well on Oil Creek—2,130 feet—in 1866.

William Phillips boated the first cargo of oil down the Allegheny to Pittsburg in March, 1860.

The Chinese were the first to drill with tools attached to ropes, which they twisted from rattan.

The Liverpool Lamp, devised by an unknown Englishman, was the first to have a glass-chimney and do away with smoke.

The first tubing in oil-wells was manufactured at Pittsburg, with brass screw-joints soldered on the pipe, the same as at Tarentum salt-wells.

The first steamboat reached the mouth of Oil Creek in 1828, with a load of Pittsburgers. The first train crossed Oil Creek into Oil City on a track on the ice.

William A. Smith, who drilled the Drake well, made the first rimmer. While enlarging a well with a bit the point broke off, after which greater progress was noted. The accident suggested the rimmer.

The first white settler in the Pennsylvania oil-regions was John Frazier, who built a cabin at Wenango—Franklin—in 1745, kept a gun-shop and traded with the Indians until driven off by the French in 1753, the year of George Washington’s visit.

Jonathan Titus located at Titusville in 1797, on land made famous by the Drake well. In that year the first oil skimmed from Oil Creek to be marketed was sold at Pittsburg, then a collection of log-cabins, at _sixteen dollars a gallon_! Now people kick at half that many cents for the refined article.

Early well-owners found the tools and fuel, paid all expenses but labor and paid three-dollars-and-fifty-cents per foot to the contractor, yet so many contractors failed that a lien-law was passed. George Koch, in November of 1873, took out a patent on fluted drills, which did away with the rimmer, reduced the time of drilling a well from sixty days to twenty and reduced the price from three dollars per foot to fifty cents.

Sam Taft was the first to use a line to control the engine from the derrick, at a well near McClintockville, in 1867. Henry Webber was the first to regulate the motion of the engine from the derrick. He drilled a well near Smoky City, on the Porter farm, in 1863, with a rod from the derrick to the throttle-valve. He also dressed the tools, with the forge in the derrick, perhaps the first time this was done. He drilled this well six-hundred feet with no help. Near this well was the first plank-derrick in the oil-country.

The first derricks were of poles, twelve feet base and twenty-eight to thirty feet high. The ladder was made by putting pins through a corner of a leg of the derrick. The Samson-post was mortised in the ground. The band-wheel was hung in a frame like a grindstone. A single bull-wheel, made out of about a thousand feet of lumber, placed on the side of the derrick next to the band-wheel, with a rope or old rubber-belt for a brake, was used. When the tools were let down the former would burn and smoke, the latter would smell like ancient codfish.

MAJ. W. T. BAUM.
JACOB SHEASLEY. HENRY F. JAMES.
JAMES EVANS.
W. R. CRAWFORD. COL. JAMES P. HOOVER
DANIEL GRIMM.
]

VI.
THE WORLD’S LUBRICANT.

A GLANCE AT A PRETTY SETTLEMENT—EVANS AND HIS WONDERFUL WELL—HEAVY OIL
AT FRANKLIN TO GREASE ALL THE WHEELS IN CREATION—ORIGIN OF A POPULAR
PHRASE—OPERATIONS ON FRENCH CREEK—EXCITEMENT AT FEVER HEAT—GALENA
AND SIGNAL OIL-WORKS—RISE AND PROGRESS OF A GREAT INDUSTRY—CRUMBS
SWEPT UP.

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“The race was on, the souls of the racers were in it.”—_Gen. Lew
Wallace._

“Wild rumors are afloat in Jericho.”—_J. L. Barlow._

“Carthage has crossed the Alps; Rome, the sea.”—_Victor Hugo._

“There shall be no Alps.”—_Napoleon._

“We must not hope to be mowers
Until we have first been sowers.”—_Alice Cary._

“Gained the lead, and kept it, and steered his journey free.”—_Will
Carleton._

“A cargo of petroleum may cross the ocean in a vessel propelled by steam
it has generated, acting upon an engine it lubricates and directed
by an engineer who may grease his hair, limber his joints, and
freshen his liver with the same article.”—_Petrolia, A.D. 1870._

“Friction, not motion, is the great destroyer of
machinery.”—_Engineering Journal._

“Here was * * * a battle of Marengo to be gained.”—_Balzac._

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Cheap and abundant light the island-well on Oil Creek assured the nations sitting in darkness. If there are “tongues in trees” and “sermons in stones” the trickling stream of greenish liquid murmured: “Bring on your lamps—we can fill them!” The _second_ oil-well in Pennsylvania, eighteen miles from Col. Drake’s, changed the strain to: “Bring on your wheels—we can grease them!” America was to be the world’s illuminator and lubricator—not merely to dispel gloom and chase hobgoblins, but to increase the power of machinery by decreasing the impediments to easy motion. Friction has cost enough for extra wear and stoppages and breakages “to buy every darkey forty acres and a mule.” The first coal-oil for sale in this country was manufactured at Waltham, Mass., in 1852, by Luther Atwood, who called it “Coup Oil,” from the recent _coup_ of Louis Napoleon. Although highly esteemed as a lubricator, its offensive odor and poor quality would render it unmerchantable to-day. Samuel Downer’s hydro-carbon oils in 1856 were marked improvements, yet they would cut a sorry figure beside the unrivaled lubricant produced from the wells at Franklin, the county-seat of Venango. It is a coincidence that the petroleum era should have introduced light and lubrication almost simultaneously, one on Oil Creek, the other on French Creek, and both in a region comparatively isolated. “Misfortunes never come singly,” said the astounded father of twins, in a paroxysm of bewilderment; but happily blessings often come treading closely on each other’s heels.

Pleasantly situated on French Creek and the Allegheny River, Franklin is an interesting town, with a history dating from the middle of the eighteenth century. John Frazer, a gunsmith, occupied a hut and traded with the Indians in 1747. Four forts, one French, one British and two American, were erected in 1754, 1760, 1787 and 1796. Captain Joncaire commanded the French forces. George Washington, a British lieutenant, with no premonition of fathering a great country, visited the spot in 1753. The north-west was a wilderness and Pittsburg had not been laid out. Franklin was surveyed in 1795, created a borough in 1829 and a city in 1869, deriving its chief importance from petroleum. Lofty hills and winding streams are conspicuous. Spring-water is abundant, the air is invigorating and healthfulness is proverbial. James Johnston, a negro-farmer of Frenchcreek township, stuck it out for one-hundred-and-nine summers, lamenting that death got around six months too soon for him to attend the Philadelphia Centennial. Angus McKenzie, of Sugarcreek, whose strong-box served as a bank in early days, reached one-hundred-and-eight. Mrs. McDowell, a pioneer, was bright and nimble three years beyond the century-mark. Galbraith McMullen, of Waterloo, touched par. John Morrison, the first court-crier, rounded out ninety-eight. A successor, Robert Lytle, was summoned at eighty-seven, his widow living to celebrate her ninety-fourth birthday. David Smith succumbed at ninety-nine and William Raymond at ninety-three. Mr. Raymond was straight as an arrow, walked smartly and in youth was the close friend of John J. Pearson, who began to practice law at Franklin and was President Judge of Dauphin county thirty-three years. J. B. Nicklin, fifty years a respected citizen, died in 1890 at eighty-nine. To the end he retained his mental and physical strength, kept the accounts of the Baptist church, was at his desk regularly and could hit the bullseye with the crack shots of the military company. William Hilands, county-surveyor, was a familiar figure on the streets at eighty-seven. Rev. Dr. Crane preached, lectured, visited the sick and continued to do good at eighty-six. Grandma Snyder is eighty-eight and Benjamin May, a few miles up the Allegheny, is hardy and hearty at ninety-one. At eighty-five “Uncle Billy” Grove, of Canal, would hunt deer in Forest county and walk farther and faster than any man in the township. The people who have rubbed fourscore would fill a ten-acre patch. Of course, some get sick and die young, or the doctors would starve, heaven would be short of youthful tenants and the theories of Malthus might have to be tried on.

Franklin boasts the finest stone side-walks in the State. There are imposing churches, shady parks, broad streets, cosy homes, spacious stores, first-class schools, fine hotels and inviting drives. For years the Baptist quartette has not been surpassed in New York or Philadelphia. The opera-house is a gem. Three railroads—a fourth is coming that will lop off sixty-five miles between New York and Chicago—and electric street-cars supply rapid transit. Five substantial banks, a half-dozen millionaires, two-dozen hundred-thousand-dollar-citizens and multitudes of well-to-do property-holders give the place financial backbone. Manufactures flourish, wages are liberal and many workmen own their snug houses. Probably no town in the United States, of seven-thousand population, has greater wealth, better society and a kindlier feeling clear through the community.

On the south bank of French Creek, at Twelfth and Otter streets, James Evans, blacksmith, had lived twenty years. A baby when his parents settled farther up in 1802, he removed to Franklin in 1839. His house stood near the “spring” from which Hulings and Whitman wrung out the viscid scum. In dry weather the well he dug seventeen feet for water smelled and tasted of petroleum. Tidings of Drake’s success set the blacksmith thinking. Drake had bored into the well close to the “spring” and found oil. Why not try the experiment at Franklin? Evans was not flush of cash, but the hardware-dealer trusted him for the iron and he hammered out rough drilling-tools. He and his son Henry rigged a spring-pole and bounced the drill in the water-well. At seventy-two feet a crevice was encountered. The tools dropped, breaking off a fragment of iron, which obstinately refused to be fished out. Pumping by hand would determine whether a prize or a blank was to be drawn in the greasian lottery. Two men plied the pump vigorously. A stream of dark-green fluid gushed forth at the rate of twenty-five barrels a day. It was heavy oil, about thirty degrees gravity, free from grit and smooth as silk. The greatest lubricant on earth had been unearthed!

Picture the pandemonium that followed. Franklin had no such convulsion since the William B. Duncan, the first steamboat, landed one Sunday evening in January, 1828. The villagers speeded to the well as though all the imps of sheol were in pursuit. November court adjourned in half the number of seconds Sut Lovingood’s nest of hornets broke up the African camp-meeting. Judge John S. McCalmont, whose able opinions the Supreme Court liked to adopt, decided there was ample cause for action. A doctor rushed to the scene hatless, coatless and shoeless. Women deserted their households without fixing their back-hair or getting inside their dress-parade toggery. Babies cried, children screamed, dogs barked, bells rang and two horses ran away. At prayer-meeting a ruling elder, whom the events of the day had wrought to fever-heat, raised a hilarious snicker by imploring God to “send a shower of blessings—yea, Lord, twenty-five barrels of blessings!” Altogether it was a red-letter forenoon, for twenty-five barrels a day of thirty-dollar oil none felt inclined to sneeze at.