Chapter XIX: Just Odds and Ends 429-452 (14)

The town of Ceres, which celebrated its one-hundredth birthday this year, has had some peculiar experiences. Located on the state-line between New York and Pennsylvania, the boundary has figured in many curious ways since the pioneers erected the first log-cabin in 1797. The first squabble related to the post-office, which was established on the south-side of the line, in Pennsylvania, with a basket to hold the mail. By some hocus-pocus the department permitted the office to be removed to the north-side, in New York, fifty or more years ago. Every President from Andrew Jackson to William McKinley has been importuned to change it back again, but the population is so nearly divided that the question bids fair, like Tennyson’s brook, “to go on forever.” Ceres was strictly in it as a Gretna Green. The little Methodist church, the only one in the village, is built against the line, the porch extending into New York. The parsonage is in the same fix. To avoid securing a license, Pennsylvania couples had merely to step out of the parsonage to the porch and be married in New York. Eloping couples have had some lively rides to Ceres. For many years Justice Peabody was very popular at knot-tying. He was aroused one midnight by a man who wanted a warrant for the arrest of a pair of elopers. The judge was friendly to the young fellow in love. As he was making out the papers a rap at the door interrupted him. The caller was the young man himself. The judge stepped outside behind a stump-fence, across the state-line, married the eloping couple and then returned to the house to finish making out the warrant. A hotel built by a bright genius close to the line had an addition for a barroom. The barroom extended over the line and its sole entrance was from the Pennsylvania side. The bartender, by stepping a foot either way from the center of the bar, could pass from one state to another. He was arrested for illegal selling many times, but in each instance he would swear that the whisky he sold was disposed of in the other state. One day a Pennsylvania prisoner slipped his handcuffs when the sheriff was not looking, jumped out of the dining-room into New York, made faces at the minion of the law and defied arrest. For fifty years state-pride kept the people apart on the school-question. They had a small district-school on each side of the line in preference to a graded school, because the latter would demand a surrender of state-pride. Four years ago the differences were patched up and a graded-school was provided. The engine of the steam saw-mill is in Pennsylvania and the boiler in New York. The logs enter the mill in Pennsylvania and are sawed in New York, the boards are edged in Pennsylvania and the lumber is piled up crosswise on the state-line. At the grist-mill the grain entered on the New-York side, was ground in Pennsylvania and carried back into New York by the bolting-machinery. When the oil-boom was on at Bolivar and Richburg two narrow-gauge railroads passed through Ceres. One station was in New York and the other in Pennsylvania, with tracks parallel to Bolivar. The schedules of the passenger-trains were alike and some of the fastest rides ever taken on a narrow-gauge road resulted. Oil-developments did not hit Ceres hard, wells around the tidy village failing to tap the greasy artery. Possibly Nature thought the folks had enough fun over the boundary complications to compensate for the lack of petroleum.

Canada has oil-fields of considerable importance. The largest and oldest is in Enniskillen township, Lambton county, a dozen miles from Port Sarnia, at the foot of Lake Huron. Black Creek, a small tributary of the Detroit river, flows through this township and for many years its waters had been coated with a greasy liquid the Indians sold as a specific for countless diseases. The precious commodity was of a brown color, exceedingly odorous, unpleasant to the taste and burned with great intensity. In 1860 several wells were started, the projectors believing the floating oil indicated valuable deposits within easy reach of the surface. James Williams, who had previously garnered the stuff in pits, finished the first well that yielded oil in paying quantity. Others followed in close succession, but months passed without the sensation of a genuine spouter. Late in the summer of the same year that operations commenced, John Shaw, a poor laborer, managed to get a desirable lease on the bank of the creek. He built a cheap rig, provided a spring-pole and “kicked down” a well, toiling all alone at his weary task until money and credit and courage were exhausted. Ragged, hungry and barefooted, one forenoon he was refused boots and provisions by the village-merchant, nor would the blacksmith sharpen his drills without cash down. Reduced to the verge of despair, he went back to his derrick with a heavy heart, ate a hard crust for dinner and decided to leave for the United States next morning if no signs of oil were discovered that afternoon. He let down the tools and resumed his painful task. Twenty minutes later a rush of gas drove the tools high in the air, followed the next instant by a column of oil that rose a hundred feet! The roar could be heard a mile and the startled populace rushed from the neighboring hamlet to see the unexpected marvel. Canada boasted its first flowing-well and the tidings flew like wild-fire. Before dark hundreds of excited spectators visited the spot. For days the oil gushed unchecked, filling a natural basin an acre in extent, then emptying into the creek and discoloring the waters as far down as Lake St. Clair. None knew how to regulate its output and bring the flow under control. Thus it remained a week, when a delegate from Pennsylvania showed the owner how to put in a seed-bag and save the product. The first attempt succeeded and thenceforth the oil was cared for properly. Opinions differ as to the actual production of this novel strike, although the best judges placed it at five-thousand barrels a day for two or three weeks! The stream flowed incessantly the full size of the hole, a strong pressure of gas forcing it out with wonderful speed. The well produced generously four months, when it “stopped for keeps.” Persons who visited the well at its best will recall the surroundings. A pond of oil large enough for a respectable regatta lay between it and Black Creek, whose greasy banks for miles bore traces of the lavish inundation of crude. The locality was at once interesting and high-flavored and a conspicuous feature was Shaw himself. Radiant in a fresh suit of store-clothes, he moved about with the complacency incident to a green ruralist who has “struck ile.”

One of the persons earliest on the ground after the well began to flow was the storekeeper who had refused the proprietor a pair of boots that morning. With the cringing servility of a petty retailer he hurried to embrace Shaw, coupling this outbreak of affection with the assurance that everything in the shop was at his service. It is gratifying to note that Shaw had the spirit to rebuke this puppyism. Bringing his ample foot into violent contact with the dealer’s most vital part, he accompanied a heavy kick with an emphatic command to go to the place Heber Newton and Pentecost have ruled out. Shaw was uneducated and fell a ready prey to sharpers on the watch for easy victims. Cargoes of oil shipped to England brought small returns and his sudden wealth slipped away in short order. Ere long the envied possessor of the big well was obliged to begin life anew. For a few years he struggled along as an itinerant photographer, traveling with a “car” and earning a precarious substance taking “tin-types.” Death closed the scene in 1872, the luckless pioneer expiring at Petrolea in absolute want. Thus sadly ended another illustration of the adverse fortune which frequently overtakes men whose energy and grit confer benefits upon mankind that surely entitle them to a better fate. Mr. Williams saved money, served in parliament and died in the city of Hamilton years ago. He was the intimate friend of Hon. Isaac Buchanan, the distinguished Canadian statesman, whose sons are well-known operators at Oil City and Pittsburg.

“The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age and nature sink in years;
But thou shall flourish in immortal youth.”

As might be imagined, Shaw’s venture gave rise to operations of great magnitude. Hosts flocked to the scene in quest of lands and developments began on an extensive scale. Among others a rig was built and a well drilled without delay as close to the Shaw as it was possible to place the timbers. The sand was soon reached by the aid of steam-power and once more the oil poured forth enormously, the new strike proving little inferior to its neighbor. It was named the Bradley, in honor of the principal owner, E. C. Bradley, afterwards a leading operator in Pennsylvania, president of the Empire Gas-Company and still a resident of Oildom. The yield continued large for a number of months, then ceased entirely and both wells were abandoned. Of the hundreds in the vicinity a good percentage paid nicely, but none rivalled the initial spouters. The influx of restless spirits led to an “oil-town,” which for a brief space presented a picture of activity rarely surpassed. Oil Springs, as the mushroom city was fittingly termed, flourished amazingly. The excessive waste of oil filled every ditch and well, rendering the water unfit for use and compelling the citizens to quench their thirst with artificial drinks. The bulk of the oil was conveyed to Mandaumin, Wyoming or Port Sarnia, over roads of horrible badness, giving employment to an army of teamsters. A sort of “mud canal” was formed, through which the horses dragged small loads on a species of flat-boats, while the drivers walked along the “tow-path” on either side. The mud had the consistency of thin batter and was seldom under three feet deep. To those who have never seen this unique system of navigation the most graphic description would fail to convey an adequate idea of its peculiar features. Unlike the Pennsylvania oil-fields, the petroleum-districts of Canada are low and swampy, a circumstance that added greatly to the difficulty of moving the greasy staple during the wet season. Ultimately roads were cut through the soft morasses and railways were constructed, although not before Oil Springs had seen its best days and begun a rapid descent on the down grade. Salt-water quickly put a stop to many wells, the production declined rapidly and the town was depopulated. Operations extended towards the north-west, where Petrolea, which is yet a flourishing place, was established in 1864. Bothwell, twenty-six miles south of Oil Springs, had a short career and light production. Canadian operators were slower than the Yankees of the period and the tireless push of the Americans who crowded to the front at the beginning of the developments around Oil Springs was a revelation to the quiet plodders of Enniskillen and adjacent townships. The leading refineries are at London, fifty miles east of Wyoming and one of the most attractive cities in the Dominion.

OIL ON THE
PENINSULA OF GASPE.
]

Petroleum has long been known to exist in considerable quantity in the Gaspe Peninsula, at the extreme eastern end of Quebec. The Petroleum Oil-Trust, organized by a bunch of Canadians to operate the district, put down eight wells in 1893, finding a light green oil. The Trust continued its borings in 1894, on the left bank of the York River, south of the anticlinal of Tar Point. Several of the ten wells yielded moderately, and operations extended to the portion of Gaspe Basin called Mississippi Brook. One well in that section, completed in July of 1897, flowed from a depth of fifteen-hundred feet. Hundreds of barrels were lost before the well could be controlled. Its first, pumping produced forty barrels, and two others in the vicinity are of a similar stripe. The results thus far are deemed sufficiently encouraging to warrant further tests in hope of developing an extensive field. The oil comes from a coarse rock of sandy texture, and in color and gravity resembles the Pennsylvania article. The formation around the newest strikes is nearly flat, while the shallow wells in the section first prospected were bored at a sharp angle, to keep in touch with the dip of the rock, just as diamond drills follow the gold-bearing ledges in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Crossing the continent, oil has been tapped in the gold-diggings of British Columbia, although in amounts too small to be important commercially.

John Shaw, whose gusher brought the “gum-beds” of Enniskillen into the petroleum-column, narrowly escaped anticipating Drake three years. Shaw removed from Massachusetts to Canada in 1838, and was regarded as a visionary schemer. In 1856 he sought to interest his neighbors in a plan to _drill a well through the rock_ in search of the reservoir that supplied Bear Creek with a thick scum of oil. They hooted at the idea and proposed to send Shaw to the asylum. This tabooed the subject and postponed the advent of petroleum until the end of August, 1859.

Not content to crown Alaska with mountains of gold and valleys of yellow nuggets, inventors of choice fables have invested the hyperborean region with an exhaustless store of petroleum. In July of 1897 this paragraph, dated Seattle, went the rounds of the press:

“What is said to be the greatest discovery ever made is reported from Alaska. Some gold-prospectors several months ago ran across what seemed to be a lake of oil. It was fed by innumerable springs and the surrounding mountains were full of coal. They brought supplies to Seattle and tests proved it to be of as high grade as any ever taken out of Pennsylvania wells. A local company was formed and experts sent up. They have returned on the steamer Topeka, and their report has more than borne out first reports. It is stated there is enough oil and coal in the discovery to supply the world. It is close to the ocean; in fact, the experts say that the oil oozes out into the salt-water.”

William H. Seward’s purchase from Russia, for years ridiculed as good only for icebergs and white-bears, may be credited with Klondyke placers and vast bodies of gold-bearing quartz, but a “lake of oil” is too great a stretch of the long bow. If “a lake of oil” ever existed, the lighter portions would have evaporated and the residue would be asphaltum. The story “won’t hold water” or oil.

A thief broke into a Bradford store and pilfered the cash-drawer. Some months later the merchant received an unsigned letter, containing a ten-dollar bill and this explanatory note: “I stole seventy-eight dollars from your money-drawer. Remorse gnaws at my conscience. When remorse gnaws again I will send you some more.”

It is not surprising that evil travels faster than good, since it takes only two seconds to fight a duel and two months to drill an oil-well at Bradford.

“The Producers’ Consolidated Land-and-Petroleum-Company,” the formidable title over the Bradford office of the big corporation, is apt to suggest to observant readers the days of old long sign.

Hon. Reuben Carroll, a pioneer-operator, was born in Mercer county in 1823, went to Ohio to complete his education, settled in the Buckeye State, and was a member of the Legislature when developments began on Oil Creek. Solicited by friends to join them in an investment that proved fortunate, he removed to Titusville and cast his lot with the producers. He operated extensively in the northern fields, residing at Richburg during the Allegheny excitement. He took an active interest in public affairs, and contributed stirring articles on politics, finance and good government to leading journals. He opposed Wall-street domination and vigorously upheld the rights of the masses. Upon the decline of Richburg he located at Lily Dale, New York. As a representative producer he was asked to become a member of the South Improvement-Company in 1872. The offer aroused his inflexible sense of justice and was indignantly spurned. He knew the sturdy quality and large-heartedness of the Oil-Creek operators and did not propose to assist in their destruction. At seventy-four, Mr. Carroll is vigorous and well-preserved, ready to combat error and champion truth with tongue and pen. An intelligent student of the past and of current events, a close observer of the signs of the times and a keen reasoner, Reuben Carroll is a fine example of the men who are mainly responsible for the birth and growth of the petroleum-development.

There is much uncertainty as to the youngest soldier in the civil-war, the oldest Mason, the man who first nominated McKinley for President, and who struck Billie Patterson, but none as to the youngest dealer in oil-well supplies in the oil-region. This distinction belongs to Ralph W. Carroll, a native of Youngstown, Ohio, and son of Hon. Reuben Carroll. Born in 1860, at eighteen he was at the head of a large business at Rock City, in the Four-Mile District, five miles south-west of Olean. Three brothers were associated with him. The firm was the first to open a supply-store at Richburg, with a branch at Allentown, four miles east, and an establishment later at Cherry Grove. In 1883 Ralph W. succeeded the firm, his brothers retiring, and located at Bradford. In 1886 he opened offices and warehouses at Pittsburg and in 1894 removed to New York to engage in placing special investments. The young merchant was secretary of the Producers’ Protective Association, organized at Richburg in 1891, and a member of the executive committee that conducted the fight against the Roberts Torpedo-Company. Hon. David Kirk, Asher W. Milner, J. E. Dusenbury and “Farmer” Dean were his four associates on this important committee. Roscoe Conkling, for the Roberts side, and General Butler, for the Producers’ Association, measured swords in this legal warfare. Mr. Carroll has a warm welcome for his oil-region friends, a class of men the like of whom for geniality, sociability, liberality and enterprise the world can never duplicate.

The Beardsleys, Fishers, Dollophs and Fosters were the first inhabitants in the wilds of Northern McKean. Henry Bradford Dolloph, whose house above Sawyer City was shattered by a glycerine-explosion, was the first white child who saw daylight and made infantile music in the Tuna Valley. One of the first two houses where Bradford stands was occupied by the Hart family, parents and twelve children. When the De Golias settled up the East Branch a road had to be cut through the forest from Alton. Hon. Lewis Emery’s No. 1, on the Tibbets farm, the first good well up the Branch, produced oil that paid two or three times the cost of the entire property.

The United-States Pipe-Line has overcome legal obstructions, laid its tubes under railroads that objected to its passage to the sea and will soon pump oil direct to refineries on the Jersey coast. Senator Emery, the sponsor of the line, is not the man to be bluffed by any railroad-popinjay who wants him to get off the earth. The National-Transit Line has ample facilities to transport all the oil in Pennsylvania to the seaboard, but Emery is a true descendant of the proud Highlander who wouldn’t sail in Noah’s ark because “ilka McLean has a boat o’ his ain.” He was born in New-York State, reared in Michigan, whither the family removed in his boyhood, and learned to be a miller. Arriving at Pioneer early in the sixties, he cut his eye-teeth as an oil-operator on Oil Creek and had much to do with bringing the great Bradford district to the front. He served one term in the Legislature and two in the Senate, gaining a high reputation by his fearless opposition to jobbery and corruption.

Michael Garth, a keen-witted son of the Emerald Isle, has the easiest snap in the northern region. Scraping together the funds to put down a well on his rocky patch of ground near Duke Centre, he rigged a water-wheel to pump the ten barrels of crude the strike yielded daily. Another well of similar stripe was drilled and the faithful creek drives the wooden-wheel night and day, without one cent of expense or one particle of attention on the part of the owner. Garth can go fishing three days at a lick, to find the wells producing upon his return just as when he left. Such a picnic almost compels a man to be lazy.

The Devonian Oil Company, of which Charles E. Collins is the clear-brained president and guiding star, has operated on the wholesale plan in the northern region and in West Virginia. In October of 1897 the Devonian, the Watson and the Emery companies sold a part of their holdings north and south to the West Penn, a producing wing of the Standard, for fourteen-hundred-thousand dollars in spot cash. The largest cash sale of wells and territory on record, this transaction was negotiated by John L. and J. C. McKinney acting in behalf of the buyer, and Charles E. Collins and Lewis Emery representing the sellers.

“Hell in harness!” Davy Crockett is credited with exclaiming the first time he saw a railroad train tearing along one dark night. Could he have seen an oil-train on the Oil-Creek Railroad, blazing from end to end and tearing down from Brocton at sixty miles an hour, the conception would have been yet more realistic. Engineer Brown held the throttle, which he pulled wide open upon discovering a car of crude on fire. Mile after mile he sped on, thick smoke and sheets of flame each moment growing denser and fiercer. At last he reached a long siding, slackened the speed for the fireman to open the switch and ran the doomed train off the main track. He detached the engine and two cars, while the rest of the train fell a prey to the fiery demon. A similar accident at Bradford, caused by a tank at the Anchor Oil-Company’s wells overflowing upon the tracks of the Bradford & Bordell narrow-gauge, burned two or three persons fatally. The oil caught fire as the locomotive passed the spot and enveloped the passenger-coach in flames so quickly that escape was cut off.

Bradford, Tarport, Limestone, Sawyer, Gillmor, Derrick, Red Rock, State Line, Four-Mile, Duke Centre, Rexford, Bordell, Rew City, Coleville, Custer and De Golia, with their thousands of wells, their hosts of live people, their boundless activity, their crowded railways, their endless procession of teams and their unlimited energy, were for the nonce the brightest galaxy of oil-towns that ever flourished in the busy realm of petroleum. Some have vanished, others are mere skeletons and Bradford alone retains a fair semblance of its pristine greatness.

The bee-line for the north was fairly and squarely “on the belt.”

THE SEX MEN ADORE.

A little girl at Titusville, when she prayed to have herself and all of her relations cared for during the night, added: “And, dear God, do try and take good care of yourself, for if anything should happen to you we should all go to pieces. Amen.”

A young lady at Sawyer City accepted a challenge to climb a derrick on the Hallenback farm, stand on top and wave her handkerchief. She was to receive a silk-dress and a ten-dollar greenback. The feat was performed in good shape. It is probably the only instance on record where a woman had the courage to climb an eighty-foot derrick, stand on top and wave her handkerchief to those below. It was done and the enterprising girl gathered in the wager.

Mrs. Sands, formerly a resident of Oil City, built the Sands Block and owned wells on Sage Run. McGrew Brothers, of Pittsburg, struck a spouter in 1869 that boomed Sage Run a few months. A lady at Pleasantville, who had coined money by shrewd speculations in oil-territory, purchased two-hundred acres near the McGrew strike, while the well was drilling and nobody thought it worth noticing. The lady was Mrs. Sands, who enacted the role of “a poor lone widow,” anxious to secure a patch of ground to raise cabbage and garden-truck, to get the property. She worked so skillfully upon the sensibilities of the Philadelphians owning the land that they sold it for a trifle “to help a needy woman!” Her first well, finished the night before the “thirty-day shut down,” flowed five-hundred barrels each twenty-four hours. The “poor lone widow” valued the tract at a half-million dollars and at one time was rated at six-hundred-thousand, all “earned by her own self.” Yet weak-minded men and strong-minded women talk of the suppressed sex!

A Franklin lady asked her husband one morning to buy five-thousand barrels of oil on her account, saying she had an impression the price would advance very soon. To please her he promised to comply. At dinner she inquired about it and was told the order had been filled by an Oil-City broker. In the afternoon the price advanced rapidly. Next morning the lady asked hubby to have the lot sold and bring her the profits. The miserable husband was in for it. He dared not confess his deception and the only alternative was to pay the difference and keep mum. His sickly smile, as he drew fifteen-hundred dollars out of the bank to hand his spouse, would have cracked a mirror an inch thick. Solomon got a good deal of experience from his wives and that Franklin husband began to think “a woman might know something about business after all.”

Mrs. David Hanna, of Oil City, is not one of the women whose idea of a good time is to go to a funeral and cry. She tried a bit of speculation in certificates and the market went against her. She tried again and again, but the losses exceeded the profits by a large majority. The phenomenal spurt in April of 1895 was her opportunity. She held down a seat in the Oil-Exchange gallery three days, sold at almost the top notch and cleared twelve-thousand dollars. People applauded and declared the plucky little woman “had a great head.”

SCHRUBRASS FERRY 1873
SUMMIT CITY
ACROSS THE BELT AT BARRINGER
TURKEY CITY IN 1874
FIRST HOUSE AT TRIANGLE CITY
MAIN STREET, ST. PETERSBURG.
VIEW IN EDENBURG.

XII.
DOWN THE ZIG-ZAGGED STREAM.

WHERE THE ALLEGHENY FLOWS—RENO CONTRIBUTES A GENEROUS MITE—SCRUBGRASS
HAS A SHORT INNING—BULLION LOOMS UP WITH DUSTERS AND GUSHERS—A PEEP
AROUND EMLENTON—FOXBURG FALLS INTO LINE—THROUGH THE CLARION
DISTRICT—ST. PETERSBURG, ANTWERP, TURKEY CITY AND DOGTOWN—EDENBURG
HAS A HOT TIME—PARKER ON DECK.

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“He left the barren-beaten thoroughfare.”—_Tennyson._

“Who, grown familiar with the sky, will grope * * * among
groundlings?”—_Browning._

“What lavish wealth men give for trifles light and small!”—_W. S
Hawkins._

“How soon our new-born light attains to full-aged noon.”—_Francis
Quarles._

“Liberal as noontide speeds the ambient ray
And fills each crevice in the world with day.”—_Lytton._

“We must take the current when it serves or lose our
ventures.”—_Shakespeare._

“Let us battle for elbow-room.”—_James Parish Steele._

“Peter Oleum came down like a wolf on the fold.”—_Byron Parodied._

“Plunged into darkness or plunged into light.”—_Hester M. Poole._

“Lord love us, how we apples swim!”—_Mallett._

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley.”—_Robert Burns._

“Fortune turns everything to the advantage of her
favorites.”—_Rochefoucauld._

“Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows.”—_Milton._

“A gorgeous sunset is coloring the whole sky.”—_Julius Stinde._

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South and west of Oil Creek for many miles the petroleum-star shed its effulgent luster. Down the Allegheny adventurous operators groped their way patiently, until Clarion, Armstrong, Butler, Washington and West Virginia unlocked their splendid store-houses at the bidding of the drill. Aladdin’s wondrous lamp, Stalacta’s wand or Ali Babi’s magic sesame was not so grand a talisman as the tools which from the bowels of the earth brought forth illimitable spoil. No need of fables to varnish the tales of struggles and triumphs, of disappointments and successes, of weary toil and rich reward that have marked the oil-development from the Drake well to the latest strike in Tyler county. Men who go miles in advance of developments to seek new oil-fields run big chances of failure. They understand the risk and appreciate the cold fact that heavy loss may be entailed. But “the game is worth the powder” in their estimation and impossibility is not the sort of ability they swear by. “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win” is a maxim oil-operators have weighed carefully. The man who has faith to attempt something is a man of power, whether he hails from Hong Kong or Boston, Johannesburg or Oil City. The man who will not improve his opportunity, whether seeking salvation or petroleum, is a sure loser. His stamina is as fragile as a fifty-cent shirt and will wear out quicker than religion that is used for a cloak only. Muttering long prayers without working to answer them is not the way to angle for souls, or fish, or oil-wells. It demands nerve and vim and enterprise to stick thousands of dollars in a hole ten, twenty, fifty or “a hundred miles from anywhere,” in hope of opening a fresh vein of petroleum. Luckily men possessing these qualities have not been lacking since the first well on Oil Creek sent forth the feeble squirt that has grown to a mighty river. Hence prolific territory, far from being scarce, has sometimes been too plentiful for the financial health of the average producer, who found it hard to cipher out a profit selling dollar-crude at forty cents. As old fields exhausted new ones were explored in every direction, those south of the original strike presenting a very respectable figure in the oil-panorama. If “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” eternal hustling is the price of oil-operations. Maria Seidenkovitch, a fervid Russian anarchist, who would rather hit the Czar with a bomb than hit a thousand-barrel well, has written:

“There is no standing still! Even as I pause
The steep path shifts and I slip back apace;
Movement was safety; by the journey’s laws
No help is given, no safe abiding-place;
No idling in the pathway, hard and slow—
I must go forward or must backward go!”

Down the Allegheny three miles, on a gentle slope facing bold hills across the river, is the remnant of Reno, once a busy, attractive town. It was named from Gen. Jesse L. Reno, who rose to higher rank than any other of the heroes Venango “contributed to the death-roll of patriotism.” He spent his boyhood at Franklin, was graduated from West Point in the class with George B. McClellan and “Stonewall” Jackson, served in the Mexican war, was promoted to Major-General and fell at the battle of South Mountain in 1862. The Reno Oil-Company, organized in 1865 as the Reno-Oil-and-Land Company, owns the village-site and twelve-hundred acres of adjacent farms. The company and the town owed their creation to the master-mind of Hon. C. V. Culver, to whose rare faculty for developing grand enterprises the oil-regions offered an inviting field. Visiting Venango county early in the sixties, a canvass of the district convinced him that the oil-industry, then an infant beginning to creep, must attain giant proportions. To meet the need of increased facilities for business, he conceived the idea of a system of banks at convenient points and opened the first at Franklin in 1861. Others were established at Oil City, Titusville and suitable trade-centres until the combination embraced twenty banks and banking-houses, headed by the great office of Culver, Penn & Co. in New York. All enjoyed large patronage and were converted into corporate banks. The speculative mania, unequaled in the history of the world, that swept over the oil-regions in 1864-5, deluged the banks with applications for temporary loans to be used in purchasing lands and oil-interests. Philadelphia alone had nine-hundred stock-companies. New York was a close second and over seven-hundred-million dollars were capitalized—on paper—for petroleum-speculations! The production of oil was a new and unprecedented business, subject to no known laws and constantly overturning theories that set limits to its expansion. There was no telling where flowing-wells, spouting thousands of dollars daily without expense to the owners, might be encountered. Stories of sudden fortunes, by the discovery of oil on lands otherwise valueless, pressed the button and the glut of paper-currency did the rest.

Mr. Culver directed the management and employment of fifteen-million dollars in the spring of 1865! People literally begged him to handle their money, elected him to Congress and insisted that he invest their cash and bonds. The Reno Oil-Company included men of the highest personal and commercial standing. Preliminary tests satisfied the officers of the company that the block of land at Reno was valuable territory. They decided to operate it, to improve the town and build a railroad to Pithole, in order to command the trade of Oil Creek, Cherry Run and “the Magic City.” Oil City opposed the railroad strenuously, refusing a right-of-way and compelling the choice of a circuitous route, with difficult grades to climb and ugly ravines to span. At length a consolidation of competing interests was arranged, to be formally ratified on March twenty-ninth, 1866. Meanwhile rumors affecting the credit of the Culver banks were circulated. Disastrous floods, the close of the war and the amazing collapse of Pithole had checked speculation and impaired confidence in oil-values. Responsible parties wished to stock the Reno Company at five-million dollars and Mr. Culver was in Washington completing the railroad-negotiations which, in one week, would give him control of nearly a million. A run on his banks was started, the strain could not be borne and on March twenty-seventh, 1866, the failure of Culver, Penn & Co. was announced. The assets at cost largely exceeded the liabilities of four-million dollars, but the natural result of the suspension was to discredit everything with which the firm had been identified. The railroad-consolidation, confessedly advantageous to all concerned, was not confirmed and Reno stock was withheld from the market. While the creditors generally co-operated to protect the assets and adjust matters fairly, a few defeated measures looking to a safe deliverance. These short-sighted individuals sacrificed properties, instituted harassing prosecutions and precipitated a crisis that involved tremendous losses. Many a man standing on his brother’s neck claims to be looking up far into the sky watching for the Lord to come!

The fabric reared with infinite pains toppled, pulling down others in its fall. The Reno, Oil-Creek & Pithole Railroad, within a mile of completion, crumbled into ruin. The architect of the splendid plans that ten days of grace would have carried to fruition displayed his manly fiber in the dark days of adversity and he has been amply vindicated. Instead of yielding to despair and “letting things take their course,” he strove to realize for the creditors every dollar that could be saved from the wreck. Animated by a lofty motive, for thirty years Mr. Culver has labored tirelessly to discharge the debts of the partnership. No spirit could be braver, no life more unselfish, no line of action more steadfastly devoted to a worthy object. He had bought property and sought to enhance its value, but he had never gambled in stocks, never dealt in shares on the mere hazard of a rise or gone outside the business—except to help customers whose necessities appealed to his sympathy—with which he was intimately connected. Driven to the wall by stress of circumstances and general distrust, he has actually paid off all the small claims and multitudes of large ones against his banks. How many men, with no legal obligation to enforce their payment, would toil for a generation to meet such demands? Thistles do not bear figs and banana-vendors are not the only persons who should be judged by their fruits. It is a good thing to achieve success and better still to deserve it. Gauged by the standard of high resolve, earnest purpose and persistent endeavor—by what he has tried to do and not by what may have been said of him—Charles Vernon Culver can afford to accept the verdict of his peers and of the Omniscient Judge, who “discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

“I will go on then, though the limbs may tire,
And though the path be doubtful and unseen;
Better with the last effort to expire
Than lose the toil and struggle that have been,
And have the morning strength, the upward strain,
The distance conquered in the end made vain.”

Reorganized in the interest of Culver, Penn & Co.’s creditors, the Reno Company developed its property methodically. No. 18 well, finished in May of 1870, pumped two-hundred barrels and caused a flutter of excitement. Fifty others, drilled in 1870-1, were so satisfactory that the stockholders might have shouted “Keno!” The company declined to lease and very few dry-holes were put down on the tract. Gas supplied fuel and the sand, coarse and pebbly, produced oil of superior gravity at five to six-hundred feet. Reno grew, a spacious hotel was built, stores prospered, two railroads had stations and derricks dotted the banks of the Allegheny. The company’s business was conducted admirably, it reaped liberal profits and operated in Forest county. Its affairs are in excellent shape and it has a neat production today. Mr. Culver and Hon. Galusha A. Grow have been its presidents and Hon. J. H. Osmer is now the chief officer. Mr. Osmer is a leader of the Venango bar and has lived at Franklin thirty-two years. His thorough knowledge of law, sturdy independence, scorn of pettifogging and skill as a pleader gained him an immense practice. He has been retained in nearly all the most important cases before the court for twenty-five years and appears frequently in the State and the United-States Supreme Courts. He is a logical reasoner and brilliant orator, convincing juries and audiences by his incisive arguments. He served in Congress with distinguished credit. His two sons have adopted the legal profession and are associated with their father. A man of positive individuality and sterling character, a friend in cloud and sunshine, a deep thinker and entertaining talker is James H. Osmer.

Cranberry township, a regular petroleum-huckleberry, duplicated the Reno pool at Milton, with a vigorous offshoot at Bredinsburg and nibbles lying around loose. Below Franklin the second-sand sandwich and Bully-Hill successes were special features. A mile up East Sandy Creek—it separates Cranberry and Rockland—was Gas City, on a toploftical hill twelve miles south of Oil City. A well sunk in 1864 had heaps of gas, which caught fire and burned seven years. E. E. Wightman and Patrick Canning drilled five good wells in 1871 and Gas City came into being. Vendergrift & Forman constructed a pipeline and telegraph to Oil City. Gas fired the boilers, lighted the streets, heated the dwellings and great quantities wasted. The pressure could be run up to three-hundred pounds and utilized to run engines in place of steam, were it not for the fine grit with the gas, which wore out the cylinders. Wells that supplied fuel to pump themselves seemed very similar to mills that furnished their own motive-power and grist for the hoppers. A cow that gave milk and provided food for herself by the process could not be slicker. Gas City vaporized a year or two and flickered out. The last jet has been extinguished and not a glimmer of gas or symptom of wells has been visible for many years.

Fifteen of the first sixteen wells at Foster gladdened the owners by yielding bountifully. To drill, to tube, to pump, to get done-up with a dry-hole, “aye, there’s the rub” that tests a fellow’s mettle and changes blithe hope to bleak despair. Foster wells were not of that complexion. They lined the steep cliff that resembles an Alpine farm tilted on end to drain off, the derricks standing like sentries on the watch that nobody walked away with the romantic landscape. Lovers of the sterner moods of nature would revel in the rugged scenery, which discounts the overpraised Hudson and must have fostered sublime emotions in the impassive redmen. Indian-God Rock, inscribed with untranslatable hieroglyphics, presumably tells what “Lo” thought of the surroundings. Six miles south of the huge rock, which somebody proposed to boat to Franklin and set in the park as an interesting memento of the aborigines, was “the burning well.” For years the gas blazed, illuminating the hills and keeping a plot of grass constantly fresh and green. The flood in 1865 overflowed the hole, but the gas burned just as though water were its native element. It was the fad for sleighing parties to visit the well, dance on the sward when snow lay a yard deep ten rods away and hold outdoor picnics in January and February. This practically realized the fancy of the boy who wished winter would come in summer, that he might coast on the Fourth of July in shirt-sleeves and linen-pants. Here and there in the interior of Rockland township morsels of oil have been unearthed and small wells are pumping to-day.

C. D. Angell leased blocks of land from Foster to Scrubgrass in 1870-71 and jabbed them with holes that confirmed his “belt theory.” His first well—a hundred-barreler—on Belle Island, a few rods below the station, opened the Scrubgrass field. On the Rockland side of the river the McMillan and 99 wells headed a list of remunerative producers. Back a quarter-mile the territory was tricky, wells that showed for big strikes sometimes proving of little account. A town toddled into existence. Gregory—the genial host joined the heavenly host long ago—had a hotel at which trains stopped for meals. James Kennerdell ran a general store and the post-office. The town was busy and had nothing scrubby except the name. The wells retired from business, the depot burned down, the people vanished and Kennerdell Station was established a half-mile north. Wilson Cross continued his store at the old stand until his death in March, 1896. Within a year paying wells have been drilled near the station and two miles southward. On the opposite bank Major W. T. Baum, of Franklin, has a half-dozen along the base of the hill that net him a princely return. A couple of miles north-west, in Victory township, Conway Brothers, of Philadelphia, recently drilled a well forty-two hundred feet. The last sixty feet were sand with a flavor of oil, the deepest sand and petroleum recorded up to the present time. Careful records of the strata and temperature were taken. Once a thermometer slipped from Mr. Conway’s hand and tumbled to the bottom of the well, the greatest drop of the mercury in any age or clime.

Sixty farmers combined in the fall of 1859 to drill the first well in Scrubgrass township, on the Rhodabarger tract. They rushed it like sixty six-hundred feet, declined to pay more assessments, kicked over the dashboard and spilled the whole combination. The first productive well was Aaron Kepler’s, drilled on the Russell farm in 1863, and John Crawford’s farm had the largest of the early ventures. On the Witherup farm, at the mouth of Scrubgrass Creek, paying wells were drilled in 1867. Considerable skirmishing was done at intervals without startling results. The first drilling in Clinton township was on. the Kennerdell property, two miles west of the Allegheny, the Big-Bend Oil-Company sinking a dry-hole in 1864-5. Jonathan Watson bored two in 1871, finding traces of oil in a thin layer of sand. The Kennerdell block of nine-hundred acres figured as the scene of milling operations from the beginning of the century. David Phipps—the Phipps families are still among the most prominent in Venango county—built a grist-mill on the property in 1812, a saw-mill and a woolen-factory, operated an iron-furnace a mile up the creek and founded a natty village. Fire destroyed his factory and Richard Kennerdel bought the place in 1853. He built a woolen-mill that attained national celebrity, farmed extensively, conducted a large store and for thirty years was a leading business-man. A handsome fortune, derived from manufacturing and oil-wells on his lands, and the respect of all classes rewarded the enterprise, sagacity and hospitality of this progressive citizen. The factory he reared has been dismantled, the pretty little settlement amid the romantic hills of Clinton is deserted and the man to whom both owed their development rests from his labors. Mr. Kennerdell possessed boundless energy, decision and the masterly qualities that surmount obstacles, build up a community and round out a manly character. Cornen Brothers have a production on the Kennerdell tract, which they purchased in 1892. During the Bullion furore a bridge was built at Scrubgrass and a railroad to Kennerdell was constructed. Ice carried off the bridge and the faithful old ferry holds the fort as in the days of John A. Canan and George McCullough.

Phillips Brothers, who had operated largely on Oil Creek and in Butler county, leased thousands of acres in Clinton and drilled a number of dry-holes. Believing a rich pool existed in that latitude, they were not deterred by reverses that would have stampeded operators of less experience. On August ninth, 1876, John Taylor and Robert Cundle finished a two-hundred-barrel spouter on the George W. Gealy farm, two miles north of Kennerdell. They sold to Phillips Brothers, who were drilling on adjacent farms. The new strike opened the Bullion field, toward which the current turned forthwith. H. L. Taylor and John Satterfield, the biggest operators in Butler, visited the Gealy well and offered a half-million dollars for the Phillips interests in Clinton. A hundred oilmen stood watching the flow that August morning. The parties consulted briefly and Isaac Phillips invited me to walk with him a few rods. He said: “Taylor & Satterfield wish to take our property at five-hundred-thousand dollars. This is a good deal of money, but we have declined it. We think there will be a million in this field for us if we develop it ourselves.” They carried out this programme and the estimate was approximated closely.

The Sutton, Simcox, Taylor, Henderson, Davis, Gealy, Newton and Berringer farms were operated rapidly. Tack Brothers paid ten-thousand dollars to Taylor for thirty acres and Porter Phipps leased fifteen acres, which he sold to Emerson & Brownson, whose first well started at seven-hundred barrels. Phillips Brothers’ No. 3 well, on the Gealy farm, was a four-hundred-barreler. In January, 1877, Frank Nesbit’s No. 2, Henderson farm, flowed five-hundred barrels, and in February the Galloway began at two-hundred. The McCalmont Oil-Company’s Big Medicine, on the Newton Farm, tipped the beam at one-thousand barrels on June seventh. Mitchell & Lee’s Big Injun flowed three-thousand barrels on June eighteenth, the biggest yield in the district. Ten yards away a galaxy of Franklinites drilled the driest kind of a dry-hole. In August the McCalmont No. 31 and the Phillips No. 7 gauged a plump thousand apiece. These were the largest wells and they exhausted speedily. The oil from the Gealy No. 1 was hauled to Scrubgrass until connections could be laid to the United Pipe-Lines. The Bullion field, in which a few skeleton-wells produce a few barrels daily, extended seven miles in length and three-eighths of a mile in width. Like the business-end of a healthy wasp, “it was little, but—oh, my!” It swerved the tide from Bradford and ruled the petroleum-roost eighteen months. Summit City on the Simcox farm, Berringer City on the Berringer farm, and Dean City on the McCalmont farm flourished during the excitement. The first house at Summit was built on December eighth, 1876. In June of 1877 the town boasted two-hundred buildings and fifteen-hundred population. Abram Myers, the last resident, left in April of 1889. All three towns have “faded into nothingness” and of the five-hundred wells producing at the summit of Bullion’s short-lived prosperity not a dozen survive. Westward a new strip was opened, the wells on several farms yielding their owners a pleasant income. J. J. Myers, whose home is now at Hartstown, operated successfully in this district. George Rumsey, an enterprising citizen, is the lucky owner of a number of slick wells. The pretty town of Clintonville has been largely benefited by oil-operations in the vicinity. It is surrounded by a fine agricultural country and possesses many desirable features as a place of residence. Bullion had its turn and others were to follow in short meter.

“’Tis not too late to seek a newer world,
Tho’ much is taken, much abides.”

Major St. George—the kindly old man sleeps in the Franklin cemetery—had a bunch of wells and lived in a small house close to the Allegheny-Valley track, near the siding in Rockland township that bears his name. At Rockland Station a stone chimney, a landmark for many years, marked the early abode of Hon. Elisha W. Davis, who operated at Franklin, was speaker of the House of Representatives and the State-Senate five terms and spent the closing years of his active life in Philadelphia. Emlenton, the lively town at the south-eastern corner of Venango county, was a thriving place prior to the oil-development. The wells in the vicinity were generally medium, Ritchey Run having some of the best. This romantic stream, south of the town, borders Clarion county for a mile or two from its mouth. John Kerr, a squatter, cleared a portion of the forest and was drowned in the river, slipping off a flat rock two miles below his bit of land. The site of Emlenton was surveyed and the warrant from the state given in 1796 to Samuel B. Fox, great-grandfather of the late William Logan Fox and J. M. Fox, of Foxburg. Joseph M., son of Samuel B. Fox, settled on the land in 1827. Andrew McCaslin owned the tract above, from about where the Valley Hotel and the public-school now stand. He was elected sheriff in 1832 and built an iron-furnace. As a compliment to Mrs. Fox—Miss Hanna Emlen—he named the hamlet Emlenton. Doctor James Growe built the third house in the settlement. The covered wooden-bridge, usually supposed to have been brought over in the Mayflower, withstood floods and ice-gorges until April of 1883. John Keating, who had the second store, built a furnace near St. Petersburg and held a thousand acres of land. Oil-producers were well represented in the growing town, which has been the home of Marcus Hulings, L. E. Mallory, D. D. Moriarty, M. C. Treat and R. W. Porterfield. James Bennett, a leader in business, built the brick opera-house and the flour-mills and headed the company that built the Emlenton & Shippenville Railroad, which ran to Edenburg at the height of the Clarion development. Emlenton is supplied with natural-gas and noted for good schools, good hotels and get-up-and-get citizens and is wide-awake in every respect.

Dr. A. W. Crawford, of Emlenton, who served in the Legislature, was appointed consul to Antwerp by President Lincoln in 1861. At the time he reached Antwerp a cheap illuminant was unknown on the continent. Gas was used in the cities, but the people of Antwerp depended mainly upon rape-seed oil. Only wealthy people could afford it and the poorer folks went to bed in the dark. From Antwerp to Brussels the country was shrouded in gloom at night. Not a light could be seen outside the towns, in the most populous section on earth. A few gallons of American refined had appeared in Antwerp previous to Dr. Crawford’s arrival. It was regarded as an object of curiosity. A leading firm inquired about this new American product and Dr. Crawford was the man who could give the information. He was from the very part of the country where the new illuminant was produced. The upshot of the matter was that Dr. Crawford put the firm in communication with American shippers, which led to an order of forty barrels by Aug. Schmitz & Son, Antwerp dealers. The article had tremendous prejudice to overcome, but the exporters succeeded in finally disposing of their stock. It yielded them a net return of forty francs. The oil won its way and from the humble beginning of forty barrels in 1861, the following year witnessing a demand for fifteen-hundred-thousand gallons. By 1863 it had come largely into use and since that time it has become a staple article of commerce. Dr. Crawford served as consul at Antwerp until 1866, when he returned home and began a successful career as an oil-producer. It was fortunate that Col. Drake chanced upon the shallowest spot in the oil-regions where petroleum has ever been found, when he located the first well, and equally lucky that a practical oilman represented the United States at Antwerp in 1861. Had Drake chanced upon a dry-hole and some other man been consul at Antwerp, oil-developments might have been retarded for years.

“Oft what seems a trifle,
A mere nothing in itself, in some nice situations
Turns the scale of Fate and rules important actions.”

It is interesting to note that in the original land-warrants to Samuel M. Fox certain mineral-rights are reserved, although oil is not specified. A clause in each of the documents reads:

* * * “To the use of him, the said Samuel M. Fox, his heirs and assigns forever, free and clear of all restriction and reservation as to mines, royalties, quit-rents or otherwise, excepting and reserving only the fifth part of all gold and silver-ore for the use of this Commonwealth, to be delivered at the pit’s mouth free of all charges.”