Chapter XIX: Just Odds and Ends 429-452 (21)

Thirty-seven years have had their entrances and their exits since Col. Drake’s little operation on Oil Creek played ducks and drakes with lard-oil lamps and tallow-dips. That seventy-foot hole on the flats below Titusville gave mankind a queer variety of things besides the best light on “this grain of sand and tears we call the earth.” With the illuminating blessing enough wickedness and jollity were mixed up to knock out Sodom and Gomorrah in one round. The festive boys who painted the early oil-towns red are getting gray and wrinkled, yet they smile clear down to their boots as they think of Petroleum Centre, Pithole, Babylon, or any other of the rapid places which shed a lurid glare along in the sixties. The smile is not so much on account of flowing wells and six-dollar crude as because of the rollicking scenes which carmined the pioneer-period of Petroleum. These were the palmy days of unfathomable mud, swearing teamsters, big barrels, high prices, abundant cash and easy morals, when men left their religion and dress-suits “away out in the United States.” The air was redolent of oil and smoke and naughtiness, but there was no lack of hearty kindness and the sort of charity that makes the angels want to flap their wings and give “three cheers and a tiger.” Even as the city destroyed by fire from heaven boasted one righteous person in the shape of Lot, whose wife was turned into a pillar of salt for being too fresh, so the busy Oil-Dorado had a host of capital fellows, true as steel, bright as a dollar and “quicker’n greas’d lightnin’!” Braver, better, nobler, squarer men never doffed a tile to a pretty girl or elevated a heavy boot to the coat-tails of a scoundrel. About the well, on the streets, in stores and offices could be found gallant souls attracted from the ends of the world by glowing pictures—real oil-paintings—of huge fortunes gained in a twinkling. Ministers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, soldiers, professors, farmers, mechanics and members of every industry were neither few nor far between in the exciting scramble for “the root of all evil.”

WILL S. WHITAKER. ROBERT LACY COCHRAN.
ALBERT PAWLING WHITAKER.
]

To keep matters straight and slake the thirst for current literature newspapers were absolutely necessary. Going back to 1859, the eventful year that brought petroleum to the front, Venango county had three weeklies. The oldest of these was the _Spectator_, established at Franklin in 1849, by Albert P. Whitaker. At the goodly age of seventy-eight he wielded a vigorous pen and died in February, 1897. A zealous disciple of Izaak Walton and Thomas Jefferson, he could hook a fish or indite a pungent editorial with equal dexterity. He was an encyclopedia of political lore and racy stories. His _Spectator_ was no idle spectator of passing incidents. In 1851 Col. James Bleakley, subsequently a prosperous producer and banker, secured an interest, selling it in 1853 to R. L. Cochran, who soon became sole proprietor and published the paper seven years. Mr. Cochran took an active part in politics and agriculture and exerted wide influence. A keen, incisive writer and entertaining talker, with the courage of his convictions and the good of the public at heart, his sterling qualities inspired confidence and respect. Probably no man in Northwestern Pennsylvania had a stronger personal following. The _Spectator_ flourished like a prize sunflower under his tactful management. It printed the first “oil report,” giving a list of wells drilling and rigs up or building in the spring of 1860. Desiring to engage in banking, R. L. Cochran sold the paper to A. P. Whitaker, its founder, and C. C. Cochran. The latter retiring in 1861, Whitaker played a lone hand three years, when the two Cochrans again purchased the establishment. A. P. Whitaker and his son, John H., a first-class printer, bought it back in 1866 and ran the concern four years. Then the elder Whitaker once more dropped out, returning in 1876 and resuming entire control a year later, which closed the shuttlecock-changes of ownership that had been in vogue for twenty-five years. Will S. Whitaker, an accomplished typo and twice the nominee of his party for mayor, had long assisted his father in conducting the staunch exponent of unadulterated Democracy. Col. Bleakley passed away in 1884, leaving a fine estate as a monument of his successful career. He built the Bleakley Block, founded the International Bank, served as City Councilman and was partner in 1842-4 of John W. Shugert in the publication of the _Democratic Arch_, noted for aggressiveness and sarcasm. John H. Whitaker died in Tennessee years ago. R. L. Cochran was killed in June, 1893, on his farm in Sugarcreek Township, by the accidental discharge of a gun. The paper began regular “oil-reports” in 1862, prepared by Charles C. Duffield, now of Pittsburg, who would go up the Allegheny to Warren and float down in a skiff, stopping at the wells. P. J. Donahoe is the present editor and proprietor.

Charles Pitt Ramsdell, a school-teacher from Rockland Township, started the _American Citizen_ at Franklin in 1855. Sent to the Legislature in 1858, he sold the healthy chick to William Burgwin and Floyd C. Ramsdell, removed to Delaware and settled in Virginia a few years before his lamented death from wounds inflicted by an enraged bull. J. H. Smith acquired Ramsdell’s interest in 1861. The new partners made a strong team in journalistic harness for three years, selling in 1864 to Nelson B. Smiley. He changed the title to _Venango Citizen_. Mr. Burgwin reposes in the Franklin cemetery. Mr. Smith carries on the book-trade, his congenial pursuit for three decades, and is a regular contributor to the religious press. Alexander McDowell entered into partnership with Smiley, buying the entire “lock, stock and barrel” in 1867. His former associate studied law, practiced with great credit and died at Bradford. Major McDowell, now a banker at Sharon—the number of Venango editors who blossomed into financiers ought to stimulate ambitious quill-drivers—was a daisy in the newspaper-lay. His liberality and geniality won hosts of warm friends. He tried his hand at politics and was chosen Congressman-at-Large in 1892, with Galusha A. Grow as running-mate, and Clerk of the House in 1895. A prime joker, he bears the blame—if it be blameable to have done so—of introducing Pittsburg stogies to guileless members of Congress for the fun of seeing the victims cut pigeon-wings doing a sea-sick act. Col. J. W. H. Reisinger purchased the outfit in 1869, guiding the helm skilfully fifteen months. April first—the day had no special significance in this case—1870, E. W. Smiley, the present owner and cousin of Nelson B., succeeded Reisinger. The Colonel located at Meadville, where he has labored ably in the journalistic field for a quarter-century. Mr. Smiley steered his craft adroitly, usually “bobbing up serenely” on the winning side. He is a shrewd Republican worker and for twenty years has filled a Senate-clerkship efficiently. What he doesn’t know about the inside movements of state and local politics could be jumped through the eye of a needle. His right-bower in running the _Citizen-Press_—the hyphenated name was flung to the breeze in 1884—is his son, J. Howard Smiley, a rising young journalist. The paper toes the mark handsomely, has loads of advertising and does yeoman service for its party. The _Daily Citizen_, the first daily in Oildom, expired on the last day of 1862, after a brief existence of ten issues. A fit epitaph might be Wordsworth’s couplet:

“Since it was so quickly done for,
Wonder what it was begun for.”

Later newspaper ventures at Franklin were refreshingly plentiful. In January, 1876, Hon. S. P. McCalmont launched _The Independent Press_ upon the stormy sea of journalism. It was a trenchant, outspoken, call-a-spade-a-spade advocate of the Prohibition cause, striking resolutely at whoever and whatever opposed its temperance platform. Mr. McCalmont wrote the editorials, which bristled with sharp, merciless, unsparing excoriations of the rum-traffic and its aiders and abettors. The paper was worthy of its name and its spirited owner. Neither truckled for favors, cringed for patronage or ever learned to “crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning.” Beginning life a poor boy, S. P. McCalmont toiled on a farm, taught school, devoured books, read law and served in the Legislature. For nearly fifty years he has enjoyed a fine practice which brought him well-earned reputation and fortune. Ranking with the foremost lawyers of the state in legal attainments and professional success, he does his own thinking, declines to accept his opinions at second-hand and is a first-rate sample of the industrious, energetic, self-reliant American. By way of recreation he works a half-dozen farms, a hundred oil-wells, a big refinery and a coal-mine or two. James R. Patterson, Miss Sue Beatty and Will. S. Whitaker held positions on the _Press_. Mr. Patterson is farming near Franklin and Mr. Whitaker managed the _Spectator_. Miss Beatty, a young lady of rare culture, was admitted to the bar recently.

The Independent Press-Association bought the _Press_ in 1879. This influential body comprised twelve stockholders, Hon. William R. Crawford, Hon. C. W. Gilfillan, Hon. John M. Dickey, Hon. Charles Miller, Hon. Joseph C. Sibley, Hon. S. P. McCalmont, Hon. Charles W. Mackey, James W. Osborne, W. D. Rider, E. W. Echols, B. W. Bredin and Isaac Reineman, whom a facetious neighbor happily termed “the twelve apostles, limited.” They enlarged the sheet to a nine-column folio, discarded the bourgeois skirt with long-primer trimmings for a tempting dress of minion and nonpareil and engaged J. J. McLaurin as editor. H. May Irwin, the second editor under the new administration, filled the bill capably until the _Press_ and the _Citizen_ buried the hatchet and blended into one. Mr. Irwin is not excelled as an architect of graceful, felicitous paragraphs on all sorts of subjects, “from grave to gay, from lively to severe.” He possesses in eminent degree the enviable faculty of saying the right thing in the right way, tersely, pointedly and attractively. The _Press_ was a model of neatness, newsiness and thorough editing, with a taste for puns and plays on words that added zest to its columns.

James B. Borland’s _Evening News_ appeared in February, 1878, as an amateur-daily about six by nine inches. The small seed quickly grew to a lusty plant. James B. Muse became a partner, enlargements were necessary, and to-day the News is a seven-column folio, covering the home-field and deservedly popular. Muse retired in 1880, H. May Irwin buying his share and editing the wide-awake paper in capital style. _Every Evening_, a creditable venture by Frank Truesdell, E. E. Barrackman and A. G. McElhenny, bloomed every evening from July, 1878, to the following March. H. B. Kantner, a versatile specimen, hatched out the _Morning Star_, Franklin’s only morning daily, in 1880. It shone several months and then set forever and ever. Kantner drifted to Colorado. The _Herald_, the _Penny Press_ and _Pencil and Shears_ wriggled a brief space and “fell by the wayside.” Samuel P. Brigham, an aspiring young lawyer, edited the one-cent _Press_ and stirred up a hornet’s nest by fiercely assailing the water-works system and raising Hail Columbia generally. He is at the head of a newspaper in the Silver State.

The third weekly Venango boasted in 1859 was the _Allegheny-Valley Echo_, published at Emlenton by Peter O. Conver, a most erratic, picturesque genius. Learning the printing-trade in Franklin, the anti-slavery agitation attracted him to Kansas in 1852. He established a paper at Topeka, which intensified the excitement a man of Conver’s temperament was not calculated to allay, and it soon climbed the golden stair. Other experiments shared the same fate, going to the dogs in short metre. Conver roamed around the wild, woolly west several years, returned to Venango county and perpetrated the _Echo_ in the fall of 1858. At intervals a week passed without any issue, which the next number would attribute to the sudden departure of the “jour,” the non-arrival of white paper, or the absence of the irrepressible Peter on a convivial lark. Sparkling witticisms and “gems of purest ray” frequently adorned the pages of the sheet, although sometimes transgressing the rules of propriety. It was the editor’s habit to set up his articles without a manuscript. He would go to the case and put his thoughts into type just as they emanated from his fertile brain. Poetry, humor, satire, invective, comedy, pathos, sentiment and philosophy bunched their hits in a medley of clean-cut originality not even “John Phœnix” could emulate. The printer-editor had a fund of anecdotes and adventures picked up during his wanderings and an off-hand magnetism that insured his popularity. His generosity was limited only by his pocket-book. Altogether he was a bundle of strange contradictions, “whose like we shall not look upon again,” big-hearted, impatient of denial, heedless of consequences, indifferent to praise or blame, sincere in his friendships and with not an atom of sham or hypocrisy in his manly fiber. He enlisted in the Fourth Pennsylvania Cavalry when the war broke out, serving gallantly to the close of the struggle at Appomattox.

R. F. Blair, who had taken the _Echo_ in 1861, disposed of it in 1863 to J. W. Smullin, by whom the materials were removed to Oil City. Walter L. Porter’s _Rising Sun_, W. R. Johns’ _Messenger_, Needle & Crowley’s _Register_, P. McDowell’s _News_, Col. Sam. Young’s _Telegraph_, Hulings & Moriarty’s _Times_ and Gouchler Brothers’ _Critic_ in turn flitted across the Emlenton horizon. E. H. Cubbison exploited the _Home News_ in 1885 and it is still holding the fort.

Getting back from the war safe and sound, Conver pitched his tent at Tionesta in 1866 and generated the _Forest Press_. Its peculiar motto—“The first and only paper printed in Forest county and about the only paper of the kind printed anywhere”—indicated the novel stripe of this unique weekly. The crowning feature was its department of “Splinters,” which included the weird creations of the owner’s vivid fancy. The _Press_, after running smoothly a dozen years, did not long survive its eccentric, gifted proprietor, who answered the final roll-call in the spring of 1878, meeting death unflinchingly. He wrote a short will and asked Samuel D. Irwin, his trusted adviser, to prepare his obituary, “sense first, nonsense afterwards.” The _Bee_, which Col. Reisinger hived in 1867, sipped honey a season and flew away. J. B. Muse’s _Vindicator_ and Jacob Wenk’s _Republican_ occupy the field. Mrs. Conver left Tionesta and died in the west. Hosts of old friends who knew and understood Peter O. Conver will be glad to see his characteristic portrait, from a photograph treasured by Judge Proper, and “a nosegay of culled flowers” from his inimitable _Press_, “rugged as a jog over a stubble-field:”

“That marble slab has arrived at last. Our own beautiful slab, with its polished surface, was manufactured expressly to our order, on which to impose the forms of the Forest _Press_, a fit emblem and unmistakable evidence of the almost unparalleled success of an enterprise started in the very hell of the season and circumstances on a one-horse load of old, good-for-nothing, worn-out, rotten and “bottled” material, taken in payment, etc., and a will to succeed. After we shall have fulfilled our mission through the _Press_ and have done with the things of earth, that same slab can be used by the weeping “devils” on which to dance a good-bye to us and our sins, after which they may inscribe with burning charcoal on its polished surface, in letters of transient darkness:

‘Here
lies
Pete.
The
old
cuss
is
dead.’

“Our mother was a Christian, the best friend we had, and the name of her truant son—your servant—was the last she uttered. We are not a Christian, but when convinced we should be we will be. Never intend to marry or die, if we can help it. In brief, we are a white Indian.”

“A promissory-note is tuning the fiddle before the performance.”

“A man suffering from dyspepsia sees nothing bright in the noonday-sun. Another with a rusty liver looks upon a flower-garden as so many weeds. Another with nerves at angles sees nothing lovely in the most beautiful woman. Another with a disordered stomach can utter no word not tinged with acid and fire.”

“Smiles are among the cheapest and yet richest luxuries of life. We do not mean the mere retraction of the lips and the exhibition of two rows of masticators—mastiffs, hyenas and the like amiabilities are proficient in that. We do not mean the cold, formal smile of politeness, that plays over the features like moonlight on a glacier—automatons and villains can do that, but we mean the real, genial smile that breaks right out of the heart, like a sunbeam out of a cloud, and lights up the whole face and shines straight into another heart that loves it or needs it.”

“Ravishingly rich and gorgeous is our surrounding scenery smiling down upon us in all the dying glory of these autumn days, like the summery landscape in childhood’s dreams, impressed on the heart but not described; like the soul-beam of a good old person passing away. View all the grand and beautiful scenes of earth with the aid of imagination’s pencil if you please, and them come to Tionesta in October and behold the masterpiece. It is the finishing touch of beauty from the Master Hand, imparting joy and faith and hope and resignation to the heart of man, which no human pen or pencil may copy and combinations of words have not been discovered to describe; in fact, we have almost come to the conclusion that he who attempts it is a presuming fool, because there’s no language in the dictionary or even invented by the poet to that effect. But if we only live till the sun shines to-morrow, on such another day as this, we’ll dig our potatoes, from which patch we can obtain mountain views on every hand alongside of which the Rocky Mountains would appear overgrown and unnatural and Alpine scenery worn-out.”

“The first great damper that threw cold water on the Fourth of July was, perhaps, the agitation of the temperance question; then the Sunday-school celebrations gave a mortal blow to its ancient prestige and glory, until now, alas! it has been entirely eclipsed. Bantlings of the third generation are soaring aloft in place of the old gray bird, niggers dancing jubas over the heads of their imperial masters and, great heavens! the very whiskey that we drink at $3 to $7 a gallon in mortal jeopardy. But, seriously speaking, we are in favor of every one following the bent of his or her own inclination in celebrating things. Next week will be our usual occasion for getting full, unless we should accompany a very beautiful young lady hunting, in either of which events the _Press_ may also have a celebration of its own and not appear in public on any stage.”

“Lieut. Samuel D. Irwin is a rare, original genius, a companion of our boyhood, whose life has been lively and stirring as our own in some respects. He is also a candidate for District Attorney.”

“Some people don’t care much whether things go endwise or otherwise.”

“Next to a feast upon a seventeen-year-old pair of sweet lips, under grapevines, by moon-light, is a foray upon a platter of beans, after fishing for suckers all day.”

“One of the greatest bores in the world is he who will persistently gabble about _himself_ when you want to talk about _yourself_.”

“Pay your debts and shame the devil for an old scoundrel.”

“Bright and fair as a Miss in her teens is this beautiful March morning. All nature laughs with gladness. Forest feels glad, the streams sing a glad song in their swim to the sea, Tionesta is glad and the big greyhound Charley Holmes sent Major Hulings wags his sharp tail in token of the gladness and gratitude he cannot otherwise express. He is a gentlemanly, well-bred, $500 purp and got to have his meals regularly.”

“Do unto other men as you would have them do unto you and you wouldn’t have money enough in two weeks to hire a shirt washed.”

“Many a preacher complains of empty pews when they are really not emptier than the pulpit.”

“The man who can please everybody hasn’t got sense enough to displease anybody.”

“To be good and happy kick up your heels and holler Hallelujah!”

“Rev. Brown will preach everybody to hell on the Tubb’s Run Flats, Lord willing, next Sunday, between meals.”

On the twelfth of January, 1862, Walter R. Johns, who struck the territory four weeks previously, issued the initial number of the Oil-City _Weekly Register_, the first newspaper devoted especially to the petroleum-industry, which it upheld tenaciously for five years. The modest outfit, purchased second-hand at Monongahela City, was shipped to Pittsburg by boat, to Kittanning by rail and to its destination by wagons. The editor, publisher, proprietor and compositor—Mr. Johns outdid Pooh-Bah by combining these offices in his own person—accompanied the expedition to aid in extricating the wagons from mud-holes in which they stuck persistently. In 1866 he retired in favor of Henry A. Dow & Co., who fathered the _Daily Register_ and soon found the cake dough. Farther on Mr. Johns was identified, editorially or in a proprietary way, with the semi-weekly _Petrolian_ and the _Evening Register_, the Parker _Transcript_, the Emlenton _Messenger_, the Lebanon _Republican_, the Clarion _Republican-Gazette_ and the Foxburg _Gazette_. Writing with great readiness and heartily in touch with his profession, he took to literary work as a duck takes to water. He and the late Andrew Cone prepared all the petroleum-statistics available in 1862, which, with the gatherings of the years intervening, were published in 1869, under the expressive title of “Petrolia.” From Clarion, his home for some years, Mr. Johns returned to Oil City, doing valuable work for the _Derrick_ and the _Blizzard_. For seven years he has been employed by the National-Transit Company to compile newspaper-clippings and magazine-articles and arrange records of different kinds from every quarter of the oil-regions. The duty is congenial and he fits the place “like der paper mit der wall.” Mr. Johns is a son of Louisiana and a hero of two wars. During the Mexican trouble he fought under Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, was at the battles of Monterey and Buena Vista and participated in the march from Puebla to the City of Mexico. He served under General Grant in the “late unpleasantness.” The death of his estimable wife several years ago was a terrible blow to the Nestor of petroleum journalism, who has gained distinction as printer, editor, author and soldier.

“Age sits with decent grace upon his visage
And worthily becomes his silver locks;
He bears the marks of many years well spent,
Of virtue, truth well tried and wise experience.”

With the plant of the defunct Emlenton _Echo_, which he had bought from R. F. Blair and boated to Oil City, J. W. Smullin propelled the _Monitor_ in 1863. O. H. Jackson, a sort of perambulatory printing-office, and C. P. Ramsdell figured in the ownership at different times. Jackson let go in the fall of 1864 and Jacob Weyand bossed the ranch until it was absorbed by the Venango _Republican_, the first out-and-out political newspaper in the settlement. Smullin farmed in Cranberry township, dispensed justice as “’Squire” and died in 1894. Of Jackson’s whereabouts nothing is known. He flaunted the _Sand-Pump_ at Oil City, the _Bulletin_ at Rouseville, the _Gaslight_ at Pleasantville and ephemeral sheets at other points. The outfits of the Register, _Petrolian_, _Republican_ and _Monitor_ were consolidated in December, 1867, by Andrew Cone and Dr. F. F. Davis, into the weekly _Times_. The paper was well managed, well edited and well sustained. A syndicate of politicians bought it in 1870, to boom C. W. Gilfillan, of Franklin, for Congress, and George B. Delamater, of Meadville, for State-Senator in the Crawford district. A morning daily was tacked on. L. H. Metcalfe, who lost a leg at Gettysburg, had editorial charge. Thomas H. Morrison, of Pleasantville, officiated as manager, W. C. Plumer presided as foreman and A. E. Fay acted as local news-hustler. The daily died with the close of the campaign, a fire that destroyed the establishment hurrying the dissolution. Metcalfe went back to Meadville and was elected county-treasurer. Whole-souled, earnest and trustworthy, he made and retained friends, wrote effectively and “served his day and generation” as a good man should. The grass and the flowers have bloomed above his head for nineteen years. Morrison entered politics, put in a term faithfully as county-treasurer, studied law, practiced at Smethport and was elected judge of the McKean-Potter district.

ANDREW CONE.
MRS. CONE.
MISS THROPP.
]

Hon. Andrew Cone, to whose bounteous purse and willing pen the Venango _Republican_ and the Oil-City _Times_ owed their continuance, was of Puritan descent, nephew of the founder of Oberlin College, born in 1822, reared on a New-York farm and married to a Maryland lady. His parents dying, he removed to Michigan, lost his first and second wives by death, and in 1862 settled at Oil City to superintend the United Petroleum-Farms Association’s sale of building-lots. He named various Oil-City streets, helped build the first Baptist church and labored for temperance and local improvements. In 1868 he married Miss Mary Eloisa Thropp, of Valley Forge, a cultured linguist and writer. Her brother, Joseph E. Thropp, owns the iron-works at Everett and is married to the late Colonel Thomas A. Scott’s eldest daughter. Her two sisters, Mrs. George Porter and Miss Amelia Thropp, also reside at Oil City and are gifted writers. Mr. Cone and W. R. Johns collected the data of “Petrolia,” a perfect treasury of facts concerning oil, which the Appletons published in 1869. Governor Hartranft appointed Mr. Cone to represent the oil-regions at the Vienna Exposition in 1873. He served four years with great fidelity as consul in Brazil and died in New York on November seventh, 1880, as one to whom “Well done, good and faithful servant,” is spoken through all the centuries. Mrs. Cone’s “Wild Flowers of Valley Forge” will give an idea of the exquisite work of the Thropp sisters, who are esteemed for their poetic talents and unselfishness:

Blest be the flowers that freely blow
In this neglected spot,
Anemone with leaves of snow
And blue Forget-me-not.
God’s laurels weave their classic wreath,
Their pale pink blossoms wave
O’er lowly mounds, where rest beneath
Our martyrs in their grave.

In white and gold the daisies shine
All o’er encampment hill;
There wild-rose and the Columbine
Lift glistening banners still.
Here plumy ferns, an emerald fringe,
Adorn our stream’s bright way;
And soft grass whence the violet springs,
With fragrant flowers of May.

Oh, there’s a spell around these blooms
Owned by no rarer flowers;
They blossomed on our soldiers’ tombs
And they shall bloom on ours.
To us, as to our sires, their tone
Breathes forth the same glad strain,
“We spring to life when winter’s gone,
And ye shall rise again.”

Uncultured ’round our path they grow,
Smile up before our tread
To cheer, as they did long ago
Our noble-hearted dead.
Arbutus in the sheltering wood
Sighs, “Here he came to pray,”
And Pansies whisper, “Thus we stood
When heroes passed away.”

Thus every wild-flower’s simple leaf
Breathes in my native vale,
To conscious hearts, some record brief,
Some true and touching tale.
Wealth’s gay parterre in glory stands:—
I own their foreign claims,
Those gorgeous flowers from other lands,
Rare plants with wondrous names.

Ye blossomed in our martyr’s field
Beneath the warm spring’s sun,
Sprung from the turf where lowly kneeled
Our matchless Washington.
Ye in our childhood’s garden grew,
Our sainted mother’s bowers;
My grateful heart beats high to you,
My own wild valley-flowers!

The collapse of the syndicate _Times_ terminated experimental dailies in Oil City. Mr. Gilfillan, F. W. Mitchell, P. R. Gray and other stockholders sold the good-will and smoking ruins to Sheriff H. H. Herpst, who revived the weekly with Dr. Davis at the bellows. It was rather weakly, notwithstanding the doctor’s excellent doses of leaded pellets. Advertisers seemed a trifle shy and columns of blank space, by no means nutritious pabulum, were not infrequent. Everybody favored a newer, grander, bolder stride forward. The borough and suburbs had attained the dignity of a city, an oil-exchange had been organized, railroads were coming in and a paper of metropolitan scope was urgently demanded. Usually men adapted to a particular niche turn up and the traditional “long-felt want” is not likely to remain unfilled.

Coleman E. Bishop and W. H. Longwell landed in Oil City one summer afternoon to “view the landscape o’er,” as good Dr. Watts phrased it. They had heard the Macedonian cry and decided to size up the situation. Bishop achieved greatness at Jamestown, N. Y., where he edited the _Journal_, by attacking Commander Cushing, the naval officer who sank the Confederate ram Merrimac, and kicking him down stairs when the indignant marine invaded the sanctum to “horsewhip the editor and pitch him out of the window.” Longwell, a brave soldier and sharp man of affairs, had learned the ropes at Pithole and Petroleum Centre. A deal was soon closed, material ordered and a building on Seneca street rented, Herpst keeping an interest as silent partner.

The Oil-City _Derrick_, ordained to become “the organ of oil,” was born on the thirteenth of September, 1871. The name was an inspiration, sprung by Bishop as a surprise, instead of the hackneyed _Times_, which had been agreed upon by the three proprietors. To embody its most conspicuous emblem in the head of a newspaper designed to represent the oil-trade suggested itself to the alert editor. He consulted only his foreman, Charles E. White, long the brilliant editor of the Tidioute _News_, who had come with him from Jamestown and approved of the drawing from which the famous design of a derrick spouting newspapers was engraved. It was a go from the start. People were roused from their slumber by strong-lunged newsboys shouting, “Derrick, ere’s yer Derrick, Derrick!” Their first impulse was to wonder if they had left any derricks out all night, exposed to thieves and marauders, and somebody was bringing them home. The new sheet was scanned eagerly. It had departments of “Spray,” “Lying Around Loose” and “Pick-ups,” teeming with catchy, piquant, invigorating items. Its advocacy of the producers’ cause boomed the paper tremendously. A bitter fight with the Allegheny Valley Railroad increased its circulation and prestige. Bishop’s individuality permeated every page and column. He had the sand to continue the railroad war, but a threat to remove the shops from Oil City weakened his partners and they bought him out in 1873. From the “Hub of Oildom” he went to Buffalo to edit the _Express_. Thence he went to Bradford, embarked in oil-operations on Kendall Creek and enlivened the Chautauqua _Herald_, Rev. Theodore Flood’s bonanza, one summer. Invited to New York in 1880, he managed the _Merchants’ Review_ and edited _Judge_ until it changed owners in 1885. Leaving the metropolis, he wandered to Dakota and freshened the Rapid-City _Republican_. Returning east, he furnished Washington correspondence to various papers. Locomotor-ataxia disabled him and he died in 1896. Mrs. Bishop is a popular teacher of the Delsarte system and has published a book on the subject. Miss Bishop is a talented lecturer. It is not disparaging the galaxy of oil-region journalists to say that C. E. Bishop, the gamest, keenest, raciest member of the fraternity, might be termed a bishop in the congregation of men who have shaped public opinion in the domain of grease. No matter how difficult or delicate the theme, from pre-natal influence to monopoly, from heredity to fishing, from biology to pumpkins, he treated it tersely and charmingly. A thoroughbred from top to toe, his was a Damascus blade and “none but himself can be his parallel.”

Captain Longwell—the title was awarded for gallantry in many a hard battle—attended to the business-end with decided success. Buying Herpst’s claim, he conducted the whole concern four years and sold out at a steep figure in 1877. He raked in wealth producing and speculating, quitting well-heeled financially. A native of Adams county, he was educated at Gettysburg and learned printing in the office of the Chambersburg _Repository and Whig_, then published by Col. Alexander K. McClure, now the world-famed editor of the Philadelphia _Times_. His mother was a descendant of James Wilson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Herpst opened a wall-paper store, removed later to Jamestown and died there in 1884. Square, honest and “straight as a string,” he merited the regard of his fellows. Charles H. Morse, the first city-editor, had the snap to corral news at sight and present it toothsomely. Who that knew him in his beardless youth imagined Charley would “get religion” and adorn the pulpit? He entered the ministry and for over twenty years has been pastor of a Baptist church at Mercer. Were he to serve up to his hearers some of the funny experiences he encountered as a reporter, he would discount Talmage’s recitals of the slums and Dr. Parkhurst’s leap-frog exploits in the Tenderloin! Archie Frazer wrote the market-report, ten or twelve lines at first and a plump column or more ultimately. In November of 1872 it was my luck to engage with the _Derrick_ and inaugurate the role of traveling correspondent. Venango and Warren, with Clarion, Armstrong and Butler budding into prominence, covered the oil-fields. Bradford loomed up in the autumn of 1875, extending my mission from the northern line of McKean county to the southern boundary of Butler before the close of the term of five years. These breezy days were crowded with bustle and excitement, adventure and incident. Over the signature of “J. J. M.”—possibly remembered by old-timers—fate appointed me to chronicle a multitude of events that played an important part in petroleum-annals. The system of “monthly reports” was arranged methodically, the producing sections were visited regularly and my acquaintance embraced every oil-farm and nearly every oil-operator in the rushing, hustling, get-up-and-get world of petroleum.

Orion Clemens, a brother of “Mark Twain,” worked on the _Derrick_ a few weeks in 1873. The exact opposite of “Mark,” his forte was the pathetic. He could write up the death of an insect or a reptile so feelingly that sensitive folks would shed gallons of tears in the wood-shed over the harrowing details. He fairly reveled in the gloomy, somber, tragic element of life. Daily contributions taxed him too severely, as he composed slowly, and his resignation caused no surprise. Frank H. Taylor, a young graduate from the Tidioute _Journal_, succeeded Bishop, vacating the chair to undertake the field-work. Frank can afford to “point with pride” to his career as editor and compiler of statistics. His “Handbook” is an unquestioned authority on petroleum. Once he resigned to float the _Call_, a sprightly Sunday folio, which glistened from the spring of 1877 to October of 1878. “Puts and Calls,” the humorous column, had to answer for bursting off tons of vest-buttons. Taylor acquired money and fame as a journalist, was president of select-council, called the turn as a producer and saved a snug competence. During a term of Congress he was Hon. J. C. Sibley’s secretary, a position demanding remarkable tact and industry. Now he is leasing lands, drilling wells and looking after the oil-properties of Sibley & Co. in Indiana. Oil City is his home and he is as busy as a boy clubbing chestnuts or a Brooklynite dodging the trolley-cars at thirty miles an hour.

CHAS. E. WHITE.
HOMER McCLINTOCK. FRANK H. TAYLOR.
P. C. BOYLE.
EDWARD STUCK. WM. H. SIVITER.
W. J. McCULLAGH.
]

Robert W. Criswell, who has forged to the front by his mirth-provoking sketches, followed Taylor as editor in 1877. He fertilized the “Stray-sand,” parodied Shakespeare and developed “Grandfather Lickshingle,” giving the _Derrick_ national celebrity. He stepped down when the shuffle occurred in 1877 and went to the Cincinnati _Enquirer_. W. J. McCullagh and Frank W. Bowen were on deck at about the same time. McCullagh held the field department up to its elevated standard and Bowen ground out first-class local and editorial. Col. Edward Stuck, who came from York in 1879 to supervise the Bradford _Era_, ran the machine in 1880-2, displaying much ability in the face of manifold hindrances. William Brough and J. M. Bonham of Franklin, gentlemen of high literary attainments, wishing to have a paper of their own, induced Mr. Stuck to leave Bradford, with a view to resurrect the _Sunday Call_. The project was not carried out and he assumed charge of the _Derrick_, with gratifying results. His training was acquired on the York _Democratic Press_, his father’s weekly, which Col. Stuck now conducts in connection with the _Daily Age_, established by him after his sojourn in Oil City. He was appointed State Librarian during Governor Pattison’s first term and elected Register of Wills of York county in 1889, in recognition of his excellent journalistic services. William H. Siviter, straight from college, was next in order. His polished, scholarly writings were relished by educated people. He paragraphed for the Pittsburg _Chronicle-Telegraph_ and for some years has contributed to the comic weeklies. He is responsible for the “High-School Girl,” with her Bostonese flavor and highfalutin speech. McCullagh became an operator in the Bradford region, drilled extensively in Ohio, laid by considerable boodle and chose Toledo as his residence. Robert Simpson, who began as “printer’s devil” in 1872, remained with the _Derrick_ as a writer until the _Blizzard_ blew into town, excepting brief respites at Emlenton and Bradford.

P. C. Boyle, whose dash and skill and tireless energy had advanced him steadily, leased the establishment in 1885. He had the vigor and backbone needed to bring the paper back to its pristine strength. By turns a roustabout at Pithole in 1866, a driller, a scout, a reporter, a publisher and an editor, his experience in the oil-country was extensive and invaluable. He published the _Laborer’s Voice_ at Martinsburg in 1877-8, reported for the _Derrick_ and Titusville _Herald_ in 1879, for the _Petroleum World_ in 1880 and the Olean _Herald_ in 1881, conducted the Richburg _Echo_ in 1881-2 and scouted all through the developments at Cherry Grove, Macksburg and Thorn Creek in 1882-5. George Dillingham, who had “a nose for news,” and J. N. Perrine, gilt-edged and yard-wide in the counting-room, assisted Mr. Boyle in tuning the paper up to high G. The outside fields, daily growing in number and importance, were put in charge of Homer McClintock, the real Homer of oil-reporters. He fattens on timely paragraphs, scents live items in the air and lets no juicy happening escape. The force was augmented as occasion arose, type-setting machines and fast presses were added, the job-office was supplied with the latest and best materials and the _Derrick_ is to-day one of the finest, brightest, smartest newspapers that ever edified a community. It is owned by the Derrick Publishing Company, of which Mr. Boyle is president and H. McClintock, J. N. Perrine and Alfred L. Snell are the active members. Mr. Boyle also managed the Toledo _Commercial_ and the Bradford _Era_. He is “the Dean of the Fourth Estate” by virtue of eminent services and seniority. Like the lightning, he never needs strike twice in the same spot, because the job is finished at a single lick when he goes “loaded for b’ar.”

John B. Smithman, a wealthy operator, to whom Oil City owes its street-railways and a bridge spanning the Allegheny, in 1880 equipped the _Telegraph_, an evening sunflower, with Philip C. Welch at its head. Isaac N. Pratt, later an advance-agent for Ezra Kendall, had a finger in the pie. The paper was as fetching as a rural maiden in a brand-new calico gown, but two dailies were too rich for the blood of the population and the _Telegraph_ wilted at a tender age. Welch tapped a vein of rich humor in the Philadelphia _Call_ by originating “Accidentally Overheard,” a feature that captured the bakery. It bubbled with actual wit, fragrant as sweet clover and wholesome as morning dew, not revamped and twisted and warmed over. Charles A. Dana, no mean judge of literary merit, recognized the value of the Welch rarebits and secured them for the New York _Sun_ at a fixed rate for each, big or little, long or short, large or small. Anon Dana offered him a salary few bank-presidents would refuse and Welch moved to Gotham. The _Sun_ that “shines for all” fairly glittered and dazzled. Welch’s “Tailor-Made Girl” hit the popular taste and was published in elegant form by the Scribners. Disease preyed upon him, compelling an operation similar to General Grant’s. Half the tongue was cut off, affecting his utterance seriously. Weeks and months of patient suffering ended at last in release from earthly pain and sorrow. Mrs. Welch, a noble helpmeet, lives in Brooklyn and is to be credited with the clever, dainty “From Her Point of View,” which irradiates the Sunday issues of the New York _Times_. Upon the grave of Philip C. Welch old friends would lay a wreath and drop a sympathetic tear.

“Alas, Poor Yorick!
I knew him, Horatio;
A fellow of infinite jest,
Of most excellent fancy.”

FRANK. W. BOWEN.
PHILIP C. WELCH. ROBERT SIMPSON.
]

Frank W. Bowen, a diamond of the first water, H. G. McKnight, the lightning type-slinger, and B. F. Gates, a dandy printer, swarmed from the _Derrick_ hive and raised the wind to blow an evening _Blizzard_ in 1882. They bought the _Telegraph_ stuff and the Richburg _Echo_ press, had brains and pluck in abundance and went in to win. The significant motto—“It blows on whom it pleases and for others’ snuff ne’er sneezes”—attested the independence of the free-playing zephyr. Gentle as the summer breezes when dealing with the good, the true and the beautiful, it swept everything before it when a wrong was to be righted, a sleek rascal unmasked or a monopoly toppled over. Bowen’s “Little Blizzards” had a laugh in every line. If they stung transgressors by their sharp thrusts, the author didn’t lie awake nights trying to load up with mean things. His humor was spontaneous and easy as rolling off a log. Now his friends and admirers—their name is Legion—propose to waft him into the Legislature, a clear case of the office seeking the man. It goes without saying that the _Blizzard_ was an instant success. It was no fault of the fond parents that they were built that way and couldn’t compel people not to want their exhilarating paper. Place its neat make-up to McKnight’s account. Gates flocked by himself to usher in the _Venango Democrat_, which the gods loved so well that it passed through the golden gates in four weeks. Robert Simpson, jocularly styled its “horse editor,” was a _Blizzard_ trump-card until 1886. He then filled consecutive engagements as exchange-editor, news-editor, night-editor, assistant managing-editor and legislative correspondent of the Pittsburg _Dispatch_. Again he edited the _Derrick_ nine months in 1889. Returning to Pittsburg as political-reporter of the _Commercial-Gazette_, he was promoted to legislative-correspondent and lastly to managing-editor, a position of much responsibility.

The Reno _Times_, an eight-column folio that ranked with the foremost weeklies in the State, was started in 1865 and expired in May of 1866. A department was assigned each kind of news, the matter was classified and set in minion and nonpareil, oil-operations were noted fully and local affairs received due attention. Samuel B. Page, the editor, understood how to glean from exchanges and correspondence. George E. Beardsley, whose parish lay along Oil Creek, about Pithole and the Allegheny River from Franklin to Tidioute, a section thirty miles by seventy, managed the oil-columns admirably. E. W. Mercer kept the books, collected the bills and had general supervision. W. C. Plumer, J. Diffenbach and Edward Fairchilds stuck type and the average edition exceeded ten-thousand copies.

Pithole, the most kaleidoscopic oil-town that ever stranded human lives and bank-accounts, gave birth to the _Daily Record_ on the twenty-fifth of September, 1865. It was a five-column folio, crammed with news piping-hot and sold at five cents a copy, or thirty cents a week. Morton, Spare & Co. were the publishers. Col. L. M. Morton—he earned his shoulder-straps in the civil war—edited the _Record_, winning laurels by his wise discernment. He was a manly character, incapable of deceit, a brilliant writer and conversationalist, the soul of honor and courtesy, “a knight without fear and without reproach.” He served as postmaster at Milton and spent his closing years as night-editor of the Bradford _Era_, dying at his post, loved and esteemed by thousands of friends. W. H. Longwell, another brave defender of the Union, bought out Spare in May, 1886. Charles C. Wicker and W. C. Plumer were taken into the firm shortly after. In May of 1868, Pithole having crawled into a hole, Longwell changed the base of operations to Petroleum Centre, then at the zenith of its meteoric flight. He sold the paper in 1871 to Wicker, who held on until formidable rivals in Oil City and Titusville forced the _Record_ to quit. Generous to a fault and faithful to those who shared his confidence, Wicker left the decaying town in 1873, was foreman of the Titusville _Courier_, worked as a compositor at Bradford and died there years ago. He was never satisfied to accept ill-luck without emphatic dissent. He always wore a blue-flannel shirt, a fashion he adopted in the army, and was eccentric in attire.

Charles C. Leonard was “a bright, particular star” in the days of the Pithole _Record_, to which, over the signature of “Crocus,” he contributed side-splitting sketches of ludicrous phases of oil-region life. These felicitous word-paintings, with additions and revisions, he published in a volume that had a prodigious sale. He was an Ohioan, born in 1845, and a soldier at sixteen. Arriving at Pithole in 1865, he saw that wonderful place grow from a dozen shanties to a city of fifteen-thousand at a pace distancing Jonah’s gourd or Jack-the-Giant-Killer’s bean-stalk. In the fall of 1867 he came to the Titusville _Herald_, remaining five years. After short terms with the Cleveland _Leader_ and St. Louis _Globe_, he returned to Titusville to write for the _Evening Press_. He went back to St. Louis and died at Cleveland on the twelfth of March 1874, wounds received in battle hastening his demise. He was a natural wit, whose keen jokes had the aroma of Attic salt. Mrs. Leonard removed to Detroit, her home at present. One of Charlie’s favorite creations was “The Sheet-Iron Cat,” written for the Cleveland _Leader_. It passed the rounds of the newspapers and was printed in the _Scientific American_. The sell took immensely, lots of persons sending letters asking the cost of the “cats” and where they could be procured! The article, which revives many a pleasant memory of “auld lang-syne,” follows:

“A young mechanic in this city, whose friends and acquaintances have heretofore supposed there was “nothing to him,” has at last achieved a triumph that will place him at once among the noblest benefactors of mankind. His name will be handed down to posterity with those of the inventors of the “steam-man,” the patent churn and other contrivances of a labor-saving or comfort-inducing character. His invention, which occurred to him when trying to sleep at night in the sky-parlor of his cheap boarding-house, with the feline demons of mid-night clattering over the roof outside, is nothing more than a patent sheet-iron cat with cylindrical attachment, steel-claws and teeth, the whole arrangement being covered with cat-skins, which give it a natural appearance and preserve the clock-work and intricate machinery with which the old thing is made to work. Among the other peculiarities of this ingenious invention are the tail and voice. The former is hollow and supplied by a bellows (concealed within the body) with compressed air at momentary intervals, which causes the appendage to be elevated and distended to three times its natural size, giving to the metallic cat a most warlike and belligerent appearance. By the aid of the same bellows and a tremolo-stop arrangement, the cat is made to emit the most fearful caterwauls and “spitting” that ever awakened a baby, made the head of the family swear in his dreams, or caused a shower of boots, washbowls and other missiles of midnight wrath to cleave the sky.

“Such is the invention. The method of using and the result is as follows: Winding up the patent Thomas-cat, the owner adjusts him upon the house-top or in the back-yard and awaits events. Soon is heard the tocsin of cat-like war in the shape of every known sound that the tribe are capable of producing, only in a key much louder than any live cat could perform in. Every cat within a circle of a half-mile hears the familiar sounds and accepts the challenge, frequently fifty or one hundred appearing simultaneously upon the battle-ground, ready to buckle in. The swelling tail invites combat and they attack old “Ironsides,” who no sooner feels the weight of a paw upon his hide than a spring is touched off, his paws revolve in all directions with lightning rapidity and the adversaries within six feet of him are torn to shreds! Fresh battalions come to the scratch only to meet a like fate, and in the morning several bushels of hair, fiddle-strings and toe-nails is all that are seen, while the owner proceeds to wind the iron cat up and set him again.

“But a few pleasant evenings are needed to clean out a common-sized country town of its sleep-disturbers. We understand the inventor will make a proposition next week to the common council to depopulate the city of cats for a moderate sum. We do not intend to endorse any invention or article unless we know that it will perform all that it is claimed to do, and therefore we have not been so explicit in our description as we might have been; but the principle is a good one, and we hope to see every house in the city surmounted with a sheet-iron cat as soon as they are offered for sale, which will be about April the first, the inventor and patentee informs us.”

J. H. Bowman and Richard Linn sent forth the _Petroleum Monthly_ at Oil City in October, 1870. Their purpose was to treat the oil-industry from a scientific stand and present statistics and biographies in magazine-style. The _Monthly_, which lasted a year, was ably edited and supplied matter of permanent value. Bowman, a fascinating writer and agreeable companion, went westward and the snows of twenty winters have drifted over his grave. Linn aided in compiling a history of petroleum, spent some years in the east and meandered to Australia. Pleasantville evolved the _Evening News_ in 1888 and the semi-monthly _Commercial-Record_. The former has sought “the dark realms of everlasting shade,” to keep company with J. L. Rohr’s Cooperstown _News_, Tom Whitaker’s _Gatling Gun_, the Oil-City _Critic_, the Franklin _Oil-Region_, the Petroleum-Centre _Era_ and a score of unwept sacrifices on the altar of Venango journalism. James Tyson, a hardware merchant at Rouseville, in 1872 issued the _Pennsylvanian_, a superior weekly, which subsided with the waning town. He migrated to California, living in San Francisco until last year, when he located in Philadelphia. At the age of seventy-nine his faculties are unimpaired and he stands erect. He is an earnest member of the Pennsylvania Historical Society and compiler of a “Life of Washington and the Signers of the Declaration of Independence.” This timely and interesting work, published in two handsome volumes in 1895, is dedicated to the public schools of the nation. It fitly crowns the literary labors of the revered author, who is “only waiting till the shadows are a little longer drawn.”