Chapter XIX: Just Odds and Ends 429-452 (22)

Titusville enjoys the honor of harboring the first petroleum-daily that weathered the storm and stayed in the ring. June, 1865, heralded the _Morning Herald_ of W. W. and Henry C. Bloss, which possessed the entire field and prospered accordingly. Col. J. H. Cogswell joined the partnership in 1866. Major W. W. Bloss, the elder of the two brothers, was a fluent writer, and made his mark in journalism. Mastering the details of “the art preservative” at Rochester, N. Y., in 1857 he started a short-lived journal in Kansas, retraced his footsteps to his native heath in 1859, was badly wounded at Antietam, beamed upon Titusville in the spring of 1865 and bought the _Petroleum Reporter_, a moribund weekly. Quitting the _Herald_, in 1873, he unfurled the banner of the _Evening Press_, which did not live to cut its eye-teeth. His next attempt, a tasteful weekly, traveled the road to oblivion. The Major once more headed for Kansas, served in the Legislature and wended his way to Chicago, whence he crossed “to the other side” in the prime of matured manhood. Harry C. Bloss stuck to the _Herald_ “through evil and through good report,” steadfastly upholding Titusville and dipping his eagle feather in vitriol when necessary to squelch “a foeman worthy of his steel.” He died—the ranks are thinning out sadly—four years ago and his son, upon whom the mantle of his father has descended, is keeping the paper in the van. Col. Cogswell, who dropped out to accept the postmastership, enacting the role of “Nasby” a couple of terms, for years has been in the office of the Tidewater Pipe-Line. Among the _Herald_ force were C. C. Leonard, John Ponton and A. E. Fay. Ponton turned his peculiar talent for invention to electrical pursuits and the giddy telephone. He narrowly missed heading off Prof. Bell in stumbling upon the “hello” machine. Fay forsook the _Herald_ for the Oil-City _Times_, did a turn on the Titusville _Courier_ and hied him to Arizona. He ran a mining-paper, sat in the Legislature, incubated a chicken-nursery that would have dumbfounded Rutherford B. Hayes, farmed a bit and harvested a crop of shekels.

The Titusville _Courier_, sprung in 1870 to oppose the _Herald_, was edited by Col. J. T. Henry, an accomplished journalist from Olean, N. Y. In 1871 he bought the _Sunday News_, formerly A. L. Chapman’s _Long-Roll_, transferring it in 1872 to W. W. Bloss, who changed it to the _Evening Press_. Col. Henry in 1873 published “Early and Later History of Petroleum,” a large volume, replete with information, biographies and portraits. The author speculated profitably in oil, lived at Olean, wrote as the impulse prompted and died at Jamestown in May, 1878. A tear is due the memory of a kingly, chivalrous man, who reflected luster upon his profession and was not fully appreciated until he had reached the haven of eternal rest. To him Littleton’s tribute applies:

“He wrote not a line which dying he would blot.”

Warren C. Plumer guided the _Courier_ after Col. Henry’s retirement. He was no tyro in slinging his quill. Born in Maine in 1835, at fourteen he entered a printing-office, ten years later edited a paper, served three years in the war, set type on the Reno _Times_ in 1865 and was editor-journeyman of the Pithole _Record_ in the fall of 1866. His “Dedbete” contributions were a striking feature of the _Record_, of which he became joint-owner with Longwell and Wicker in 1867, when Burgess of Pithole, and editor-in-chief upon its removal to Petroleum Centre in 1868. Selling out in 1869, Wicker and Plumer lighted a _Weekly Star_ at Titusville that quickly set to rise no more. Plumer was foreman of the Oil City _Times_ in 1870-1 and connected with the Tidioute _Journal_ in 1872, when offered the editorship of the _Courier_. Elected to the Legislature on the Democratic ticket in 1874, he was defeated for a second term and for Congress as the Greenbackers’ candidate in 1878. For a time his political notions were as facile as his Faber and he trained with whatever party chanced to have a vacancy. From 1879 to 1881 he controlled the Meadville _Vindicator_, a soft-money weekly, winding up the latter year on the Richburg _Echo_. In Dakota, his next stamping-ground, he edited Republican papers at Fargo, Bismarck, Aberdeen and Casselton. He stumped several states for Blaine with an eye to an appointment that would have swelled his bank-account to the dimensions of a plumber’s. “The Plumed Knight” failed to connect and the plum did not fall into the lap of his eloquent supporter. President Harrison in 1891 appointed him Receiver of the Minot District Land-office, North Dakota, which he resigned last year. As an orator Col. W. C. Plumer—they call him “Colonel” in the Dakotas—trots in the class with Robert G. Ingersoll, Thomas B. Reed and William McKinley and is denominated the “Silver Tongue of the North-west.” At the Republican National Conventions in 1884-8 he was unanimously pronounced the finest off-hand speaker in the crowd. He is a finished lecturer and unrivaled story-teller, loves the choicest books, reads the Bible diligently, sticks to his friends and delights to recount his experiences in the Pennsylvania oil-regions.

M. N. Allen, an original stockholder and its last guardian, purchased the _Courier_ in 1874. Even his acknowledged skill could not put it on a paying basis and the paper, unsurpassed in quality and appearance, succumbed to the inevitable. Mr. Allen followed Col. Cogswell as postmaster, a proper tribute to his rugged Democracy. Hale and hearty, although “over the summit of life,” time has dealt kindly with him and his deft pen has lost none of its vigor. He is editing the _Advance Guard_, the outgrowth of Roger Sherman’s departed _American Citizen_, as an intellectual pastime. F. A. Tozer, the champion “fat take,” five-feet-four-inches high and four-feet-five-inches around, graduated from the _Courier_, wafted the St. Petersburg _Crude-Local_ up the flume and was chief-cook of the East-Brady _Times_. His reports were newsy and palatable. He travels for a Pittsburg house and would pay extra fare if passengers were carried by weight. The East-Brady _Review_ “sees” the _Times_ and “goes it one better.”

Graham & Hoag’s _Sunday News-Letter_ arose from the tomb of the Evening Press and the _Sunday-News_. J. W. Graham, now of the _Herald_, piloted the trim vessel skillfully. A stock-company of producers, thinking a daily in the family would be “a thing of beauty” and “a joy forever,” bought the _News-Letter_ and the _Courier_ equipment in 1879, to start the _Petroleum World_. James M. Place, a pusher from Pusherville, had solicited the bulk of the subscriptions to the stock and was entrusted with the management. R. W. Criswell edited the paper splendidly. Captain M. H. Butler, who put heaps of ginger into his spicy effusions, and John P. Zane, whose hobby was finance—both have gone the journey that has no return trip—embellished its columns with thoughtful, digestible brain-food. Oil-news, readable locals, dispatches, jaunty selections and bang-up neatness were never lacking. But competition was fierce and the _World_ had a hard row to hoe. A committee of stockholders soon took charge. Place, sleepless, indomitable and with the energy of a steam-hammer, opened a big store at Richburg and drove a rattling trade. Setting out to paddle his own canoe as a Corry newsboy at ten, he had run a newsroom at Fagundas, a bookstore and the post-office at St. Petersburg, a branch store at Edenburg, large stores at Bradford and Bolivar and won laurels as the greatest newspaper circulator in the petroleum-diggings. At Harrisburg and Reading he swung papers and the _Globe_ in New York. He is now in Washington. S. L. Williams, unexcelled as a sprightly writer, and Hon. George E. Mapes, equally competent in the Legislature and the editorial chair, kept the _World_ booming until “patience ceased to be a virtue” and the daily ceased to be a sheet. About half the material went to the Oil City _Blizzard_ and the rest went to print the _Sunday World_ Frank W. Truesdell had determined to originate. The late Hon. A. N. Perrin, ex-Mayor of Titusville, possessing “ample means and ample generosity,” backed the project. Truesdell finished his trade as printer in Cleveland and worked at Youngstown and Franklin, settling at Titusville in 1880 to manage the _World_ jobbing-room. He was a young man of fine ability and scrupulous integrity. His partnership with Perrin ended in 1887 by his purchase of the entire business. He sold a half-interest in the paper in 1893 and death claimed him in October of 1894. Measured by his thirty-seven years, Frank Willard Truesdell’s life was short; measured by his good deeds, his worthy enterprises, his lofty sentiments and kindly acts, it was longer than that of many who pass the Psalmist’s three-score-and-ten. Mrs. Truesdell and her little daughter live in Titusville. F. F. Murray, associated with Walter Izant and W. R. Herbert in the general details, edits the _Sunday World_, which is as frisky as a spring-colt. Born at Buffalo in 1860, Murray was reared in Venango county, whither his father was drawn by the oil-excitement. Correspondence for local papers naturally bore him into the journalistic swim. He whooped it up six years for the _Blizzard_. A regular hummer, he is at home whether flaying monopolists, taking a ruffian’s scalp, praising a pretty girl, writing a tearful obituary, dissecting a suspicious job or reeling off a natty poem. “The Old Tramp-Printer,” a recent effort, is a fair sample of his quality:

“Here’s a rhyme to the old tramp-printer, who as long as he lives will roam, Whose ‘card’ is his principal treasure and where night overtakes him home; Whose shoes are run over and twisty, whose garments are shiny and thin, And who takes a bunk in the basement when the pressman lets him in.

“It is true there are some of the trampers that only the Angel of Death, When he touches them with his sickle, can cure of the ‘spirituous breath’; That some by their fellow-trampers are shunned as unwholesome scamps, And that some are just aimless, homeless, restless, typographical tramps.

“But the most of them surely are worthy of something akin to praise, And have drifted down to the present out of wholesomer, happier days; And when, though his looks be as seedy as ever a mortal wore, Will you find the old tramper minus his marvelous fund of lore?

“What paper hasn’t he worked on? Whose manuscript hasn’t he set? What story worthy remembrance was he ever known to forget? What topics rise for discussion, in science, letters or art, That the genuine old tramp-printer cannot grapple and play his part?

“It is true you will sometimes see him when the hue that adorns his nose Outrivals the crimson flushes which the peony flaunts at the rose; It is true that much grime he gathers in the course of each trip he takes, Inasmuch as he boards all freight-trains between the Gulf and the Lakes.

“Yet his knowledge grows more abundant than many much-titled men’s, Who travel as scholarly tourists and are classed with the upper-tens; And few are the contributions these scholarly ones have penned That the seediest, shabbiest tramper couldn’t readily cut and mend.

“He has little in life to bind him to one place more than the rest, For his hopes in the past lie buried with the ones that he loved the best; He has little to hope from Fortune and has little to fear from Fate, And little his dreams are troubled over the public’s love or hate.

“So a rhyme to the old tramp-printer—to the hopes he has cherished and wept, To the loves and the old home-voices that still in his heart are kept; A rhyme to the old tramp-printer, whose garments are shiny and thin, And who takes a bunk in the basement when the pressman lets him in.”

Mr. Mapes gravitated to Philadelphia to write for Colonel McClure’s _Times_. His are the appetizing paragraphs that burnish the editorial page by their subtile essence. He is a familiar figure at party conventions, which his intimate knowledge of state-politics enables him to gauge accurately. He abhors trickery and chicanery, deals his hardest blows in exposing corrupt methods, believes taxpayers and voters have rights contractors and bosses are bound to respect and is a stickler for honest government. Williams also strayed to the Quaker City as paragrapher for the _Press_, making a phenomenal hit. James G. Blaine complimented Charles Emory Smith upon these tart, peppery nuggets, saying: “I invariably read the _Press_ paragraphs before looking at any other paper.” This pleasant tribute added ten dollars a week to Sam’s salary, yet he tired of Philadelphia years ago and glided back to his old home in “the Messer Diocese.” He is now connected with the New York _Mail and Express_, whose readers can hardly find words to express their satisfaction with the spice he injects into Elliot Shepherd’s trusty expositor of Republicanism.

His pointed squibs and his cranium bare
Are as much alike as steps in a stair—
One grows no moss and the other no hair.

R. W. Criswell holds an honorable place among the men who have made oil-region newspapers known abroad and influential at home. He was born in Clarion county and educated in Cincinnati. His sketches, signed “Chris,” introduced him to the public through the medium of the Oil-City _Derrick_, the East Brady _Independent_ and the Fairview _Independent_, Colonel Samuel Young’s twin offspring. Retiring from Young’s employ at Fairview, he was next heard of as traveling correspondent of the Cincinnati _Enquirer_. His editorship of the _Derrick_ in 1877 clinched his fame as a Simon-pure humorist, thirty-six inches to the yard and one-hundred cents to the dollar. The Shakespearian parodies and Lickshingle stories, lustrous as the Kohinoor, waltzed the merry round of the American press and were published in two taking books—“The New Shakespeare” and “Grandfather Lickshingle.” After his departure from the _Petroleum World_ Criswell renewed his relations with the _Enquirer_ as managing-editor. He was John R. McLean’s trusty lieutenant and held the great western daily on the topmost rung of the ladder. The New-York _Graphic_, the pathfinder of illustrated dailies, needed him and he accepted its flattering offer. The Cincinnati _Sun_ was about to shine on the just and the unjust and he returned to Porkopolis. Colonel John Cockrell coaxed him back to Manhattanville to reconstruct the funny-streak of the overflowing New-York _World_.

F. F. MURRAY. JAMES M. PLACE.
R. W. CRISWELL.
FRANK W. TRUESDELL. GEORGE E. MAPES.
]

When the Colonel and Joseph Pulitzer disagreed—they “never spoke as they passed by”—he went with Cockrell to the _Commercial Advertiser_, for which he has done some of the brightest work in the newspaper-kingdom. He now edits _Truth_. “Mark Anthony’s Oration Over Cæsar,” from “The Comic Shakespeare,” will dispel the gloom and indicate the rare brand of Criswell’s vintage:

“Friends, Romans, countrymen! lend me your ears; I will return them next Saturday. I come To bury Cæsar because the times are hard And his folks can’t afford to hire an undertaker. The evil that men do lives after them, In the shape of progeny, who reap The benefit of their life insurance. So let it be with the deceased. Brutus hath told you that Cæsar was ambitious, What does Brutus know about it? It is none of his funeral. But that it isn’t is no fault of the undersigned. Here under leave of you I come to Make a speech at Cæsar’s funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me; He loaned me five dollars once when I was in a pinch, And signed my petition for a post-office. And Brutus says he was ambitious. Brutus should chase himself around the block. Cæsar hath brought many captives home to Rome Who broke rock on the streets until their ransoms Did the general coffers fill. When that the poor hath cried, Cæsar hath wept, Because it didn’t cost anything And made him solid with the masses. [_Cheers._ Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. Yet Brutus says he was ambitious. Brutus is a liar, and I can prove it. You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse, because it did not fit him quite. Was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious. Brutus is not only the biggest liar in this country But is a politician of the deepest dye. [_Applause._ If you have tears prepare to shed them now. You all do know this ulster. [_Laughter._ I remember the first time ever Cæsar put it on; It was on a summer’s evening in his tent, With the thermometer registering ninety degrees in the shade; But it was an ulster to be proud of, And it cost him $3 at Marcalus Swartzheimer’s, Corner of Broad and Ferry streets, sign of the red flag. Old Swartz wanted $40 for it, But finally came down to $3, because it was Cæsar! Look! in this place ran Casca’s dagger through; Through this the son of a gun of a Brutus stabbed, And when he plucked his cursed steel away, Good gracious, how the blood of Cæsar followed it!

[_Cheers, and cries of “Give us something on the Wilson bill!” “Hit him
again;” etc._]

I came not, friends, to steal away your hearts; I am no thief as Brutus is. Brutus has a monopoly in all that business, And if he had his deserts, he would be In the State prison and don’t you forget it. Kind friends, sweet friends, I do not wish to stir you up To such a sudden flood of mutiny, And, as it looks like rain, The pallbearers will please place the body in the wheelbarrow And we will proceed to bury Cæsar, Not to praise him.”

Edwin C. Bell, a son of the Pine-Tree state, landed at Petroleum Centre in 1866, spent 1869 in the west, returned to Oil Creek in 1870 and for three years punched down oil-wells. In 1874 he started a job-printery at Pioneer, using a press he built from iron-scraps and an oak-rail and learning the trade without an instructor. That fall he transplanted his kit to Titusville and continued in the jobbing-line fourteen years. Early in 1878 he published the _Leader_, a weekly that petered out in two months. Mr. Bell in 1882 flew the flag of the _Republic_, a campaign-oracle of the Greenbackers and supporter of Thomas A. Armstrong for governor. The _Republic_, like the _Argus_, the _Observer_ and others of that ilk, didn’t attain old age. Bell’s first grists—stories and sketches—went into the _Courier_ hopper in 1872, supplemented from 1878 to 1882 by bundles of live matter in the Meadville _Vindicator_ and the Richburg _Echo_. He edited the _Republican_ at Casselton, N. D., in 1882-3, and during the nine years following his return to Titusville sent a news-letter almost daily to the Oil-City _Blizzard_. He has long contributed to the _Sunday World_ and in 1888-9 was its assistant-editor. In 1892 he began a history of the Pennsylvania oil-regions, instalments of which the _Derrick_ printed, and he hopes to finish the task on a comprehensive scale befitting the subject.

Warren has been blessed with two weeklies, the _Ledger_ and the _Mail_, for two generations. Ephraim Cowan founded the _Mail_ in 1848 and owned it until his death in 1894. Three dailies vigilantly watch each other and guard the pretty town. At Tidioute the _Journal_, inaugurated by J. B. Close in 1867, jogged along seven years. George A. Needle and Frank H. Taylor were the owners. Needle, whose sharp lance could prick the fiends of the opposition like a needle, followed the tide to Parker and boosted the _Daily_, which shortly plunged into perpetual night. Its chief contributor was Stephen W. Harley, who furnished rich budgets of Petrolia odds and ends over the name of “Keno.” “Steve” was kindly, obliging, congenial and well-liked. Six summers have come and gone since he was laid beneath the sod. Clark Wilson removed the _Oilman’s Journal_ to Smethport and the _Phœnix_ is in undisputed possession of the Parker territory, with the youngest editor—son of G. A. Needle—in the State guiding it capably. In October of 1874 the Warren-County _News_ was moved from Youngsville to Tidioute. C. E. White, who took charge in December, bought the plant in 1875 and he has been in the harness continuously since. Mr. White is among the best all-round newspaper-men in the country. He was born at Newburg in 1842, boyhooded at Binghampton, learned his trade at Elmira, served the Jamestown _Journal_ six years, spent a year with the Oil-City _Derrick_ and went to Tidioute in 1872 to manage the _Journal’s_ job-department. His record as a citizen, soldier, printer and editor is solid nonpareil.

Clarion county did not escape the frantic rush to stick a paper in every mushroom-town. F. H. Barclay inflicted the _Record_ on the long-suffering St. Petersburgers, mooring his bark in California when the paper turned up its toes. Tozer’s _Crude-Local_, which never sported a crude-local or editorial, the Fern-City _Illuminator_, brighter in name than in real substance, the Clarion _Banner_, a species of rag on the bush, the Edenburg _National Record_ and several more slid off the perch with a dull thud, fatal as Humpty Dumpty’s irretrievable tumble.

Frank A. Herr’s _Record_ has long kept up a good record at Petrolia. Colonel Young and the three papers he propagated in Butler county, with a half-dozen elsewhere, have mouldered into dust. He was intensely earnest and industrious, able to maintain his end of a discussion and seldom unwilling to dare opponents knock the chip off his stout shoulder. Rev. W. A. Thorne attempted to reform the race with his Greece-City _Review_, hauling the traps to Millerstown upon the depletion of the frontier-town. His path was strewn with thorns, mankind resenting his review of everybody and everything. Ex-Postmaster Rattigan braces up the unterrified with his sturdy Chicora _Herald_, which he has conducted successfully for twenty years. St. Joe’s bantam, never distinguished for its strength, crowed mildly and dropped from the roost. The county-seat is fully stocked with political organs, the _Citizen_, the _Eagle_ and the _Herald_ coaching their respective parties. J. H. Negley & Son are not negligent in their conduct of the _Citizen_. The _Eagle_ is the proud bird of Thomas H. Robertson, a trained writer and journalist, now Superintendent of Public-Printing in Harrisburg. The _Herald_ was for many years the pet of Jacob Zeigler, to whom all Butlerites took off their hats. “Uncle Jake” was the soul of the social circle, a treasury of wit and wisdom, an exhaustless reservoir of pat stories, a mine of practical knowledge and a welcome guest in every corner of Pennsylvania. His soubriquet of “Uncle” fastened upon him in a curious way. At the funeral of a youthful acquaintance the distracted mother, as her boy was consigned to the grave, in a frenzy of grief laid her head upon young Zeigler’s breast and exclaimed: “Oh, were you ever a stricken mother?” “No, madam,” was the cool reply, “but I expect to be an uncle before sundown to-morrow.” Bystanders noted the strange incident and thenceforth the “Uncle” stuck like a fly-blister. His parents are buried in the Harrisburg cemetery, near Joseph Jefferson’s father, and whenever he visited the capital he strewed their resting-place with flowers. Who can doubt that the filial son, in whom mingled the strength of a man and the tenderness of a woman, found his loved ones not far away when he entered the pearly gates? Truly “this was the noblest Roman of them all.”

Another honored resident of Butler was Samuel P. Irvin, author of “The Oil-Bubble,” a pamphlet abounding with delicious satire and bits of personal experience. It was printed in 1868 and produced a sensation. Enjoying very few advantages in his boyhood, Mr. Irvin was emphatically a self-made man. Born in a backwoods-township seventy years ago, his schooling was limited and he toiled “down on the farm.” Like Lincoln, Garfield, Simon Cameron and many other country-boys, he rose to distinction by his own exertions. He read assiduously, studied law and stood well at the bar. His literary bent found expression in newspaper-articles of very high grade. He lived some years at Franklin in the earlier stages of petroleum-developments, drilling wells and handling oil-properties on commission. He met death with fortitude, “like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

SAMUEL P. IRVIN.
JACOB ZEIGLER.
SAMUEL YOUNG.
]

The Bradford semi-weekly _New Era_, harbinger of the new era dawning upon McKean county, saw daylight in the spring of 1875. The main object of its founder, Colonel J. H. Haffey, was to invite attention to the possibilities of the locality as a prospective oil-field. Colonel Haffey was a man of varied talents—public speaker, writer, soldier, surveyor, promoter of oil-enterprises, rail-roader and expounder of the gospel. Irish by birth, he came to America at fourteen, lived three years in Canada, was licensed to preach and in 1851, at the age of twenty-one, accepted a call to the Baptist church at Bradford, then Littleton. Marrying Diantha, youngest daughter of Nathan De Golier, in December of 1852, a year later he quit the pulpit, sensibly concluding that the Lord had not called him to starve his family. As surveyor and geologist, he was employed to prospect for coal and iron in McKean and adjacent counties. In 1858-9 he had charge of a gang of men grading the Erie railroad to Buttsville. The first man in Bradford township to enlist in 1861, he raised a force for Colonel Kane’s famous “Bucktails,” shared in the fighting around Richmond and was honorably discharged with the rank of major. Governor Hartranft appointed him a member of his staff and the title of colonel resulted. He sold his Bradford home in 1877 and removed to Beverly, N.J., where his active, helpful career ended in November, 1881.

Ferrin & Weber, of Salamanca, publishers of the Cattaraugas _Republican_, in 1876 bought the _New Era_ from Col. Haffey and placed it in charge of Charles F. Persons. He had been in their establishment at Little Valley two years. For nine or ten months he washed rollers, fed presses, carried wood and did the varied chores allotted to the “printer’s devil.” His aptitude impressed his employers, who sent him first to Salamanca and then to Bradford, an important post for a youth of twenty-two. Hoping to be an editor some day, he had corresponded for neighboring papers from boyhood on his father’s farm, a practice he maintained during his apprenticeship. A few months after reaching Bradford he and the Salamanca firm established the _Daily Era_, with the names of Ferrin, Weber & Persons at the mast-head. Very soon Persons bought out his partners and conducted the paper alone. His ability and energy had full play. The _Era_ met the demands of the eager, restless crowds that thronged the streets of Bradford and scoured the hills in quest of territory. Its news was concise and fresh, its oil-reports were not doctored for speculative ends, it had opinions and presented them tersely. Persons sold to W. H. Longwell and W. F. Jordan early in 1879 and in the fall bought the Olean _Democrat_. The nobby New-York town was feeling the stimulus of oil-operations and he started the _Daily Herald_, enhancing his wallet and well-won reputation. The American Press-Association, which furnishes plate-matter to thousands of newspapers, secured him in 1888 as Local Manager of its New-York office. Two years ago he was promoted to General Eastern-Manager and in 1894 was elected Secretary, Assistant General-Manager and one of the five directors. Mr. Persons occupies a snug home in Brooklyn, with his wife and two little daughters. He is a live representative of the go-ahead, enterprising, sagacious, executive American.

COL. J. H. HAFFEY.
D. A. DENNISON. CHAS. F. PERSONS.
THOMAS A. KERN.
]

Longwell & Jordan also bought the _Breeze_—it first breathed the oil-laden air of Bradford in 1878 and was edited by David Armstrong, “organizer” of the producers in one of their movements to “get together”—and consolidated it with the _Era_. Col. Edward Stuck, of York, worked the combination successfully some months. Colonel Leander M. Morton was night-editor until his lamented death. Thomas A. Kern attended to the field, preparing the “monthly reports” and posting readers on oil-developments in his bailiwick. Years have flown since poor “Tom,” young and enthusiastic, and J. K. Graham, exact and upright, responded to the message that brooks no excuse or postponement. “Musing on companions gone, we doubly feel ourselves alone.” Bradshaw, McMullen and others scattered. Jordan, whose first work for papers was done at Petrolia in 1873, died in Harrisburg in 1897. P. C. Boyle secured the _Era_ and infused into it much of his own prompt, courageous spirit. David A. Dennison has for years been its efficient editor. His parents removed from Connecticut to a farm south of Titusville when he was a baby. At thirteen David wrote a batch of items, which it tickled him to see in print, without a thought of one day blossoming into a full-fledged “literary feller.” Not caring to be a tiller of the soil, he juggled the hammer and lathe in machine-shops to the music of “the Anvil Chorus.” A short season on the boards convinced him that he was not commissioned to elevate the stage and wrest the scepter from Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett, John McCullough or Alexander Salvini. He whisked to a Bradford shop to strike the iron while it was hot, writing smart descriptions of oil-region scenes for outside papers as a side-issue for several years. A series of his articles on gas-monopoly, in the Elmira _Telegram_, brought reduced rates to consumers and pleasant notoriety to the ironworker, who had proved himself a blacksmith with the sledge and no “blacksmith” with the quill. His name was neither Dennis nor Mud, and the _Daily Oil News_, McMullen & Bradshaw’s game-fowl, wanted him forthwith. The salary was not alluring and in the Indian-summer days of 1886 he cast in his lot with the _Era_. Promotion chased him persistently. From reporter he was boosted to city-editor and in 1894 to the editorial management, a flawless selection. He has tussled with all sorts of topics, constructed tales of woe in jingling verse and even tempted fate by firing off a drama, which has not yet run the gamut of publicity. Dennison has been offered good sits in metropolitan offices, but he likes Bradford and clings to the _Era_. He married Miss Katharine Grady in 1883 and three boys gladden the home of the exultant D. A. D. “May his shadow never grow less.”

E. W. Butler started the Bradford _Sunday News_ on April first, 1879, with Joseph Moorhead as editor. Mr. Moorhead grew up on a farm near Newcastle, served in the army as captain in Matthew Stanley Quay’s regiment, landed at Petroleum Centre in 1869, worked about oil-wells five years, taught school at St. Petersburg in 1874-5, published a short-lived fraternal paper at Newcastle in 1870, aided in editing the Millerstown _Review_ and in 1878 filled a position on the Bradford _Era_. He edited the Sunday News one year, helped launch a similar sheet at Minneapolis, returned to Bradford in 1880, resumed his position a few months and resigned to edit the _Sunday-Mail_. Early in 1885 he settled in Kansas, farming there five years and coming back to Pennsylvania in 1890. Since that time he has lived in Pittsburg and been connected with various dailies of the sooty city. His vigor and experience are manifested in his writings, which always go direct to the spot. At sixty-two the veteran unites the activity of buoyant youth with the wisdom of robust age. Butler reeled off the Buffalo _Sunday-News_ in 1880, the sharpest, quickest, breeziest afternoon-paper in the Bison City, and in 1885 sold his Bradford bantling to Philip H. Lindeman, _Era_ book-keeper and manager. Lindeman navigated against wind and tide until the _News_ ran ashore in 1894, the “Commodore” himself ending life’s voyage in June of 1897.

A number of producers agreeing to stand sponsors for the bills, McMullen & Bradshaw floated the _Daily News_ in 1886. Its backers grew tired of emptying their pockets and the bright venture gave up the ghost. Eben Brewer’s _Evening Star_ tinted the sky under its founder’s artistic touch. He sold to Andrew Carr, who found the load unbearable and shoved it upon Rufus B. Stone, brother of Congressman Charles W. Stone. Mr. Stone, an able lawyer, was Chancellor of Mississippi in the reconstruction-days. The reconstructed legislature lopped off his salary and he located at Bradford to practice law. He owned the _Star_ several years, writing most of the political editorials that carried weight and gave the paper high standing. H. F. Barber, a man of fine intellect and noble purpose, dropped the Smethport _Miner_, relieved Stone and honed the _Star_ a few years, assisted at times by George Allen’s clever stroke. Protracted sickness, during which he showed “how sublime it is to suffer and be strong,” at last “withered the garlands on his brow.” He is dead, but “his speaking dust has more of life than half its breathing moulds.” Allen slid to Buffalo to polish up a railroad-periodical. “Judge” Johnson—in 1875 he landed at Bradford, served a term in the Legislature and another as postmaster, operated in oil and died three years ago—controlled the _Star_ after Barber, whose widow still retains an interest in the paper. Ex-Senator Emery fitted out the _Daily Record_, which seeks to trail the standard of the Standard in the dust and ticket independent producers, refiners and pipe-liners to a petroleum-Utopia. “Ed.” Jones, the adept who toed the chalk-mark on the Harrisburg _Call_, whirled the emery-wheel so expertly that the _Record_ has never approached Davy Jones’s locker. It is snappy and full of fight as a shillaleh at Donnybrook Fair. Carr’s _Sunday-Mail_, freighted with a car of delicate morsels, barked up the wrong tree and went to the bow-wows. Carr rolled down to Pittsburg to sell buggies, bagging a cargo of ducats. “Tom” L. Wilson—he’s as humorous as they make ’em—got out three numbers of _Sunday Morning_, a four-page blanket in size and a ten-course banquet in contents. Col. Ege shut it down for publishing a rank extract from Walt Whitman’s “Blades o’ Grass” and boomed the _Evening-Times_, which expired in infancy. Ege was a banker who hankered to be State-Treasurer, banked upon newspaper-support, went into bankruptcy, received an appointment in the Philadelphia Mint and traveled westward when Cleveland shuffled the pack for a new deal. Wilson wrote for the oil-region press, handled the Reading branch of a Harrisburg paper, edited the Washington _Review_—Sistersville has a sisterly _Review_ now—and rounded up in Buffalo. The _Post_, Bradford’s latest Sunday experiment, owes its good looks and good matter to Edward F. McIntyre and George O. Sloan.

J.C. McMULLEN.
A.L. SNELL. W.C. ARMOR.
]

One evening in 1877 a young stranger walked into the St. Petersburg post-office, bought a package of stationery at the book-counter and told J. M. Place he was looking for a situation. Place hired him as a clerk. He had come from the homestead farm in Orange county, N. Y., to Cornell University, worked his way and graduated in civil-engineering. Marshall Swartzwelder lectured at St. Petersburg on temperance and Place’s clerk sat up all night to report the masterpiece for the _Derrick_. It was his first production in print, a voluntary act on his part, and the article attracted most favorable notice. Its author was at once offered a position on the _Derrick_. He came in contact with oil-statistics and his real genius asserted itself. His painstaking, conscientious reports were accepted as strictly reliable. He would trudge over the hills, wade through miles of mud and ford swollen streams to ascertain the precise status of an important well, rather than approximate it from hearsay. This care and thoroughness gave the highest value to the statistical work of Justus C. McMullen. In 1879 he went to Bradford and worked on the _Breeze_, the _Era_ and the _Star_, always with the same devotion that was a ruling maxim of his life. In 1883 he scouted in Warren and Forest counties and became part owner of the _Petroleum Age_. Alfred L. Snell and Major W. C. Armor were associated with him in this admirable monthly, of which he became sole proprietor on the first of December, 1887. A. C. Crum, now on the editorial staff of the Pittsburg _Dispatch_, contributed many a newsy crumb to the _Age_. A newsboy at Pickwick hailed me in front of his stand one cool morning and asked—not in a Pickwickian sense—if it would be worth while to get somebody to send locals to the _Derrick_. “Why not do it yourself?” was my answer. He tried and he succeeded. His work expanded and improved and he adopted journalism permanently. He catered for Oil City and Bradford papers, spun yarns for Pittsburg dailies and was a legislative correspondent several sessions. Snell, a statistical hummer and hard-to-beat purveyor of news, hangs his manuscript on the _Derrick_ hook. Armor sponsored a historic book and laid off his armor to second Dr. Egle in the State Library. He has a book-store in Harrisburg and a museum that distances the “Old Curiosity Shop.” McMullen established and edited the _Daily Oil-News_ in 1886. He died of pleurisy, contracted from exposure in collecting oil-data, on January thirty-first, 1888, cut off at thirty-seven. The _Petroleum Age_ did not stay long behind its unswerving projector. Justus C. McMullen is enshrined in the affections of the people. An unrelenting foe of oppression, he had a warm heart for the poor and pursued his own path of right through thorns or flowers. He married Miss Cora, daughter of Col. L. M. Morton, who lives in Bradford and has one little girl. A brave, grand, exalted spirit passed from earth when J. C. McMullen’s light was quenched.

“On the sands of life
Sorrow treads heavily and leaves a print
Time cannot wash away.”

Parker has been called “the graveyard of newspapers,” yet G. A. Needle has run his popular _Phœnix_ twenty-three years, accumulating sufficient wealth to own a book-store and oil-wells and let the paper canter along under charge of his son, the youngest editor in Pennsylvania.

The Washington _Reporter_, established in 1892 as a daily and semi-weekly, owes its abundant success largely to the wide-awake editor, William Christman. His practical knowledge and ready pen keeps the _Reporter_ right in the swim. Fulton Phillips in 1888 launched the _Outlook_ at McDonald, then merely a flag-station on the Panhandle Railway, with no great outlook in prospect. His editorials are essentially independent and vigorous, the man dominating the paper. It is Fulton Phillips, rather than the paper, who is read and quoted by the thousands of _Outlook_ readers. He was born within a mile of McDonald and the boom following oil-operations did not catch the tall editor—he is considerably above six feet—napping. The _Outlook_ was the first to put a reporter in the field and write up the wells in picturesque style. Phillips served through the war, taught school at Pittsburg, ran a paper at Canonsburg, drifted westward, did editorial work in Missouri and California and returned to start the only failure in his pilgrimage, a temperance-organ at Washington. It went the way of former temperance-sheets in the local-option town where they take theirs in jugs. In other portions of the oil-world journalism holds up its end creditably, newspapers and developments marching neck and neck on their grand errand of enlightenment. The Sistersville _Review_ and Parkersburg _Sentinel_ do the West-Virginia field proud, the Toledo _Journal_ is always primed with Ohio oil-news, nor is there a spot in which oil plays trump that literature does not hold a royal flush. Intelligence and petroleum are a good pair to tie to, to bet on and to rake in the jack-pot.

The Rev. S. J. M. Eaton—his name is ever spoken with reverence—thirty-three years pastor of the Presbyterian church at Franklin, filled a large place in the literary guild. He loved especially to delve into old books and papers and letters pertaining to the pioneers of Northwestern Pennsylvania. His faithful labors in this neglected nook unearthed a troop of traditions and facts which “the world will not willingly let die.” For the “History of Venango County” he furnished a number of leading chapters. His published works include “Petroleum,” an epitome of oil-affairs down to 1866, “Lakeside,” a tale based upon his father’s ministerial experiences in the wilds of Erie county, biographies of eminent divines, sketches of the Erie Presbytery, pamphlets and sermons. “The Holy City” and “Palestine,” embodying his observations in the orient, were issued as text-books by the Chautauqua Circle. Dr. Eaton was my near neighbor for years and hours in his well-stocked library, enriched by his “affluence of discursive talk,” are recalled with deep satisfaction. On the sixteenth of July, 1889, while walking along the street, he raised his hands suddenly and fell to the pavement, struck down by heart-failure. “He was not, for God took him” to wear the victor’s crown. Farewell, “until the day dawn and the shadows flee away.”

In the Franklin office of the Galena Oil-Works are three successful weavers of rich textures in the literary loom—Dr. Frank H. Johnston, E. H. Sibley and Samuel H. Gray. Dr. Johnston was born in Canal township, reared on a farm, severely wounded in battling for the Union, studied medicine, practiced at Cochranton and in 1872 located at Petrolia. There “he first essayed to write” for the Oil-City _Derrick_. From the very outset his articles were up to concert-pitch. Abandoning medicine for letters, he acquired a thorough knowledge of stenography, read the choicest books and wrote in his best vein for the press. He represented the _Derrick_ as its Franklin correspondent with credit to himself and the paper. For sixteen years he has been connected with the Galena Oil-Works as secretary of Hon. Charles Miller, a place demanding the superior qualifications with which the doctor is unstintingly endowed.

Edwin Henry Sibley, born at Bath, N. Y., in 1857, is a brother of Hon. Joseph C. Sibley and has resided in Franklin twenty-three years. He was graduated from Cornell University in 1880. For several years he has been treasurer of the Galena Oil-Works and manager of Miller & Sibley’s famous Prospect-Hill Stock-Farm, positions of responsibility to which his personal address, his training and his business-methods adapt him pre-eminently. Three years in succession he has been unanimously elected President of the Pennsylvania Jersey-Cattle Club. He has been active and efficient in promoting the laudable work of the University Extension Society. Under guise of “Polybius Crusoe Smith, Sage of Cranberry Cross-Roads”—the Smiths are big folks since the by-play of Pocahontas—he contributes to _Puck_ and other well-known publications humorous articles and short, quaint, pithy sayings. These display a keen insight into human nature and rare gift of happy, accurate expression. One of his recent effusions—an address welcoming the delegates to an agricultural convention—is a bit of burlesque that deserves to rank with Artemus Ward’s brightest efforts or the richest paragraphs in the Biglow Papers. A few buds plucked at random from the flowery mead will serve to illustrate the high-class stamp of Mr. Sibley’s work in the field his genius adorns. They are literary nosegays from his terse observations as a philosophic “looker-on in Vienna:”

“The wife that manages her husband is a genius, the one that bosses him is a tartar, the one that fights him is a fool, while the one that does none of them is now as much out of fashion as her grandmother’s wedding-gown.”

“The pygmies of Africa are such by nature, but elsewhere they are produced artificially by a diet of petty and envious thoughts.”

“‘Truth is mighty and will prevail,’ but Error generally has the better of it till the seventy-seventh round.”

“One of the greatest evils that humanity has to contend with is that so many icebergs have floated down from the North Pole and persist in passing themselves off for men.”

“Former lovers in making out their title-deeds of the heart to their successors always reserve at least a narrow pathway across a corner.”

“Wise men and fools have foolish thoughts; fools tell them, wise men keep them to themselves.”

“Parents that haven’t time to correct their children when they are small have time to weep over them when they are grown.”

“Affectation (alias of Deceitfulness) has three picked cronies from whom she is seldom separated. Their names are False Pride, Weakmindedness and Bad Temper.”

“If one has too much vitality in his brains he can get rid of it by taking them out and boiling them. If he finds this too much bother, he can accomplish the same result by swallowing a few doses of a decoction of faith-cure, spook-lore and hypnotism.”

“For peace of mind and length of days, put this inscription above the doorway of workshop and home: _Troubles that will not be worth worrying over seven years hence are not worth worrying over now._”

“The ancient Israelites once worshiped a golden calf, but the modern Americans would worship a golden polecat if they couldn’t get the gold in any other form to worship.”

“The young man who starts out in life with character and brains and energy as his outfit will distance the one whose sole capital is the money his father left him.”

E. H. SIBLEY.
S. H. GRAY.
F. H. JOHNSTON.
]

Samuel H. Gray carries under his hat plenty of the gray-matter that makes bright writers and bright wooers of the Muses. He has been court stenographer of Venango county and holds a confidential position with the firm of Miller & Sibley, applying his spare moments to newspaper-writing. His pictures of petroleum-traits and incidents are finished word-paintings, with “light and shade and color properly disposed.” Like Silas Wegg, he “drops into poetry” in a friendly way. Such papers as the New-York _Truth_ strive for his emanations, which savor of Bret Harte and “hold the mirror up to nature” in oleaginous circles. Judge of this “By the Order of the Lord,” founded on an actual occurrence in Scrubgrass township:

“It was back, if I remember, in the year of sixty-five,
When we formed a part and parcel of that rushin’, busy hive
That extended from Oil City up the crooked crick until
It reached its other endin’ in the town of Titusville;
When every rock an’ hillside was included in a lease,
An’ everyone was huntin’ fer the fortune-makin’ grease;
When a poor man pushed and elbowed ’gainst the oily millionaire,
An’ ‘the devil take the hindmost’ seemed the all-pervadin’ prayer.

“An’ we hed formed a pardnership, jest Tom an’ Jim an’ me,
That was properly recorded as the ‘Tough and Hungry Three,’
An’ hed gone an’ leased a portion of some hard an’ rocky soil
That we thought looked like the cover of a fountain filled with oil.
An’ we set the drill a’goin’ on its long an’ greasy quest,
That meant so much or little to the capital possessed.
Our money was all in the well, in Providence our trust,
An’ we waited for a fortune, or to liquidate an’ bu’st.

“An’ while the drill was chuggin’ at its hard an’ rocky way
We three would hold a meetin’ at a certain time each day,
The ‘resolves’ an’ the ‘whereases’ that the secretary took
Were properly recorded ’twixt the covers of a book.
An’ we passed a resolution by a vote unanimous
Thet if Providence would condescend to sorter favor us,
An’ assist the operations on the ‘Tough and Hungry’ lease,
We would give to Him a quarter of the total flow of grease.

“Next day the drill broke through into a very oily sand
An’ Providence remembered us with strong, unsparin’ hand;
The oil came out with steady flow an’ loaded up the tanks,
An’ the Lord was due rewarded by a solid vote of thanks.
A resolution then came up thet caused the vote to split,
A sort of an amendment, readin’ somethin’ like, to wit—
‘Whereas, a tenth is all the Lord was ever known to crave,
Resolved we give it to Him; but resolved the rest we save.’

“I fit that resolution, an’ I fit it tooth an’ nail,
Spoke of dangers such proceedin’s was most likely to entail;
But two votes were in its favor, an’ two votes it only took
Fer to have it due recorded in the resolution-book.
Next day the oil stopped flowin’ an’ it never flowed no more,
An’ the ‘Tough and Hungry’ combine was a’ feelin’ blue an’ sore.
But they nailed upon the derrick this notice, on a board,
‘This well has stopped proceedin’s, by the order of the Lord.’”

The late Rev. Harry L. Yewens, rector of St. John’s church, was an accomplished writer and contributed many timely articles to the press. Rev. Dr. Fradenburg, formerly of Oil City and Franklin, has published seven scholarly volumes on religious subjects of vital interest.

The Bolivar _Breeze_, seven years old, under the able management of J. P. Herrick is one of the most readable sheets published in any section of the country. Editor Herrick is a philosopher and wit, who looks on the bright side of life and, better still, helps others to do likewise.

P. A. Rattigan, the very-much-alive perpetrator of the Millerstown _Herald_, once received an article entitled “Why Do I Live?” It was written on both sides of the sheet of foolscap, whereupon P. Anthony in next issue printed this conclusive answer: “You live because you sent your dog-goned rot by mail instead of bringing it in person.”

Melville J. Kerr, a Franklin boy, son of the senior proprietor of the marble-works, is a popular writer of facetiæ and society small-talk. Possibly “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” but his cognomen of “Joe Ker” is known to thousands of smiling readers who never heard of Melville. The aspiring youth, believing in the advantages of a big city, journeyed to New York to look for an opportunity that might want a party about his size and style. Unlike Jacob for Rachel, Penelope for Ulysses, the zealots who prayed for Ingersoll’s conversion or the Governor of South Carolina for the Governor of North Carolina to “fill ’em up again,” he didn’t wait long. A soap-mogul liked the ambitious, sprightly young man, introduced him to the swell set and booked him as editor of _The Club_. Kerr’s refined humor popped and effervesced with more “bead” than ever. He hobnobbed with millionaires, delighted Ward McAlister and married a lovely girl. Blood will tell as surely as a gossip or a tale-bearer. He is now editing _The Yellow Kid_, a semi-monthly crowded with good things, and raking in wealth at a Klondyke-gait from his newest book, “The World Over,” a graphic and geographic burlesque that is fated to be read the world over. And this is how the “Joe Ker” is the winning card in one oil-region instance.

Last year a compact “Life of Napoleon Bonaparte,” in harmony with the age of steam and electricity that won’t winnow a bushel of chaff for a grain of wheat, which had run through the winter and spring of 1894-5 in _McClure’s Magazine_, was published in book-form. Napoleonic ground had been so plowed and harrowed and raked and scraped and sifted by Hugo, Scott, Abbott, Hazlitt, Bourrienne, Madame Junot and a host of smaller fry that it seemed idle to expect anything new concerning the arbiter of Europe. Yet the beauty and freshness and acumen of this “Life” surprised and captivated its myriad readers, whose pleasure it increased to learn that the book was the production of a young woman. The authoress is Miss Ida M., daughter of Franklin S. Tarbell, a wealthy oil-operator. Her childhood was spent at Rouseville, where her parents lived prior to occupying their present home at Titusville. The romantic surroundings were calculated to awaken glowing fancies in the acute mind of the little girl. After graduating from Allegheny College, Meadville, she taught in the seminary at Poland, O., assisted to edit _The Chautauquan_ at Meadville and spent three years in Europe gathering materials for articles on the dark days of Robespierre, Danton, Marat and Marie Antoinette. She wrote for _Scribners’_, _McClure’s_ and the _New-England Magazine_, adding to her fame by an exhaustive study of Abraham Lincoln’s youth. _Scribners’_ will soon publish her biography of Madame Roland, the heroine of the French Revolution. Her success thus early in her career gives fruitful promise of a resplendent future for the vivacious, winsome biographer of the “Little Corporal.”