Business-men recall with a shudder the frightful stringency in 1893. All

over the land industries drooped and withered and died. Raw material,

even wool itself, had no market. Commerce languished, wages dwindled,

railroads collapsed, factories suspended, and myriads of workmen lost

their jobs. Merchants cut down expenses to the lowest notch, loans were

called in at a terrible sacrifice, debts were compromised at ten to

fifty cents on the dollar, the present was dark and the future gloomy.

The balance of trade was heavily against the United States. Government

securities tumbled and a steady drain of gold to Europe set in. The

efforts of Congress, the Treasury Department and syndicates of bankers

to stem the tide of disaster were on a par with Mrs. Partington’s

attempt to sweep back the ocean with a sixpenny-broom. Amid the general

demoralization, when the nation seemed hastening to positive ruin, one

splendid enterprise alone extended its business, multiplied its

resources and was largely instrumental in restoring public confidence.

The Standard Oil-Company, unrivalled in its equipment of brains and

skill and capital, not merely breasted the storm successfully, but did

more than all other agencies combined to avert widespread bankruptcy.

Through the sagacity and foresight of this great corporation crude oil

advanced fifty per cent., thereby doubling and trebling the prosperity

of the producing sections, without a corresponding rise in refined. By

this wise policy, which only men of nerve and genius could have carried

out, home consumers were not taxed to benefit the oil-regions and the

exports of petroleum-products swelled enormously. As the result, while

the American demand increased constantly, millions upon millions of

dollars flowed in from abroad, materially diminishing the European

drainage of the yellow metal from this side of the Atlantic. The

salutary, far-reaching effects of such management, by reviving faith and

stimulating the flagging energies of the country, exerted an influence

upon the common welfare words and figures cannot estimate. Petroleum

preserved the thread of golden traffic with foreign nations.

[Illustration: SAMUEL C.T. DODD.]

Hon. Samuel C.T. Dodd, one of the ablest lawyers Pennsylvania has

produced, is general solicitor of the Standard and resides in New York.

His father, the venerable Levi Dodd, established the first Sunday-school

and was president of the second company that bored for oil at Franklin,

the birthplace of his son in 1836. Young Samuel learned printing,

graduated from Jefferson College in 1857, studied law with James K. Kerr

and was admitted to the Venango Bar in August of 1859. His brilliant

talents, conscientious application and legal acquirements quickly won

him a leading place among the successful jurists of the state. During a

practice of nearly twenty-two years in the courts of the district and

commonwealth he stood in the front rank of his profession. He served

with credit in the Constitutional Convention of 1873, framing some of

its most important provisions. He traveled abroad and wrote descriptions

of foreign lands so charming they might have come from Washington Irving

and N. P. Willis. His selection by the Standard Oil-Trust in 1881 as its

general solicitor was a marked recognition of his superior abilities.

The position, one of the most prominent and responsible to which a

lawyer can attain, demanded exceptional qualifications. How capably it

has been filled the records of all legal matters concerning the Standard

abundantly demonstrate. Mr. Dodd’s profound knowledge of

corporation-law, eminent sense of justice, forensic skill, rare tact and

clear brain have steered the great company safely and honorably through

many suits involving grave questions of right and millions of money. The

papers he prepared organizing the Standard Trust have been the models

for all such documents since they left his desk. Terse logic, sound

reasoning, pointed analysis and apposite expression distinguish his

legal opinions and arguments, combining the vigor of a Damascus blade

with the beauty of an epic. He is a delightful conversationalist,

sincere friend and prudent counsellor, kindly, affable and thoroughly

upright. His home, brightened by a loving wife and devoted family, is

singularly happy. Amid the cares and anxieties incident to professional

life he has cultivated his fine literary-taste, writing

magazine-articles and wooing the muses at intervals of leisure only too

far apart. He has the honor of writing the first poem on petroleum that

ever appeared in print. It was a rich parody on Byron’s “Isles of

Greece” and was published in the spring of 1860, as follows:

The land of Grease! the land of Grease!

Where burning Oil is loved and sung;

Where flourish arts of sale and lease,

Where Rouseville rose and Tarville sprung;

Eternal summer gilds them not,

But oil-wells render dear each spot.

The ceaseless tap, tap of the tools,

The engine’s puff, the pump’s dull squeak,

The horsemen splashing through the pools

Of greasy mud along the Creek,

Are sounds which cannot be suppress’d

In these dear Ile-lands of the Bless’d.

Deep in the vale of Cherry Run

The Humboldt Works I went to see,

And sitting there an oil-cask on

I found that Grease was not yet free;

For busily a dirty carl

Was branding “bonded” on each barrel.

I sat upon the rocky brow

Which o’erlooks Franklin—far-famed town;

A hundred derricks stood below

And many a well of great renown;

I counted them at break of day,

And when the sun set where were they?

They were still there. But where art thou,

My dry-hole? On the river-shore

The engine stands all idle now,

The heavy auger beats no more;

And must a well of so great cost

Be given up and wholly lost?

’Tis awful when you bore a well

Down in the earth six-hundred feet,

To find that not a single smell

Comes up your anxious nose to greet;

For what is left the bored one here?

For Grease a wish; for Grease a tear!

Must I but wish for wells more bless’d?

Must I but weep? No, I must toil!

Earth, render back from out thy breast

A remnant of thy odorous oil!

If not three-hundred, grant but three

Precious barrels a day to me.

What! silent still? and silent all?

Ah no! the rushing of the gas

Sounds like a distant torrent’s fall

And answers, bore ahead, you ass,

A few feet more; you miss the stuff

Because you don’t go deep enough!

In vain! in vain! Pull up the tools!

Fill high the cup with lager-beer!

Leave oil-wells to the crazy fools

Who from the East are flocking here.

See at the first sight of the can

How hurries each red-shirted man!

Fill high the cup with lager-beer!

The maidens in their promenade

Towards my lease their footsteps steer

To see if yet my fortune’s made;

But sneers their pretty faces spoil

To find I have not yet struck oil.

Place me in Oil Creek’s rocky dell,

Though mud be deep and prices high;

There let me bore another well

And find petroleum or die.

No more I’ll work this dry-hole here;

Dash down that cup of lager-beer.

One of those few and rare occasions upon which John D. Rockefeller is

prevailed upon to address an audience was last March in New York, at a

social gathering of the Young Men’s Bible Class of the Fifth-Avenue

Baptist-Church. Much that he said was extremely interesting. In laying

down many excellent precepts he brought forth several lessons from the

experiences of his early life. By references to his first ledger, as he

called it, which was nothing more than a small paper-covered

memorandum-book, he explained how he managed to save money even on a

small salary. The little book contained the first items of his receipts

and expenditures when he first began to earn money. To judge from the

care with which he handled this reminder of his early struggles, Mr.

Rockefeller was in earnest when he intimated that it would require a

fortune to purchase it. His address, purely informal and conversational,

was warmly applauded by his hearers and commended by the press. Its

practical wisdom and the light it throws upon the early life of a most

successful man entitle it to careful preservation. Mr. Rockefeller said,

as reported by the New-York _Tribune_:

Let me say that it gives me a great deal of pleasure to be here

to-night. Although I cannot make you a speech, I have brought with me to

show you young men a little book—a book, I think, which may interest

you. It is the first ledger I kept. I was trained in business affairs

and how to keep a ledger. The practice of keeping a little personal

ledger by young men just starting in business and earning money and

requiring to learn its value is, I think, a good one. In the first

struggle to get a footing—and if you feel as I did I am sorry for you,

although I would not be without the memory of that struggle—I kept my

accounts in this book, also some memoranda of little incidents that

seemed to me important. In after-years I found that book and brought it

to New York. It is more than forty-two years since I wrote what it

contains. I call it Ledger A, and now I place the greatest value upon

it. I have thought that it would be a little help to some of you young

men to read one or two extracts from this ledger. [Mr. Rockefeller then

produced from his pocket, carefully enveloped in paper-wrapping, the

ledger to which he referred, and continued his remarks]:

When I found this book recently I thought it had no cover, because it

had writing upon its back. I had utilized the cover to write upon. In

those days I was economical, even with paper. When I read it through it

brought to my mind remembrances of the care with which I used to record

my little items of receipts and disbursements, matters which many of you

young men are rather careless over. I believe it is a religious duty to

get all the money you can fairly and honestly; to keep all you can and

to give away all you can. I think that is a problem that you are all

familiar with. I have told you before what pleasure this little book

gives me. I dare not let you read it through, because my children, who

have read it, say that I did not spell tooth-brush correctly.

[Laughter.] But you know we have made great progress in our spelling and

I suppose some changes have taken place since those days. [Renewed

laughter.] I have not seen this book for twenty-five years. It does not

look like a modern ledger, does it? But you could not get that book from

me for all the modern ledgers in New York, nor for all that they would

bring. It almost brings tears to my eyes when I read over this little

book, and it fills me with a sense of gratitude that I cannot express.

It shows largely what I received and what I paid out during my first

years of business. It shows that from September twenty-sixth, 1855,

until January first, 1856, I received $50. Out of that I paid my

washerwoman and the lady I boarded with, and saved a little money to put

away. I am not ashamed to read it over to you.

Among other things I find that I gave a cent to the Sunday-school every

Sunday. That is not a very large sum, is it? But that was all the money

I had to give for that particular object. I was also giving to several

other religious objects. What I could afford to give I gave regularly,

as I was taught to do, and it has been a pleasure to me all my life to

do so.

I had a large increase in my revenue the next year. It went up to $25 a

month. I began to be a capitalist and, had I regarded myself then as we

regard capitalists now, I ought to have felt like a criminal because I

had so much money. But we had no trusts or monopolies then. [Laughter.]

I paid my own bills and always had a little something to give away, and

the happiness of saving some. In fact, I am not so independent now as I

was then. It is true I could not secure the most fashionable cut of

clothing. I remember I bought mine then of a Jew. [Laughter.] He sold me

clothing cheap, clothing such as I could pay for, and it was a great

deal better than buying clothing that I could not pay for. I did not

make any obligations I could not meet. I lived within my means, and my

advice to you young men is to do just the same.

Dr. Faunce has just told you that all young men who come to this church

are welcome and are never asked to whom they belong or where they came

from. But there is just one question I would like to ask. I would like

to know how many of you come from the city and how many come from the

country. (Mr. Rockerfeller asked, as a personal favor, if all those

present in the room who came from the country would raise their right

hand. Fully three-quarters of the number did so.) Now, what a story that

tells!

To my mind there is something unfortunate in being born in a city. You

have not had the struggles in the city that we have had who were reared

in the country. Don’t you notice how the men from the country keep

crowding you out here—you who have wealthy fathers? These young men from

the country are turning things around and are taking your city. We men

from the country are willing to do more work. We were prepared by our

experience to do hard work. I remember a little time ago I was in the

country and saw a carpenter placing mineral-wool under the roof of a

city servant’s bedroom, so that the man should not feel the heat of the

summer or hear the patter of the rain-drops on the roof. I could not at

the time help recalling the experience of my boyhood, when I slept under

a roof. While I could not see the shingles, I remember I could peep

through the cracks in them. It was pretty hot in the summer up there,

too, I can tell you. But I think I was better for all that sort of

experience, for having been reared in the country in that sturdy,

practical way, and my heart is sometimes full of sadness as I

contemplate the condition of the number of young fellows in this city

whom I happen to know well.

They are in the embarrassing position that their fathers have great sums

of money, and those boys have not a ghost of a chance to compete with

you who come from the country and who want to do something in the world.

You are in training now to shortly take the places of those young men. I

suppose you cannot realize how many eyes are upon you and how great is

the increasing interest that is taken in you. You may not think that,

when you are lonely and find it difficult to get a footing. But it is

true that, in a place like this, true interest is taken in you. When I

left the school-house I came into a place similar to this, where I

associated with people whom it was good to know. Nothing better could

have happened to me.

I spoke just now of the struggle for success. What is success? Is it

money? Some of you have all the money you need to provide for your

wants. Who is the poorest man in the world? I tell you, the poorest man

I know of is the man who has nothing but money—nothing else in the world

upon which to devote his ambition and thought. That is the sort of man I

consider to be the poorest in the world. Money is good if you know how

to use it.

Now, let me leave this little word of counsel for you. Keep a little

ledger, as I did. Write down in it what you receive, and do not be

ashamed to write down what you pay away. See that you pay it away in

such a manner that your father or mother may look over your book and see

just what you did with your money. It will help you to save money, and

that you ought to do. When I spoke of a poor man with money I spoke

against the poverty of that man who has no affection for anything else,

or thought for anything else but money. That kind of a man does not help

his own character, nor does he build up the character of another.

Before I leave you I will read a few items from my ledger. I find in

looking over it that I was saving money all this time, and in the course

of a few years I had saved $1,000. Now, as to some of my expenses. I see

that from November twenty-fourth, 1855, to April, 1856, I paid for

clothing $9.09. I see also, here, another item which I am inclined to

think is extravagant, because I remember I used to wear mittens. The

item is a pair of fur-gloves, for which I paid $2.50. In the same

period, I find I gave away $5.58. In one month I gave to

foreign-missions ten cents; to the mite-society thirty cents, and there

is also a contribution to the Five-Points Mission. I was not living then

in New York, but I suppose I felt that it was in need of help, so I sent

up twelve cents to the mission. Then to the venerable teacher of my

class I gave thirty-five cents to make him a present. To the poor people

of the church I gave ten cents at this time. In January and February

following I gave ten cents more and a further ten cents to the

foreign-missions. Those contributions, small as they were, brought me

into direct contact with philanthropic work, and with the beneficial

work and aims of religious institutions, and I have been helped thereby

greatly all my life. It is a mistake for a man who wishes for happiness

and to help others to wait until he has a fortune before giving to

deserving objects. [Great applause.]

And this exemplary citizen, who in his youth and poverty formed the

habit of systematic benevolence, who befriends the poor, who dispenses

charity with a bountiful hand, who helps young men better their

condition, who gives millions for education and religion, who believes

in the justice of God and the rights of man, who has woven the raveled

skeins of a weakened industry into the world’s grandest

business-enterprise, assassins of character picture as a cold-blooded

oppressor, a base conspirator, a “devourer of widows’ houses,” an

abettor of larceny and instigator of arson! “Oh, Shame! where is thy

blush?”

Although the Standard pays the highest wages in the world and has never

had a serious strike in its grand army of forty-thousand men, not one

cent of a reduction was ordered during the panic. No works stopped and

no employés were turned adrift to beg or starve. On the contrary,

improvements and additions were made continually, the force of workmen

was augmented, cash was paid for everything bought, no claims remained

unsettled and nobody had to wait an hour for money justly due. These are

points for the toiling masses, whom prejudice against big corporations

sometimes misleads, to understand and consider before accepting the

creed that wealth and dishonor are synonymous, that each is the creature

of the other and both are twin-links of the same sausage.

A WELL-SHOOTER.

The Oil-City _Blizzard_, itself as lively as a glycerine-explosion, in a

spasm of dynamite-enthusiasm loaded up and fired off this eccentricity:

Pat Magnew was a shooter bold,

Who handled glycerine;

And though he had no printing-shop

He ran a magazine.

And while he had a level head,

And business plenty found,

’Most ev’ry job he undertook

He ran into the ground.

He never claimed expert to be,

But what he did was right,

And when he shot a well, you see,

He did it “out of sight.”

He seemed to like his daily toil,

Its dangers did not fear;

He’d help his patrons to find oil,

And then he’d disappear.

Sometimes he shot wells with a squib,

When at the proper level;

Sometimes when he had been to church,

He shot with a go-devil.

He always had a great tin-shell

Beside him on the seat,

Had horses good and drove like—well,

No moss grew on their feet.

And when he drove along the road,

And that was every day,

Wise people all, who knew his load,

Gave him the right of way.

His wife once said: “I greatly fear

That you will yet be blown

To atoms, if you don’t, my dear,

Let well enough alone.”

“Some day there’ll be a thunder-sound;

And scattered far and near,

O’er hill and dale and all around,

Will be my husband dear.”

Replied Magnew: “I call to mind—

His words are nowise sickly—

That Billy Shakespeare once remarked:

‘’Twere well it were done quickly.’

“And I’ll be blown,” continued Pat,

“If I didn’t want it known,

That I’d rather be by dynamite

Than by a woman blown.”

THE OLD YEAR DONE IN OIL.

Old Year! transported by fast freight,

With neither drawback nor rebate,

How odd it seems to quote thee “late!”

Old Year! since thou wert struck, alas!

What surface shows have men let pass—

They promised oil and yielded gas!

Old Year! test-wells of crude that smelt,

But had no sand like snows would melt.

Few always drill straight on the belt!

Old Year! thy option has expired,

Certificates have been retired

And royalty in full required.

Old Year! thy territory’s played,

Pipage and storage-charges paid,

Tanks emptied and delivery made.

Old Year! a twelvemonth pump’d thee dry,

Now tools and cable are laid by,

Engine and derrick idle lie.

Old Year! developments are o’er,

The paraffine has clogg’d each pore

And thou shalt operate no more.

Old Year! lease out and rig in dust,

Time on thy boiler, left to rust,

Writes the producer’s motto: “Bu’st!”

And when it comes our turn to be

Immediate shipment o’er life’s sea,

Old Year! we’ll put a call for thee!

THE CANINE’S DOOM.

When the Oil-City _Derrick_ had its circus with the Allegheny-Valley

Railroad it fell to my lot to write up most of the incidents of the

conflict. Occasionally a bit of doggerel like this hit the popular

fancy:

Moses had a great big dog,

His hair was black as jet,

And everywhere that Moses went

That pup was sure to get.

One day, upon the Valley Road

When Moses went to ride,

The faithful canine follow’d close

And sat down by his side.

But when the train to Scrubgrass got

The daily wreck occurr’d,

The cars cavorted down the bank

Without one warning word.

Sad was that hapless puppy’s fate—

So mangled, burn’d and drown’d,

Not a bologna could be made

From all the fragments found!

[Illustration:

HOW THE PRICE OF OIL AFFECTS THE PRODUCER.

WHEN OIL IS 70 CENTS.

WHEN OIL IS $3.

WHEN OIL IS $5.

]

XIX.

JUST ODDS AND ENDS.

HOW NATURAL-GAS PLAYED ITS PART—FIRE AND WATER MUCH IN EVIDENCE—CHANGES

IN METHODS AND APPLIANCES—DESERTED TOWNS—PECULIAR COINCIDENCES AND

FATALITIES—RAILROAD EPISODES—REMINISCENCES OF BYGONE

SCENES—PRACTICAL JOKERS—SAD TRAGEDIES—LIGHTS AND SHADOWS INTERMINGLE

AND THE CURTAIN FALLS FOREVER.

----------

“Variety’s the very spice of life.”—_Cowper._

“Fuss and feather, wind and weather, varied items strung together.”—_Oil

City Derrick._

“Laugh when we must, be candid when we can.”—_Pope._

“‘A picker-up of unconsidered trifles’

From many sources facts and fancies rifles.”—_Anonymous._

“Every house should have a rag-bag and a general storeroom.”—_Miss

Parloa._

“A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest

men.”—_Holmes._

“Let days pass on, nor count how many swell

The episode of life’s hack chronicle.”—_Lytton._

“Fond memory brings the light of other days around me.”—_Anonymous._

“Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close.”—_Shakespeare._

“Fare thee well! and if forever, still forever fare thee well.”—_Byron._

Hard coal and dry wood as good fuel may pass,

But can’t hold a candle to natural gas.—_Original._

“Half light, half shadow, let my spirit sleep.”—_Tennyson._

“Side by side may we stand at the same little door when all’s

done.”—_Owen Meredith._

----------

Natural-gas, the cleanest, slickest, handiest fuel that ever warmed a

heart or a tenement, is the right bower of crude-petroleum. It is the

one and only fuel that mines, transports and feeds itself, without

digging every spoonful, screening lumps, carting, freighting and

shoveling into the stove or furnace. Getting it does not imperil the

limbs and lives of poor miners—the most overworked and underpaid class

in Pennsylvania—in the damp and darkness of death-traps hundreds of feet

beneath the surface of the ground. You drill a hole to the vital spot,

lay a pipe from the well to the home or factory, turn a stop-cock to let

out the vapor, touch off a match and there it is—the brightest,

cleanest, steadiest, hottest fire on earth. Not a speck of dust, not an

atom of smoke, not a particle of cinder, not a taint of sulphur, not a

bit of ashes vexes your soul or tries your temper. There is no carrying

of coal, no dumping of choked grates, no waiting for kindling to catch

or green wood to burn, no scolding about sulky fires, no postponement of

heat because the wind blows in the wrong direction. Blue Monday is

robbed of all its terrors, the labor of housekeeping is lightened and

husbands no longer object to starting the fire on cold mornings. A nice

blaze may be let burn all night in winter and kept on tap in summer only

when needed. It is lighted or extinguished as readily as the gas-jet in

the parlor. It melts iron, fuses glass, illumines mills and streets,

broils steaks to perfection and does away with many a fruitful source of

family-broils. It saves wear and tear of muscle and disposition, lessens

the production of domestic quarrels, adds to the pleasure and

satisfaction of living and carries the spring-time of existence into the

autumn of old age. Set in a dainty metal frame, with background of

asbestos and mantel above, its glow is cheerful as the hickory-fire in

the hearth. It gives us the ingle-nook modernized and improved, the

chimney-corner brought down to date. It glides through eighty-thousand

miles of pipes in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana and New

York and employs a hundred-million dollars to supply it to people within

reach of the bounteous reservoirs the kindly earth has treasured all

through the centuries. If it be not a blessing to humanity, the fault

lies with the folks and not with the stuff. The man who spouts gas is a

nuisance, but the well that spouts gas is something to prize, to utilize

and be thankful for. Visitors to the oil-region or towns near enough to

enjoy the luxury, beholding the beauty and adaptability of natural-gas,

may be pardoned for breaking the tenth commandment and coveting the fuel

that is Nature’s legal-tender for the comfort and convenience of

mankind.

The pretty town of Fredonia, in New York state, three miles from Lake

Erie and forty-five south-west of Buffalo, enjoys the distinction of

first using natural-gas for illuminating purposes. It is a beautiful

place, famous for fine roads, fine scenery and fine vineyards. Canodonay

Creek, a small but rapid stream, passes through it to the lake. Opinions

vary as to the exact date when the gas was utilized, some authorities

making it 1821, others 1824 and a few 1829. The best information fixes

it at 1824, when workmen, in tearing down an old mill, observed bubbles

on the water that proved to be inflammable. The hint was not lost. A

company bored a hole _one-inch-and-a-half_ in diameter into the

limestone-rock. The gas left its regular channel, climbed the hole,

lighted a new mill and was piped to a hundred houses in the village at a

cost of one-fifty a year for each. The flame was large and strong and

for years Fredonia was the only town in America lighted by “nature-gas.”

A gasometer was constructed, which collected _eighty-eight_ cubic feet

in twelve hours. The inhabitants didn’t keep late hours. A mile nearer

Lake Erie many gas-bubbles gamboled on the stream. Efforts to convey the

gas to the light-house at Dunkirk failed, as it was only half the weight

of air and would not descend the difference in elevation.

A light-house at Erie was lighted by natural-gas in 1831, “the Burning

Spring,” a sheet of water through which the vapor bubbled, furnishing

the supply. A tower erected over the spring held the gas that

accumulated during the day and wooden-pipes conveyed it at night to the

light-house.

Dr. Charles Oesterlin, a young German physician, sixty years ago

unpacked his pill-boxes and hung out his little sign at Findlay, in

Northwestern Ohio. He was an expert geologist and mineralogist, but the

flat Black Swamp afforded poor opportunities to study the rocks

underlying the limestone. The young physician detected the odor of

sulphuretted hydrogen in the town and along the banks of the Blanchard

River. It puzzled him to guess the source of the odor. He spoke to the

farmers, who smelled the stuff, knew nothing and cared less about its

origin or properties. The Doctor searched for a sulphur-spring. In

October of 1836 the solution came. A farmer was digging a well three

miles from town. A spring was tapped and the water “boiled,” as the

diggers expressed it. Debating what to do, they were called to supper,

returned after dark and lighted a torch to examine the well. Holding the

torch over the well an explosion startled them and a flame ascended that

lasted for days. Nobody was seriously hurt, but all thought the devil

had a finger in the pie. Dr. Oesterlin connected the incident with the

odor and it confirmed his theory of a gas that would burn and might

serve as fuel. At a stone-quarry he made a cone of mud over a fissure,

covered it with a bucket and applied a light. When the Doctor picked

himself up in an adjoining corn-field the bucket was still sailing north

towards Toledo. Daniel Foster, another Findlay farmer, dug a well in

1838. Gas issued from the hole before water was seen. Foster had a

practical mind. He inverted a copper-kettle over the hole, rigged a

wooden pump-stock beneath the kettle, plastered around it with clay,

joined more pump-stocks together, stuck an old gun-barrel in the end of

the last one, lighted the gas in his kitchen and by means of the flame

boiled water, roasted coffee and illumined the apartment. Then Dr.

Oesterlin declared Findlay was right over a vast caldron of gas. People

laughed at him, adhered to tallow-dips and positively refused to swallow

such a dose. Petroleum-developments in Pennsylvania fortified his faith

and he sought to interest the public in a company to “bore a hole twenty

inches across.” Sinners in Noah’s day were less impervious. Business-men

scoffed and declined to subscribe for stock. He tried again in 1864 and

1867 with the same result. A company was organized to manufacture

coal-gas. He talked of the absurdity of _making_ gas at Findlay as equal

to setting up a manufactory of air or water. It was no use. At last the

triumph of natural-gas in Pennsylvania was manifested too strongly for

the obtuse Findlayites to ignore it. In 1884 the Doctor managed to

enlist four-thousand dollars of capital and start a well in a grove a

mile east of town, where the odor was pungent and gas flowing through a

tile-pipe he planted in the ground burned for weeks. He watched the

progress of the work with feverish anxiety. The hopes of fifty long

years were to be grandly realized or dashed forever. Sleepless nights

succeeded restless days as the veteran’s heart-beats kept time with the

rhythmic churning of the drill. At five, six and seven-hundred feet

morsels of gas quickened the expectations of success. At eleven-hundred

feet, in the Trenton limestone, on November tenth, 1884, gas burst forth

with terrific force. The well was drilled sixteen-hundred feet and

encountered salt-water. It was plugged below the gas-vein, the gas was

lighted, an immense flame shot up and for months a quarter-million feet

a day burned in the open air. Findlay grew from five-thousand to

fifteen-thousand population and manufacturing flourished. Dr. Oesterlin,

slight of frame, infirm with age, his thin locks and beard white as

snow, had waited fifty years for his vindication. It came when he had

reached four-score, full, complete and overwhelming. He bore his honors

meekly, lived to round out eighty-two and nowhere is it recorded that he

even once yielded to the temptation of remarking: “I told you so!”

[Illustration: DR. CHAS. OESTERLIN SAMUEL SPEECHLY]

Gas was used as fuel at pumping-wells on Oil Creek in 1862. It was first

collected in “gas-barrels,” one pipe leading from the well to the

receptacle and another from the barrel to the boiler. Many fires

originated from the flame, when the pressure of gas was small, running

back to the barrel and exploding it. A pumper at Rouseville, seated on a

gas-barrel at such a moment, went skyward and may be ascending yet, as

he never returned for his week’s wages. D. G. Stillwell, better known as

“Buffalo Joe,” drilled a gasser in 1867 at Oil City, on the site of the

Greenfield Lumber-Company’s office. He piped the gas to several houses,

but the danger from constant changes of pressure led to its abandonment.

This is the first authentic record of the use of “the essence of Sheol”

for cooking food and heating dwellings. In 1883 the Oil-City Fuel-Supply

Company laid a six-inch gas-line to wells at McPherson’s Corners,

Pinegrove township, eight miles distant. The gas was produced from the

second and third sands, at a depth of nine to ten-hundred feet and a

pressure not exceeding two-hundred pounds to the square inch. In 1885

the late Samuel Speechly started a well on his farm near McPherson’s,

intending to drill three-thousand feet in search of the Bradford sand.

Oil-bearing strata dip twenty feet to the mile southward and Speechly

believed the northern rocks existed far beneath the ordinary third-sand

in Venango county. On April thirteenth, at nineteen-hundred feet, the

drill penetrated what has since been called the “Speechly sand,” the

most extraordinary and valuable fuel-sand as yet discovered. In this

sand at three feet pressure of gas became entirely too great to keep

jerking the tools. The gas company leased the well and turned it into

the line without being able to gauge it on account of the high volume.

Speechly commenced a second well and the company, having previously laid

a new ten-inch line to Oil City, constructed branches to Franklin and

Titusville. The second well proved to be the largest to the present

time, excepting the Big Moses in West Virginia. For a time it could not

be controlled. The roar of the escaping gas could be heard for miles.

Eventually it was tubed and the pressure was six-hundred pounds. Many

wells in other fields have had greater pressure, but the large volume of

the Speechly well made it a wonder. One day all the other wells

connected with the main-line were discontinued from the line temporarily

and the Jumbo turned in. The flow was sufficient to supply Oil City,

Titusville and Franklin with all the gas required. Hundreds of wells

have been drilled to the Speechly sand and the field now reaches from

the southern part of Rockland township, Venango county, to Tionesta

township, Forest county. It is about thirty miles long, with an average

width of three miles, while the sand ranges in thickness from fifty to

one-hundred feet. The pressure gradually diminishes. It requires

constant drilling to keep up the supply, the Oil-City Company alone

having about four-hundred wells.

Samuel Speechly died on Sunday night, January ninth, 1893, aged

sixty-one, at his home in the gas-district bearing his name. His life

was notably eventful, adventurous and fortunate. Born in England in

1832, at fourteen he began to learn locomotive-building and

marine-engineering at Newcastle-on-Tyne. At twenty Robert Stephenson &

Co. sent him to China to join a steamer engaged in the opium-trade. In

1855 he entered the service of the Chinese government to suppress piracy

on the coast, and in 1857 started at Hong Kong the first

engineering-business in the vast empire ruled by the pig-tailed Brother

of the Sun. He visited America in 1872 and lived in Philadelphia.

Wanting plenty of room, he went to Northwestern Pennsylvania, resided a

year in Cranberry township, concluded to stay and settled on what

subsequently became the famous Speechly farm. The well he drilled in

1885 had neither oil nor gas in the usual formations. Veteran operators

advised him to abandon it, but Speechly entertained a notion of his own

and the world knows the sequel. He was married in China in 1864 to Miss

Margaret Galbraith, who survives him, with two daughters, Emily, born in

China, and Adelaide, born in America. His widow and children occupy the

old home on the farm.

Bishop Potter, stopping at Narrowsburg in 1854, noticed jets of gas

exuding from the bank of the Delaware river at Dingman’s Ferry, forty

miles above Easton, and published an article on the subject. A company

in 1860 bored three wells, but the result was not encouraging, as

politicians are the most gaseous bodies Northampton county has produced

for thirty years. A gas-well at Erie attracted considerable attention in

1860 and was followed by a number more, which from a shallow depth

yielded fuel to run several factories. East Liverpool, Ohio, put the

product to practical use early in the seventies as a substitute for

coal. The first well, drilled in 1860, caught fire and destroyed the

rig. Geologists say natural-gas is the disembodied spirits of plants

that grew in the sunshine of ages long before the foundations of the

buried coal-measures were laid, so long ago shut up and forsaken by the

light-hearted sun that it is a wonder they hadn’t forgotten their former

affinity. But they hadn’t. They rushed out to the devouring kiss of

their old flame at the first tap of the drill on their prison-house,

like a foolish girl at the return of a fickle lover. They found Old Sol

flirting with their younger sister, playing sweet to a lot of new

vegetation. Before they had time to form a sewing-circle and resolve

that all the male sex are horrid, they took fire with indignation at his

fickleness and the tool-dresser’s forge and burst with a tremendous

explosion. The fire was quenched and gas poured out of the pioneer-well

fifteen years. Street-lamps were left burning all day, which was cheaper

than to bother putting them out, and East Liverpool prospered as a hive

of the pottery-industry. The celebrated well at East Sandy, Venango

county, which gave birth to Gas City in 1869, burned a year with a roar

audible three miles. Becoming partially exhausted, the fire was put out

and the product was used for fuel at numerous wells. The famous Newton

well, on the A. H. Nelson farm, was struck in May of 1872 and piped in

August to Titusville, five miles south west. Its half-million cubic-feet

per day supplied three-hundred firms and families with light and fuel.

Henry Hinckley and A. R. Williams organized the company, one of the very

first in Pennsylvania to utilize natural-gas on an extensive scale. The

same year gas from the Lambing well was piped to Fairview and Petrolia.

The Waugh well at Millerstown and the Berlin at Thompson’s Corners,

Butler county, were the next big gassers. The great Delamater No. 2,

near St. Joe, finished in 1874, for months was the biggest gas-well in

the world. Its output was conveyed to the rolling-mills at Sharpsburg.

The first gas-well in Butler county is credited to John Criswell, of

Newcastle, who drilled for salt-water in 1840 near Centreville, struck a

vein of the vapor at seven-hundred feet and fired it to heat his

evaporating-pans.

At Leechburg and Apollo natural-gas has been used in puddling-furnaces

since 1872. It will supply the huge mills at Vandergrift, the model town

that is to be the county-seat of Vandergrift county, which the next

Legislature will set off from Armstrong, Westmoreland and contiguous

districts. It was the fuel of the cutlery-works at Beaver Falls from

1876 until the wells ceased producing in 1884. In 1875 Spang & Chalfant

piped it from Butler to their mills in the suburbs of Pittsburg. Though

Pittsburgers knew of its value in the oil-region for twenty years, they

regarded it as a freak and not calculated to affect their interests

favorably. Iron manufactured by its means was of superior quality, owing

to the absence of sulphur and the intensity of the heat. In 1877 the

Haymaker well opened the Murraysville gas-field, but that immense

storehouse of potential energy lay dormant until Pew & Emerson piped the

product to Pittsburg. In June of 1884 George Westinghouse, inventor of

the air-brake and of various electric-appliances, struck a gas-well near

his residence in Pittsburg. From that date the development was enormous.

Wells producing from two to twenty-million cubic-feet a day were in

order. The Philadelphia Company—Westinghouse was its president—alone

tied up forty-thousand acres of gas-territory, drilled hundreds of wells

and laid thousands of miles of pipes. Hon. James M. Guffey headed big

corporations that supplied Wheeling, a portion of Pittsburg and dozens

of smaller towns. The coal displacement in Pittsburg equaled

thirty-thousand tons daily. Twenty and twenty-four-inch mains

intersected the city. Iron, brass, steel and metal-working

establishments consumed it. Glass-factories turned out by its aid

plate-glass such as mankind had never seen before. The flaming breath of

the new demon transformed the appearance and revolutionized the

iron-manufacture of the Birmingham of America. The Smoky City was a

misnomer. Soot and dirt and smoke and cinders disappeared. People washed

their faces, men wore “biled shirts” and girls dressed in white. The

touch of a fairy-wand could not have made a more resplendent change.

Think of green grass, emerald hues, clear sunlight and clean walls in

Pittsburg! At first timid folks feared to introduce it, because the

pressure could not be regulated. All this has been remedied. The

roaring, hissing monster that almost bursts the gauge at the well is

tamed and subjugated to the meekness of a dove by valves and gasometers,

which can reduce the pressure to a single ounce. Queer, isn’t it, that

Pittsburg should be metamorphosed by natural-gas—the fires of hell as it

were—into a city of delightful homes, an industrial paradise?

Gas-wells of high pressure were found in Ohio by thousands, as though

striving to vie with the oil-wells which, beginning at Mecca in 1860 and

ending at Lima, stocked up twenty-million barrels of crude. Over

three-hundred companies were chartered in a year to supply every town

from Cincinnati to Ashtabula. Natural-gas raged and blistered and for a

term was the genuine “Ohio idea.” For thirty years wells at New

Cumberland, West Virginia, have furnished fuel to burn brick. The same

state has the biggest gassers in existence and lines to important cities

are projected. If “the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go

to the mountain.” Indiana has gas and oil in four counties, with Gas

City as headquarters and lots of fuel for houses and factories in

Indianapolis and the chief cities. The Hoosiers have carried out the

principle of Edward Eggleston’s Mrs. Means: “When you’re a-gittin’ git

plenty, I say.” Illinois had a morsel of oil and gas in wells at

Litchfield. Kentucky and Tennessee are blessed with “a genteel

competence” and Kansas has not escaped. Michigan has gas-wells at Port

Huron and St. Paul once boasted a company capitalized at a half-million.

Buffalo inhaled its first whiff of natural-gas, piped from wells in

McKean county, on December first, 1886. Youngstown was initiated next

day, from wells in Venango. A Mormon company bored wells at Salt Lake,

but polygamy was not supplanted by any odor more unsavory. In Canada gas

is abundant and Robert Ferguson, now a well-to-do farmer near Port

Sarnia, first turned it into an engine-cylinder as a joke on the

engineer at the pump-station in Enniskillen township. Steam was low, the

engineer was absent, Ferguson cut the pipe leading from the boiler,

connected it with one from a gas-well near-by, opened the throttle and,

to his astonishment, found the pressure greater than steam. Natural-gas,

a gift worthy of the immortal gods, worthy of the admiration of Vulcan,

worthy of the praise of poets and historians, the agent of progress and

saver of labor, is not a trifle to be brushed off like a fly or

dismissed with a contemptuous sneer.

Pittsburg iron-works and rolling-mills received natural-gas at about

two-thirds the cost of coal. The coal needed to produce a ton of metal

cost three dollars, the gas that did the same service cost one-ninety.

Besides this important saving, the expense of handling the fuel, hauling

away cinders and waiting for furnaces to heat or cool was avoided.

Gas-heat was uniform, stronger, more satisfactory, could be regulated to

any temperature, turned on at full head or shut off instantly. Thus

Pittsburg possessed advantages that boomed its manufactories immensely

and obliged many competitors less favored to retire. In this way the

anomaly of freezing out men by the use of greater, cheaper heat was

presented.

On March seventeenth, 1886, at Pittsburg, Milton Fisher, of Columbus,

was the first person to be incinerated in a natural-gas crematory. In

fifty minutes the body was reduced to a handful of white powder. The

friends of the deceased pronounced the operation a success, but Fisher

was not in shape to express his opinion.

A singular accident occurred near Hickory, Washington county, on the

night of December fourth, 1886. Alfred Crocker, an employé of the

Chartiers Gas-Company, had been at the tanks on the McKnight farm and

was going toward the well. The connecting-pipe between the well and tank

burst with terrible force, striking Crocker on the left leg, blowing the

foot and ankle completely off and injuring him about the body. The

explosion hurled the large gas-tank a hundred feet. The young man died

next morning.

The steam tow-boat Iron City once grounded near the head of Herr’s

Island, above Pittsburg. The stern swung around and caught on a pipe

conveying natural-gas across the Allegheny river. In trying to back the

vessel off the pipe broke, the escaping gas filled the hold and caught

fire from the furnace. An explosion split the boat from stem to stern,

blew off the deck and blew the crew into the river. The boat burned to

the water’s edge.

Near Halsey, in the Kane field, James Bowser was standing on a gas-tank,

while a workman was endeavoring to dislodge an obstruction in the pipe

leading from the well. The removal of the obstruction caused the pent-up

gas to rush into the tank with such force that the receptacle exploded,

hurling Bowser high in the air. He alighted directly in front of the

heavy volume of gas escaping through the broken pipe. Before he could be

rescued he was denuded of all clothing, except one boot. His clothing

was torn off by the force of the gas and his injuries were serious.

Workmen laying pipe to connect with the main at Grapeville were badly

flustered one frosty morning. By mistake the gas was turned on, rushing

from the open end with great force. It ploughed up the earth and pebbles

and ignited, the flinty stones producing a spark that set the whole

thing in a blaze. Gas-wells yield liberally at Grapeville, supplying the

glass-works at Jeannette and houses at Johnstown, the farthest point

east to which the vapor-fuel has been piped.

J. S. Booker, an Ohio man, claimed to spot gas. His particular virtue

lay in the muscles at the back of the neck, which rise up and irritate

him in the presence of natural-gas. This is ahead of rheumatism as a

rain-indicator. Booker’s own story is that an attack of asthma left him

in a sensitive state, so that when he passes over a vein of gas the

electricity runs through his legs, up his spine and knots the muscles of

the neck. The story deserves credit for its rare simplicity. With the

whole realm of fiction at his command, Booker chose only a few simple

details and was content to pass current as a sort of human witch-hazel.

At Economy, where a hundred stand-pipes for natural-gas illuminate the

streets, bugs and fruit-vermin were slaughtered wholesale. In the

mornings there would be a fine carpet of bugs around every post.

Chickens and turkeys would have a feast and a foot-race from the roosts

to see which would get to the already-cooked breakfast first. The trees

came out in bloom earlier and healthier than formerly, because the

vermin were destroyed and the frosts kept from settling by the

gas-lights, which burn constantly. As a promoter of vegetation

natural-gas beats General Pleasanton’s blue-glass out of sight.

Samuel Randall, the Democratic statesman, visited the gas-wells at

Murraysville with Hon. J. M. Guffey. From a safe distance the visitor

threw a Roman candle at a huge column of vapor, which blazed quicker

than a church-scandal, to Mr. Randall’s great delight. President and

Mrs. Cleveland were afforded a similar treat by Mr. Guffey. The

chivalrous host chartered a train and had a big well fired for the

distinguished visitors. The lady of the White House was in ecstacies and

the President evidently thought the novel exhibition knocked

duck-shooting silly. Could a mind-reader have X-rayed his

thinking-department it would likely have assumed this form: “Mr. Guffey,

_you_ have a tremendous body of gas here, but _I_ have Congress on my

hands!”

Eli Perkins lectured at St. Petersburg one night and next day rode with

me through part of the district. He wanted points regarding natural-gas

and smilingly jotted down a lot of Munchausenisms current in the

oil-region. A week later he sent me a marked copy of the New-York _Sun_,

with columns of delicious romance concerning gas-wells. Eli was no

slouch at drawing the long-bow, but he fairly surpassed himself, Jules

Verne and Rider Haggard on this occasion. His vivid stories of tools

hurled by gas a thousand feet, of derricks lifted up bodily, of men

tossed to the clouds and picturesque adventures generally were marvels

of smooth, easy, fascinating exaggeration. Perhaps “if you see it in the

_Sun_ it’s so,” but not when Eli Perkins is the chronicler and

natural-gas the subject.

“The Fredonia Gas-Light and Water-Works Company,” which obtained a

special charter in 1856, was undoubtedly the first natural-gas company

in the world. Its object was, “by boring down through the slate-rock and

sinking wells to a sufficient depth to penetrate the manufactories of

nature, and thus collect from her laboratories the natural-gas and

purify it, to furnish the citizens with good cheap light.” The tiny

stream of gas first utilized at the mill yielded its mite forty years.

When Lafayette remained a night at Fredonia in 1824, on his triumphal

visit to the United States, “the village-inn was lighted with gas that

came from the ground.” The illustrious Frenchman saw nothing in his

travels that interested and delighted him more than this novel

illumination.

Col. J. A. Barrett, for many years a citizen of Illinois and law-partner

of Abraham Lincoln, in 1886 removed to a tract of five-thousand acres on

Tug Fork, near the quiet hamlet of Warfield. Gas issued from the soil

and tradition says George Washington fired the subtle vapor at Burning

Spring while surveying in West Virginia before the Revolution. Captain

A. Allen, who pioneered the oil-business on Little Kanawha, leased the

tract from Col. Barrett and struck a vast reservoir of gas at

two-thousand feet.

John G. Saxe once lectured at Pithole and was so pleased with the people

and place that he donated twenty-five dollars to the charity-fund and

wrote columns of descriptive matter to a Boston newspaper. “If I were

not Alexander I would be Diogenes,” said the Macedonian conqueror.

Similarly Henry Ward Beecher remarked, when he visited Oil City to

lecture, “If I were not pastor of Plymouth church I would be pastor of

an Oil-City church.” The train conveying Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil,

through the oil-regions stopped at Foxburg to afford the imperial guest

an opportunity to see an oil-well torpedoed. He watched the filling of

the shell with manifest interest, dropped the weight after the torpedo

had been lowered and clapped his hands when a column of oil rose in the

air. An irreverent spectator whispered: “This beats playing pedro.”

Daniel Fisher, ex-mayor of Oil City and chief of the fire-department,

donned a new suit one day when oil-tanks abounded in the Third Ward.

Hearing a cry of distress, he mounted a tank and saw a man lying on the

bottom, in a foot of thick oil. He dropped through the hatchway, pulled

up the victim of gas and with great difficulty dragged him up the small

ladder into the fresh air. Of course, the new clothes were spoiled

beyond hope of redemption. The man revived, said his name was Green,

that he earned a living by cleaning out tank-bottoms and was thus

employed when overcome by gas. Next day Fisher met Green, who thanked

him again for saving his life, borrowed ten dollars and never repaid the

loan or offered to set up a new suit of clothes.

“Brudders an’ sistern,” ejaculated a colored preacher, “ef we knowed how

much de good Lawd knows about us it wud skeer us mos’ to deff.” A

Franklin preacher once seemed to forget that the Lord was posted

concerning earthly affairs, as he prayed thirty-six minutes at the

exercises on Memorial Day. The sun beat down upon the bare heads of the

assembled multitude, but the divine prayed right along from Plymouth

Rock to the close of the war. Col. J. S. Myers, the veteran lawyer,

presided. Great drops of perspiration rolled down his face, but he was

like the henpecked husband who couldn’t get away and had to grin and

bear it. He summed up the situation in a sentence: “I think ministers

ought to take it for granted that the Almighty knows enough American

history to get along nicely without having it prayed at Him by the

hour!”

[Illustration: SCENE AT OIL CITY AFTER THE DISASTER ON JUNE 5, 1892.]

Fire and water have scourged the oil-regions sorely. A flood in March of

1865 submerged Oil City, floated off hundreds of oil-tanks and small

buildings and did damage estimated at four-millions of dollars. Fire in

May of 1866 wiped out half the town, the loss footing up a million

dollars. The most appalling disaster occurred on Sunday, June fifth,

1892. Heavy rains raised Oil Creek to such a height that mill-dams at

Spartansburg and Riceville gave way, precipitating a vast mass of water

upon Titusville during Saturday night. With a roar like thunder it

struck the town. Sleepers were awakened by the resistless tide and

drowned. Refineries and tanks of oil caught fire and covered acres of

the watery waste with flames. Helpless men, women and children tottered

and tumbled and disappeared, the death-roll exceeding fifty. The two

elements seemed to strive which could work the greater destruction.

Above Oil City a huge tank of benzine was undermined and upset on Friday

morning. The combustible stuff floated on the creek, which had risen

four feet over the floors of houses on the flats. The boiler-fire at a

well near the Lake-Shore tunnel ignited the cloud of benzine. An

explosion followed such as mortal eyes and ears have seldom seen and

heard. The report shook the city to its foundations. A solid sheet of

flame rose hundreds of feet and enveloped the flats in its fatal

embrace. Houses charred and blazed at its deadly touch and fifty persons

perished horribly. The sickening scene reminded me of the Johnstown

carnage in 1889, with its miles of flooded ruins and dreadful blaze at

the railroad-bridge. Whole families were blotted out. Edwin Mills, his

wife and their five children died together. Heroic rescues and marvelous

escapes were frequent. John Halladay Gordon saved forty people in his

boat, rowing it amid the angry flames and swirling waters at imminent

risk. The recital of brave deeds and thrilling experiences would fill a

volume. That memorable Sunday was the saddest day Oil City and

Titusville ever witnessed. The awful grandeur of the spectacle at both

places has had no parallel.

Sweeping into the yards of a refinery at the upper end of Titusville,

the water tore open a tank containing five-thousand gallons of gasoline.

Farther down an oil-tank and a gasoline-tank were rent in twain. Water

covered the streets and shut people in their houses. The gas-works and

the electric-plant were submerged and the city was in darkness. At

midnight a curious mist lay thick and dense and white for a few feet

above the water. It was the gasoline vapor, a cartridge a half-mile

long, a quarter-mile wide and two yards thick, with a coating of oil

beneath, waiting to be fired. One arm of the mist reached into the open

furnaces of the Crescent Works and touched the live coals on the grate.

There was a flash as if the heavens had been split asunder. Then the

explosion came and death and havoc reigned. And the horror was repeated

at Oil City, until people wondered if the Day of Judgment could be more

terrifying. The infinite pity and sadness of it all!

The burning of the Acme Refinery at Titusville, on June eleventh, 1886,

entailed a loss of six-hundred-thousand dollars. It caught from a tank

lightning had struck. By great efforts the railroad-bridge and the

Octave Refinery were saved. The fire raged three days and nights, and

the departments from Warren, Corry and Oil City were called to render

assistance. Hardly a town in the oil-regions has been unharmed by fire

or flood, while many have been ravaged by both.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE ACME REFINERY, TITUSVILLE, AFTER THE FIRE ON

JUNE 1, 1880.]

The fire that desolated St. Petersburg started in Fred Hepp’s

beer-saloon. Hepp had a sign representing a man attempting to lift a

schooner of lager as big as himself and remarking, “Oxcuse me ov you

bleese.” The fire “oxcused” him from further exertion. Two destructive

conflagrations almost eliminated Parker from the face of the earth.

Karns City experienced three fiery visitations. In 1874 sixty-four

buildings in the heart of town went up in smoke. Sixteen followed in

September, 1876, the post-office and two largest stores figuring in the

list. On March fifth, 1877, Mrs. F. E. Bateman, three children and a

guest perished in the Bateman House. Bateman, one son and one guest were

caught in the flames and burned fatally, dying in a few hours. Burning

coals adhering to a chunk of a bursting boiler, on Cherry Run, near the

Reed well, plunged into a tank of oil and started a frightful blaze.

Acres of the valley, covered with derricks and tanks, flamed with the

fury of a veritable hell. Men fled to the hills and no life was lost. A

train of blazing tank-cars on the Allegheny-Valley Railroad, below

Foster station, interrupted travel for many hours. The passenger-train

from Pittsburg stopped and the passengers walked up the track to see the

huge blaze. Thomas Bennett, the engineer, went a short distance ahead,

when an iron-tank exploded with fearful violence, one piece striking

Bennett in the breast and killing him instantly. David Ker was conductor

of the train poor Bennett did not live to guide to its destination.

[Illustration: THOMAS MARTINDALE.]

Thomas Martindale, who leads the retail-grocery trade, brought with him

to Philadelphia twenty years ago the vim and energy that gained him fame

and fortune in the oil-region. He clerked for years in a Boston

dry-goods store, quit Massachusetts for Pennsylvania and landed at Oil

City in 1869. He took the first job that offered—grubbing out a road to

his wells for John S. Rich—used eyes and brain and soon knew how to “run

engine.” Buying an interest in a grocery, his “Checkered Store” became

noted for excellent wares and low prices. The “Blue Store,” larger and

better, followed and was in turn succeeded by the “Mammoth.” Martindale

sold to Steffee & Co., moved to Philadelphia and opened the first

California store. It was a revelation to the citizens to get fruits and

wines straight from the Pacific coast and they patronized him liberally.

Partners were taken in, whom the head of the firm imbued with something

of his own energy and magnetism. Active in politics and trade,

wide-awake and public-spirited, many Philadelphians contend that the

next mayor of the Quaker City shall spell his name Thomas Martindale. He

is a trenchant writer and has published “Sport Royal,” an admirable work

descriptive of hunting adventures in which he participated. The live

merchant who caught the inspiration of five-dollar oil is sixteen ounces

to the pound every time and every place.

“Never quarrel with a preacher or an editor,” said Henry Clay, “for the

one can slap you from the pulpit and the other hit you in his paper

without your getting a chance to strike back.” Col. William Phillips,

president of the Allegheny-Valley Railroad, violated the Kentucky

statesman’s wise maxim by making war on the Oil-City _Derrick_. He was

building the Low-Grade division, from Red Bank to Emporium, and the

main-line suffered. The track was neglected, decayed ties and broken

rails were common and accidents occurred too frequently for comfort. The

winter and spring of 1873 were fruitful of disaster. At Rockland an

oil-train ran over the steep bank into the river, upsetting the

passenger-coach at the rear. The oil caught fire, several passengers

were burned to death and others were terribly injured. The railroad

officials, acting under orders from headquarters, refused to give

information to the crowd of frantic people who besieged the office at

Oil City to learn the fate of friends on the train. To the last moment

they denied that anything serious had happened, although passengers able

to walk to Rockland Station telegraphed brief particulars. At last a

train bearing some of the injured reached Oil City. Next morning the

_Derrick_ gave full details and criticised the management of the road

severely for the bad condition of the track and the stupid attempt to

withhold information. The heading of the article—“Hell Afloat”—enraged

Col. Phillips. He and Superintendent J. J. Lawrence prepared a circular

to the conductors, instructing them “to take up pass of C. E. Bishop or

J. J. McLaurin whenever presented, collect full fare, prohibit newsboys

from selling the Oil-City _Derrick_ on the trains, not allow the paper

to be carried except in the mails or as express-matter, and to report to

the General Superintendent.” Conductor Wench, a pleasant, genial fellow,

on my next trip from Parker looked perplexed as he greeted me. He

hesitated, walked past, returned in a few moments and asked to see my

pass. The document was produced, he drew a letter from his pocket and

showed it to me. It was the order signed by Phillips and Lawrence.

“That’s clear enough, here’s your fare,” was my rejoinder. It was agreed

at the office to say nothing for a day or two. Doubtless Phillips and

Lawrence thought the paper had been scared and would send a flag of

truce. A big wreck afforded the opportunity to open hostilities. For

months the war raged. The paper had a regular heading—“Another Accident

on the Valley of the Shadow Road”—which was printed every morning.

Accidents multiplied and travel sought other lines. Phillips threatened

to remove the shops from South Oil City, his partners wished Bishop to

let up, he refused and they bought his interest. Peace was proclaimed,

the road was put into decent order and the Pennsylvania Railroad

eventually secured it. The fight had no end of comical features. It

worried Col. Phillips exceedingly and spread the reputation of the

_Derrick_ over the continent. The cruel war is over and Col. Phillips

and Col. Lawrence journeyed to the tomb long years ago.

“Jim” Collins—he ought to be manager—is about the only one of the early

conductors on the Allegheny-Valley Railroad still in the traces. His

record of twenty-seven years shows capable, faithful attention to duty

and care for the comfort and safety of passengers that has gained him

the highest popularity. Superintendent “Tom” King, now vice-president of

the Baltimore & Ohio, is among the foremost railroad-officials of the

United States. His brother was crushed to death by the cars. Wench, the

Taylors, Reynolds and Bonar have been off the road many years. Long

trains of crude are also missing, some towns along the route have

disappeared and the crowds of operators who formerly thronged the line

between Parker and Oil City have vanished from the scene. David Kerr,

whom Collins succeeded, went to Arkansas. John McGinnes, one of the

bravest engineers who ever pulled a throttle, headed the

railroad-strikers in 1877 and died six years ago. “Jim” Bonnar is in

Chicago, Grant Thomas is train-dispatcher and “Dick” Reynolds

superintends a Baltimore road. The Allegheny-Valley, extended to

Oil-City in the winter of 1867-8, is different from what it was when the

superintendent walked over the entire track every day and the president

applied formally to the directors for authority to purchase a new lock

for his desk.

The first railroad to enter Oil City was the Atlantic & Great Western,

now of the Erie system, in 1866. Its first train crossed the mouth of

Oil Creek on a track laid upon the ice. “Billy” Stevens and John Babcock

were early conductors. Stevens went to Maine and Babcock died several

years ago at Meadville, soon after completing a term as mayor of the

city. The Farmers’ Railroad was finished in 1867, the Allegheny Valley

in 1868 and the Lake-Shore in 1870. A short railroad up Sage Run

conveyed coal from the Cranberry mines. On August fourth, 1882, the

engineer—Frank Wright—lost control of a train on the down grade, one of

the steepest in the state. He reversed the engine to the last notch and

jumped, sustaining injuries that caused his death in four days. For two

miles the track was torn up and coal-cars were smashed to splinters by

running into a train of freight-cars at McAlevy’s Mills. Six men were

killed outright and five died from their injuries next day.

The popular auditor of the New York Central, W. F. McCullough, was an

Oil-City boy. His brother, James McCullough, is traveling-auditor of the

New York, New Haven & Hartford; another brother, E. M. McCullough, is

traveling bill-agent for the U. S. Steamship-Railway Company. They are

sons of the late Dr. T. C. McCullough, who died at Oil City in 1896.

[Illustration: WILLIAM H. STEVENS.]

[Illustration: FRANK THOMSON.]

[Illustration: JOHN BABCOCK.]

Hon. Thomas Struthers, of Warren, who died in 1892 at the age of

eighty-nine, donated the town a public-library building that cost

ninety-thousand dollars. He aided in constructing the Pennsylvania

Railroad, built sections of the Philadelphia & Erie and Oil-Creek

Railroads and the first railroad in California. He was the first manager

of the Oil-Creek road. Frank Thomson, the capable president of the

Pennsylvania Railroad, was also superintendent of the Oil-Creek. C. J.

Hepburn, now residing in Harrisburg and permanently disabled as the

result of an accident, held the same position for years. He was a

thorough railroader, esteemed alike by the employés and the public for

his efficient performance of duty. The old-time Oil-Creek conductors

were lock-switch, steel-track and rock-ballast clear through. Gleason,

postmaster at Corry a term or two, runs the Mansion House at Titusville.

“Bill” Miller is on the Pacific coast. Mack Dobbins died at St. Louis

and “By” Taylor has made his last trip. Barber lives at Buffalo. “Mike”

Silk, who yanked oil-trains from Cherry Run, is a wealthy citizen of

Warren. Selden Stone and “Pap” Richards are still on deck, the last of a

coterie of as white railroad-men as ever punched pasteboard “in the

presence of the passenjare.”

“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;

In feelings, not in figures on a dial.”

[Illustration: A. G. POST]

[Illustration: J. J. YOUNGSON.]

[Illustration: A. B. YOUNGSON.]

Few railroaders are so widely and favorably known as A. B. Youngson. For

twenty-three years he was locomotive-engineer on the Atlantic road.

Every man, woman and child on the Franklin branch, between Meadville and

Oil City, knew and liked the clever, competent man who sat in the cab

and never neglected his duty. Seven years ago Mr. Youngson was appointed

Assistant Grand Chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, a

position his experience and geniality adapt him admirably to fill. His

brother, J. J. Youngson, has been connected with the Atlantic road—now

called the New York, Philadelphia & Ohio—for thirty years as

superintendent of the water-works department of the system. A. G. Post,

a veteran ever to be found at his post, is deservedly popular as a

conductor. Peter Bowen, the trusty roadmaster, who used to keep the

track in apple-pie order, years ago traveled the track “across the

divide.” From President Thomas down to the humblest laborer the “Nypano”

officials and employés are not excelled in efficiency, courtesy and

manliness.

[Illustration: ANDREW CARNEGIE.]

[Illustration: DAVID MCCARGO.]

Andrew Carnegie, the colossus of the iron-trade, was a stockholder of

the Columbia Oil-Company, which operated the Storey farm, on Oil

Creek. The money he obtained from this source enabled him to gain

control of the Braddock Steel-Works. Starting in life as a telegraph

messenger-boy, he soon learned to manipulate the key expertly and was

placed in charge of the railroad-office at Atlantic, Ohio. Thomas A.

Scott, then superintendent of the Pittsburg Division of the

Pennsylvania Railroad, engaged him as his clerk and operator. Scott

established his headquarters at Altoona and promoted young Carnegie to

the chief-clerkship. His shrewdness and fidelity won favor and

advancement. He was appointed superintendent of the Pittsburg

Division, and in 1864 selected David McCargo as his assistant.

McCargo, who had been operator in the Commercial Telegraph office,

superintended the Pennsylvania-Railroad telegraph-service. Robert

Pitcairn, first an operator at Hollidaysburg, was transferred to

Altoona, went thence to Fort Wayne with J. N. DuBarry, afterwards

vice-president of the “Pennsy,” and returned about 1870 to succeed

Carnegie on the Pittsburg Division. He is now one of the highest

officials of the Pennsylvania and lives in Pittsburg. Mr. McCargo

became General Superintendent of the Pacific & Atlantic Lines in 1868.

In 1875 he was appointed General Superintendent of the Allegheny

Valley Railroad. This responsible position he has held twenty-two

years, greatly to the advantage of the road and the satisfaction of

the public. Carnegie invested in oil and sleeping-car stock and

enjoyed Col. Scott’s confidence. The railroad-king died and his clever

clerk eventually controlled the steel plant ten miles east of

Pittsburg. Now Andrew Carnegie bosses the steel-industry, owns the

largest steel-plants in the world, manufactures massive armor-plate

for war-ships—blow-holes blew holes in its reputation “once upon a

time”—and has acquired forty or fifty-millions by the sweat of his

workmen’s brows. He has parks and castles in Scotland, spends much of

his time and cash abroad, coaches with princes and nobles and lets H.

C. Frick fricasee the toilers at Braddock and Homestead. The Homestead

riots, precipitated by a ruffianly horde of Pinkerton thugs, aroused a

storm of indignation which defeated Benjamin Harrison for the

presidency and elected Grover Cleveland on the issue of tariff-reform.

Mr. Carnegie writes soul-stirring magazine articles on the duties of

capital to labor and has established numerous public-libraries. He is

stoutly built and exceedingly healthy. His enormous fortune may yet

endow some magnificent charity.

“Oh! it is excellent to have a giant’s strength,

But it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.”

You may meet them at Oshkosh or Kalamazoo, in New York or Washington,

around Chicago or San Francisco, about New Orleans or Mexico, but not a

few men conspicuously successful in finance, manufactures, literature or

politics have been mixed up with oil some time in their career.

Commodore Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, James Fisk, Thomas A. Scott, John A.

Garrett and A. J. Cassatt profited largely from their oil-interests. Mr.

Cassatt, superintending the Warren & Franklin Railroad, acquired the

knowledge of oil-affairs he turned to account in shaping the

transportation-policy of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Besides the colossal

gains of the Standard Oil-Company, petroleum won for such men as Captain

J. J. Vandergrift, J. T. Jones, J. M. Guffey, John McKeown, John Galey,

J. J. Carter, Charles Miller, Frederic Prentice, S. P. McCalmont,

William Hasson, George V. Forman, Thomas W. Phillips, John Satterfield,

H. L. Taylor, John Pitcairn, Theodore Barnsdall, E. O. Emerson, Dr.

Roberts, George K. Anderson, Jonathan Watson, Hunter & Cummings,

Greenlee & Forst, the Grandins, the Mitchells, the Fishers, the

McKinneys, the Plumers, the Lambertons and a host of others from one to

ten-millions apiece. Certainly coal, cotton or iron, or all three

combined, can show no such list. Oil augmented the fortunes of Stephen

Weld, Oliver Ames and F. Gordon Dexter, the largest in New England. It

put big money into the pockets of Andrew Carnegie, William H. Kemble and

Dr. Hostetter. To it the great tube-works, employing thousands of men,

and multitudes of manufacturing-plants owe their existence and

prosperity. Some of the brightest newspaper-writers in New York,

Philadelphia and Chicago learned force and directness amid the exciting

scenes of Oildom. Several are authors of repute and contributors to

magazines. Grover Cleveland, while mayor of Buffalo, imbibed

business-wisdom and notions of sturdy independence from his acquaintance

with Bradford oil-operators. Governor Curtin was a large stockholder in

oil-companies on Cherry Run and Governor Beaver may claim kin with the

fraternity as the owner of oil-wells in Forest county. No member of

Congress for a generation made a better record than J. H. Osmer, Dr.

Egbert, J. C. Sibley, C. W. Stone and Thomas W. Phillips. Galusha A.

Grow was president of the Reno Oil-Company. Mr. Sibley was tendered the

second place on the Democratic ticket at Chicago and could have been

nominated for president, instead of William J. Bryan, but for the stupid

hostility of a Pennsylvania boss. More capable, influential members than

W. S. McMullan, Lewis Emery, J. W. Lee, W. R. Crawford, William H.

Andrews, Captain Hasson, Willis J. Hulings, Henry F. James and John L.

Mattox never sat in the State Senate or the Legislature. And so it goes

in every part of the country, in every profession, in every branch of

industry and in every business requiring vigor and enterprise.

Michael Geary, whose death last year was a severe blow to Oil City,

forcibly illustrated what energy and industry may accomplish. He was a

first-class boiler-maker and machinist, self-reliant, stout-hearted and

strong mentally and physically. In 1876 he started the Oil-City

Boiler-Works in a small building, Daniel O’Day and B. W. Vandergrift

furnishing the money and taking an interest in the business. O’Day and

Geary became sole owners in 1882. The plant was enlarged, the tube-mills

were added, acres of buildings dotted the flats and a thousand men were

employed. Engines, tanks, stills, tubing, casing and boilers of every

description were manufactured. The machinery comprised the latest and

fullest equipment. The business grew amazingly. Joseph Seep was admitted

to partnership and branch-offices were established in New York, Chicago,

Pittsburg and at various points in the oil-producing states. The firm

led the world as tank-builders, actually constructing one-third the

total iron-tankage in the United States. Mr. Geary bought and remodeled

the Arlington Hotel, fostered local enterprises and was a most

progressive citizen. He died in the vigor of manhood. The splendid

industries he reared and the high place he held in public esteem are his

enduring monument.

“He had kept

The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o’er him wept.”

Since Christmas day of 1873, when they struck their first well at

Millerstown, Showalter Brothers have been leading operators in the

Butler field. Hon. Joseph B. Showalter, who has managed the firm’s

affairs wisely, was born in Fayette County, taught school at sixteen,

relinquished teaching for medicine, and was graduated in 1884 from the

Baltimore College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1886 he was elected to

the legislature and to the state-senate two years later, making an

excellent record in both bodies. Butler county nominated him for

Congress, but Lawrence and Mercer combined in favor of J. J. Davidson.

Dr. Showalter is a substantial citizen, in close touch with the people

and worthy of the confidence reposed in him. Hon. M. L. Lockwood, for

seven years a resident of Butler, represented Clarion county twice in

the legislature and introduced the Free-Pipe Bill. Robert Lockwood, the

founder of the family in America, came from England with Winthrop in

1630. Mr. Lockwood began oil-operations on Cherry Run in 1865, opposed

the South-Improvement rascality zealously and was a member of the

Producers’ Committee that secured the passage by Congress of the

Interstate-Commerce Bill. He is largely interested in oil and manages a

hundred wells for Tait & Patterson.

[Illustration: JOSEPH B. SHOWALTER.]

In the days of oil-shipments by boat and teaming, before the advent of

pipe-lines, Watson, Densmore & Co. handled large quantities of crude in

barrels, hauling it from the wells to the nearest railroad-station.

Daniel T. Watson, senior member of the firm, was born in Maine in 1806,

learned harness-making, conducted a profitable store in New Hampshire

and came to Oil Creek with James Densmore early in the sixties. He

bought the oil and managed the shipping-business of the firm, which

employed scores of teams to haul crude from wells at Shamburg and boat

it from wells on the banks of Oil-Creek to the loading-tanks at Miller

Farm. When the railroad reached Boyd Farm the firm opened a branch

office at Pioneer and shipped east most of the oil produced on Bull,

Pioneer and Benninghoff Runs, in the “blue cars” Watson, Densmore & Co.

were the first to introduce. Clinton Rouderbush, afterwards well known

in the exchanges, represented the firm in New York. Pipe lines ending

primitive modes of transportation, Mr. Watson operated largely in the

Pleasantville field, in connection with Benson & McKelvy, Lewis Emery

and Samuel Q. Brown. He lived two years on the Morrison farm, removed to

Minnesota in 1873 and died at Lakeland on July first, 1894. Mr. Watson

was prominent in his day and did much to put oil-shipping on a solid

basis.

[Illustration:

DANIEL T. WATSON.

JOEL DENSMORE.

WILLIAM DENSMORE.

]

[Illustration: JAMES DENSMORE.]

[Illustration: EMMETT DENSMORE.]

The Densmores lived on Woodcock Creek, twenty miles from Titusville,

when the Drake well startled the quiet community. The father and his son

Amos visited the well and soon contrived a metal-shoe to fix to a

wooden-pipe to cheapen drilling. Emmett Densmore traversed the

oil-region to sell the shoes, often walking forty miles a day. Jonathan

Watson leased him land on the flats below Titusville, Amos had good

credit and the pair put down a dry-hole with a spring-pole. They leased

a piece of ground from James Tarr and drilled the Elephant well, so

named from the “monster tank”—twenty-five hundred barrels—Amos

constructed from pine-planks to hold the great flow of oil. The Elephant

yielded hundreds of barrels daily and the other brothers—James, William

and Joel—were invited to come into the partnership. Amos was given to

invention and he made bulk-boats, the first tanks for storing crude and

the first wooden-tanks—forty to fifty barrels each—for platform-cars.

With Daniel T. Watson they shipped extensively until pipe-lines retired

barrels, pond-freshets and bulk-boats permanently. The brothers sank

many wells and acquired wealth. Amos, James and Joel have passed over to

the better land. Amos and George W. N. Yost, once the largest

oil-shipper, perfected the famous Densmore Type-Writer. James bought out

the Remington Type-Writer. London is Emmett’s home and he has attained

prominence as a physician. His wife, Dr. Helen Densmore, assists in his

practice and has written a book in behalf of Mrs. Maybrick, whose

imprisonment has aroused so much sympathy. William Densmore owns a big

flour-mill and the Central Market at Erie. The Densmores possessed

energy, genius and manliness that merited the success which rewarded

their efforts in various lines of human activity.

[Illustration: ISAAC REINEMAN.]

[Illustration: JOHN B. SMITHMAN.]

[Illustration: T. PRESTON MILLER.]

These early shipping-times developed many men of exceptional ability and

character. T. Preston Miller was long a familiar figure on Oil Creek and

at Franklin, as buyer for the Burkes and later for Fisher Brothers.

“Pres” was generous, popular and most accommodating in his dealings. The

snows of a dozen winters have blown over his grave in the Franklin

cemetery. The late Isaac Reineman was another of Oil City’s trustworthy

pioneers. He bought oil, operated in the lower districts with William M.

Leckey, served three terms as prothonotary and died in January, 1893,

from the effects of slipping on the icy porch the night before

Christmas. He had charge of Captain Vandergrift’s oil properties in

Washington county and, with Charles Ford, held blocks of land in West

Virginia. Ford was found dead in bed last year. John B. Smithman, who

came to the Creek to buy oil for John Munhall & Co., has been enriched

by his operations in Venango county and the northern fields. He built a

beautiful home in Oil City and overcame stacks of obstacles to give the

town a street railway. He has provided a delightful park four miles down

the Allegheny, built a steel bridge across the river and positively

refused to be ruled off the track by any opposing element. “People do

not kick a corpse.”

[Illustration: JOHN EATON.]

Progression is the unchanging watchword of the petroleum-industry. The

three-pole derrick of yore has given place to the plank-giant that soars

eighty or ninety feet. The spring-pole is a shadowy memory. The first

drilling-tools weighed ninety-eight pounds; a modern set weighs two

tons. Instead of spending weeks to “kick down” a well a hundred feet, a

thousand feet can be bored between Monday morning and Saturday night.

Ten-horse portable engines and boilers are well-nigh forgotten. The

first iron-pipe for tubing wells, butt-weld ready to burst on the

slightest provocation, was manufactured in Massachusetts and sold for

one dollar per foot. Now lap-weld tubing of the best material brings a

dime a foot. So it is in methods of transportation and refining.

Bulk-boats, leaky barrels and long hauls through fathomless mud are

superseded by pipe-lines, which pump oil from the wells to New York,

Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland and Chicago. The rickety stills and

dangerous devices of former times have yielded to the splendid

refineries that utilize every vestige of crude and furnish two-hundred

merchantable commodities. For much of this important advance in tools,

appliances and machinery the great Oil-Well Supply-Company is directly

responsible. From small beginnings it has grown to dazzling proportions.

It is the only concern on earth with the facilities and capacity to

manufacture everything needed to drill and operate oil-wells and

artesian-wells and equip refineries. Its nine enormous plants at

convenient points employ thousands of skilled workmen and acres of the

latest machinery. They turn out every conceivable requisite in steel,

iron, brass or wood, from engines and complete rigs to the smallest

fittings. John Eaton, the founder and president of the company, may

fairly claim to be the father of the well-supply trade. His connection

with it dates back to 1861 and has continued ever since. He started

business for himself in 1867 and the next year took up his abode in the

oil-region. In 1869 he and E. H. Cole formed the partnership of Eaton &

Cole, which the Eaton, Cole & Burnham Company of New York succeeded.

Several rival firms organized the Oil-Well Supply Company, Limited, in

1878, with Mr. Eaton at its head. The present corporation succeeded the

Limited Company in 1891. Mr. Eaton’s enterprise and experience are

invaluable to the company. All new inventions adapted to wells or

refineries are examined carefully and the most valuable purchased.

Branch-offices and factories have kept pace with the spread of

oil-developments. The Company’s wares find a market in every civilized

land. Vice-President Kenton Chickering, first-class clear through,

manages the large establishment at Oil City. Pittsburg is now Mr.

Eaton’s home. He is genial and courteous always, prompt and sagacious in

business, broad in his ideas and true to his convictions, and his

Oil-Well Supply-Company is something to be proud of.

[Illustration: GEORGE KOCH.]

George Koch, a native of Venango county and relative of the celebrated

Dr. Koch of Germany, is a well-known inventor and writer. He began

oil-operations in 1865, in 1873 formed a partnership with his brother

and Dr. Knight, in 1880 organized the firm of Koch Brothers—William A.,

J. H. and George Koch—and was nominated three times for the legislature.

He took an active part in the Producers’ Council, edited the Fern-City

_Illuminator_ and published a book of “Stray Thoughts.” He invented a

torpedo for oil-wells, improved drilling-tools and well-appliances,

patented a system of “Sectional Iron Tanks,” a “Rubber-Packing,”

“Movable Store-Shelving” and other useful devices. Mr. Koch has just

rounded the half-century mark, he lives in East Sandy and no man has

done more to simplify the methods of sinking and operating wells.

Col. L. H. Fassett is one of the honored veterans of the late war and a

veteran operator in heavy oil. For nearly thirty years he has been a

leader in the Franklin district, operating successfully and enjoying the

esteem of all classes. He has a delightful home, is active in furthering

good objects and doesn’t worry a particle when oil happens to drop a

peg.

[Illustration: COL. L. H. FASSETT.]

Twelve miles south-east of Pittsburg, on the Bedell farm, near West

Elizabeth, the Forest Oil-Company is drilling the deepest well on the

continent. It is down fifty-five-hundred feet, considerably more than a

mile, and will be put to six-thousand at least. Geologists and

scientists are much interested in the strata and the temperatures at

different depths. This is the deepest well ever attempted to be sunk

with a cable, the one near Reibuck, Eastern Silesia, having been bored

about seven-thousand feet with rotating diamond core-drills. T. S.

Kinsey and his two sons, of Wellsburg, drilled a dry-hole

forty-five-hundred feet in 1891, on Boggs’ Run, West Virginia, near

Wheeling, for a local company. Think how progress has been marching on

since Drake’s seventy-foot gopher-hole to render the Forest’s

achievement possible! Surely petroleum-life is as full of promise as a

bill-collector’s.

Hon. Thomas W. Phillips, the wealthy oil-producer, who declined to serve

a third term in Congress, labored zealously to secure legislation that

would settle differences between employers and employés by arbitration.

He offered to pay a quarter-million dollars to meet the expense of a

thorough Congressional inquiry into the condition of labor, with a view

to the presentation of an authoritative report and the adoption of

measures calculated to prevent strikes and promote friendly relations.

When the suspension of drilling in the oil-region deprived thousands of

work for some months, Mr. Phillips was especially active in effecting

arrangements by which they received the profits upon two-million barrels

of crude set apart for their benefit. The Standard Oil-Company, always

considerate to labor, heartily furthered the plan, which the rise in oil

rendered a signal success. This was the first time in the history of any

business that liberal provision was made for workmen thrown out of

employment by the stoppage of operations. What a contrast to the

grinding and squeezing and shooting of miners and coke-workers by

“coal-barons” and “iron-kings!” When you come to size them up the

oil-men don’t have to shrink into a hole to avoid close scrutiny. They

pay their bills, are just to honest toil, generous to the poor and manly

from top to toe. They may not relish rheumatism, but this doesn’t compel

them to hate the poor fellow it afflicts. As Tiny Tim observed: “God

bless us every one!”

“Ivry gintleman will soon go horseback on his own taykittle” was the

inspired exclamation of an Irish baronet upon beholding the initial trip

of the first locomotive. Vast improvements in the application of power

have been effected since Stephenson’s grand triumph, nowhere more

satisfactorily than in the oil-regions. Producers who remember the

primitive methods in vogue along Oil Creek can best appreciate the

wonderful progress made during three decades. The tedious process of

drilling wet-holes with light tools has gone where the woodbine twineth.

Casing has retired the seed-bag permanently, and from the polish-rod to

the working-barrel not the smallest detail remains unimproved. Having a

portable engine and boiler at each well has given place to the cheaper

plan of coupling a host of wells together, two men thus doing the work

that once required twenty or thirty. Pipe-lines have superseded greasy

barrels and swearing teamsters, and even tank-cars are following the

flat-boats of pioneer times to oblivion. In short, labor-saving systems

have revolutionized the business so completely that the fathers of the

early styles would utterly fail to recognize their offspring in the

petroleum-development as conducted now-a-days.

[Illustration: ROUSTABOUTS PREPARING TO CLEAN OUT A RUSSIAN OIL-WELL.]

C. L. Wheeler, one of the earliest buyers of crude on Oil Creek in 1860

and first President of the Bradford Oil-Exchange, recently went to his

eternal reward. Orion Clemens, brother of Mark Twain and once a writer

for the Oil-City _Derrick_, died lately. Truly, the boys are “crossing

the divide” at a rate it grieves the survivors to note.

The fine illustrations of oil-scenes in Russia are from the collection

of photographs gathered by John Eaton, President of the Oil-Well Supply

Company, during his visits to the dominions of the Czar. “Long may he

wave!”

Crude sixty-five,

Well, sakes alive!

You seek rich spoil?

Don’t bore for oil.

’Mid Klondyke snow

You have more show

To score a hit

And save a bit.

Six-thousand wells drilled and ninety-six-thousand barrels of production

per day represent oil-operations in Pennsylvania in 1897. To this

enormous output Ohio and Indiana added fifty-three-thousand barrels a

day and thirty-six-hundred wells.

To the indefatigable zeal and liberality of Rev. Thomas Carroll, for

twenty-five years in charge of the parish, Oil City owes the erection of

the finest church in Northwestern Pennsylvania. The beautiful edifice

fitly crowns the summit of Cottage Hill. Its two lofty spires point

heavenward and its altar is a marvel of exquisite taste and finish. An

elegant parsonage stands on the adjacent lot, with the parochial school

across the street. It is proposed to rebuild the schools, to supply a

large hall and a convent and to provide every convenience for the

various societies connected with the grand congregation. This idea is

rendered possible by the splendid offer of Father Carroll to pay

one-half the entire cost himself. The good work he has done for

temperance, education, morality and religion cannot be estimated. He is

distinguished by his catholic spirit, his broad charity, his unwearied

philanthropy and his unswerving devotion to the right. No man has made a

deeper, nobler impress upon any community in the oil-regions than the

beloved pastor of St. Joseph’s. “Late may he return to Heaven!”

“Each man makes his own stature, builds himself;

Virtue alone outbuilds the Pyramids;

Her monuments shall last when Egypt’s fall.”

A host of changes, some pleasing and more unutterably sad, have the

swift seasons brought. The scene of active operations has shifted often.

The great Bradford region and the rich fields around Pittsburg and

Butler have had their innings. Parker, Petrolia, St. Petersburg,

Millerstown and Greece City have followed Plumer, Shaffer, Pioneer,

Red-Hot and Oleopolis to the limbo of forsaken things. Petroleum Centre

is a memory only. Rouseville is reduced to a skeleton. Not a trace of

Antwerp, or Pickwick, or Triangle is left. Enterprise resembles

Goldsmith’s “Deserted Village,” or Ossian’s “Balaclutha.” Tip-Top,

Modoc, Troutman, Turkey City, St. Joe, Shamburg, Edenburg and Buena

Vista have had their rise and fall. Fagundas has vanished. Pleasantville

fails to draw an army of adventurous seekers for oleaginous wealth.

Tidioute is an echo of the past and scores of minor towns have

disappeared completely. For forms and faces once familiar one looks in

vain. Where are the plucky operators who for a half-score years made Oil

Creek the briskest, gayest, liveliest spot in America? Thousands are

browsing in pastures elsewhere, while other thousands have crossed the

bridgeless river which flows into the ocean of eternity.

Alas for sentiment! Nero proves to have been a humanitarian, a good man

who was merely a bad fiddler. Henry the Eighth turns out to be a model

husband, rather unfortunate in the loss of wives, but sweetly indulgent

and only a trifle given to fall in love with pretty girls. William Tell

had no son and shot no arrow at an apple on young Tell’s head. Now

Charlotte Temple is a myth, the creation of an English novelist, with

her name cut on a flat tombstone in Trinity Churchyard over a grave

which originally bore a metal-plate supposed to commemorate a man! At

this rate some historic sharp in the future may demonstrate that the

oil-men were a race of green-tinted people governed by King Petroleum.

Colonel Drake may be pronounced a figure of the imagination, the

Standard a fiction, the South-Improvement Company a nightmare and the

Producers’ Association a dream. Then some inquisitive antiquarian may

come across a copy of “Sketches in Crude-Oil” stored in a forgotten

corner of the Congressional library, and set them all right and keep the

world running in the correct groove with regard to the grand industry of

the nineteenth century.

“I stood upon Achilles’ tomb

And heard Troy doubted: time will doubt of Rome.”

A dry-joke tickles and a dry-hole scrunches. It’s a poor mule won’t work

both ways, a poor spouter that can’t keep its owner from going up the

spout, a poor boil in the pot that isn’t better than a boil on the neck,

a poor chestnut on the tree that doesn’t beat a chestnut at a minstrel

show and a poor seed that produces no root or herb or grain or fruit or

flower. “Who made you?” the Sunday-school teacher asked a ragged urchin.

“Made me? Well, God made me a foot long and I growed the rest!” And so

the early operators on Oil Creek made the oil-development “a foot long”

and it “growed the rest.” The tiny seed is a vigorous plant, the puling

babe a lusty giant. Amid lights and shadows, clouds and sunshine,

successes and failures, struggles and triumphs, starless nights and

radiant days, petroleum has moved ahead steadily. Growth, “creation by

law,” is ever going on in the healthy plant, the tree, the animal, the

mind, the universe. We must go forward if the acorn is to become an oak,

the infant a mature man, the feeble industry a sturdy development.

Progress implies more of _in_volution than of _e_volution, just as the

oak contains much that was not in the acorn, and the oil-business in

1898 possesses elements unknown in 1859. Not to advance is to go

backward in religion, in nature and in trade. “An absentee God, sitting

idle ever since the first Sabbath, on the outside of the universe, and

_seeing_ it go,” is not a correct idea of the All-Wise Being, working

actively in every point of space and moment of time. Stagnation means

decay in the natural world and death in oil-affairs. The man who sits in

the pasture waiting for the cow to come and be milked will never skim

off the cream. The man who wants to figure as an oil-operator must

bounce the drill and tap the sand and give the stuff a chance to get

into the tanks. Still a youngster in years, the petroleum-colt has

distanced the old nags. The sucker-rod is the pole that knocks the

persimmons. The oil-well is the fountain of universal illumination. The

walking-beam is the real balance of trade and of power. The derrick is

the badge of enlightenment. Petroleum is the bright star that shines for

all mankind and doesn’t propose to be snuffed out or shoved off the

grass. Its past is known, its present may be estimated, but what Canute

dare fence in its future and say: “Thus far shalt thou come and no

farther?”

If there be friendly readers, as they reckon up the score,

Who find these random “Sketches” not a burden and a bore

Too heavy for digestion and too light for solemn lore—

Who find a grain of pleasure has been added to their store

By some glad reminiscence of the palmy days of yore,

Or tender recollection of the old friends gone before—

Who find some things to cherish and but little to deplore—

Good-bye, our voyage ended, we must anchor on the shore.

The last line has been written, all the labor now is o’er,

The task has had sweet relish from the surface to the core;

The sand-rock is exhausted, for the oil has drain’d each pore,

The derrick stands neglected and we cease to tread its floor;

My feet are on the threshold and my hands are on the door—

The pen falls from my fingers, to be taken up no more.

[Illustration: The End]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s Note

The hyphenation of compound words can be variable. Where the hyphen

occurs on a line or page break, it is retained or removed based on the

most commonly used form.

Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and

are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.

The following issues should be noted, along with the resolutions.

21.14 27 years, 1 mo[n]th & 14 days. Added.

28.24 a considerable flow[.] Added.

28.29 Kanawha boatmen[t] and others. Removed.

29.21 healing qualitie[s]. Restored.

31.30 When they regained con[s]ciousness Added.

35.44 at a Na[u/n]cy-Hanks quickstep Inverted.

40.11 State-Committe[e] Added.

41.2 proba[b]ly near what is now Cuba, N. Y. Added.

47.45 Lovely woman and Banquo’s ghost will not Replaced.

“down![’/”]

52.4 in thrilling narratives[.] Added.

53.45 over to the court-house.[’/”] Replaced.

53.47 and the vill[i]age emptied itself Removed.

54.2 No wonder Satan’s imps wailed sadly:[”] Removed.

58.35 “Law, Jim Sickles![”] I tho’t Removed.

65.2 the Highlanders at Lucknow[.] Restored.

78.3 West and south-west the Octave Oil[-]Company Replaced.

has operated

79.18 sold the building to C. V. Culver for Restored

bank-purposes[.]

81.34 per foot to fifty cents[.] Added.

84.26 Will[l]iam Raymond Removed.

91.6 Captain Willia[n/m] Hasson Replaced.

95.25 the h[f/i]gher type of passenger-locomotives Replaced.

97.52 born at Friendship, N.Y[,,/.,] in 1850. Replaced.

102.7 one-hundred-and forty[ /-]acres Replaced.

103.14 were in the thic[h/k]est of the fray Replaced.

119.39 [“]Wholly unclassable, Added.

121.3 the days of “the middle passage[’/”] Replaced.

129.16 [“]Vare vos dose oil-wells now? Added.

137.16 five-thir[f/t]y-five a barrel[l] Replaced/Removed.

147.25 touring the country and entertain[in]ing Removed.

crowds

160.5 who coolly remarked[;/:] Replaced.

160.13 where his ancest[e/o]rs Replaced.

161.26 Possib[l]y Br’er Elliott Added.

168.33 the William Porter farm[,/.] Replaced.

169.3 at eight-hundred-and-fifty[-/ ]feet, the Replaced.

Harmonial Well No. 1

180.2 marks the Chase House[,/.] Replaced.

191.15 It does upset a man’s cal[c]ulations Added.

194.29 missed opening the Sister[s]ville field Added.

205.41 velvet-cushions and pneumatic tires[./,] Replaced.

213.39 Years of wa[i]ting sharpened the appetite Added.

218.18 Two narrow-g[ua/au]ge railroads Transposed

218.20 Other narrow-g[ua/au]ges diverged to Warren Transposed

222.50 will say that his success is undeserved[.] Added.

225.4 rides ever taken on a narrow-g[ua/au]ge road Transposed.

resulted.

241.34 at the pit’s mouth free of all charges.[”] Added.

248.6 The cross-roads collection of five[-/ ]houses Replaced.

249.49 as he sur[y/v]eyed the latitude and longitude Replaced.

252.46 Narrow-g[ua/au]ge railroads were built Transposed

257.25 rushed into the store with a p[er/re]scription Transposed.

264.44 slender build and nervous temperam[o/e]nt, Replaced.

267.33 he visited the o[li/il]-region Transposed.

271.19 Operat[e/o]rs were feeling Replaced.

275.41 are we now?[’/”] Replaced.

280.42 and next morning stopped al[r/t]ogether Replaced.

288.34 scion of the mult[it]udinous Smith-family. Added.

309.43 “Sam” also ina[u]gurated the custom Added.

318.42 from the Noble & Del[e/a]mater well Replaced.

337.36 “‘You are J. C. Bailey, I believe.’[”] Removed.

337.40 advertise for you.’[”] Removed

338.49 an unpleasant pr[o/e]monition of the red-hot Replaced.

hereafter

349.1 discarded the b[o]urgeois skirt Added.

358.32 that ever edified a community[,/.] Replaced.

362.8 “Life of Washington and the Signers of the Added.

Declaration of Independence.[”]

365.4 dissecting a su[s]picious job Added.

366.8 The Shake[s]pearian parodies Added.

377.51 and hy[p]notism.” Added.

378.15 An[’] we hed formed a pardnership Added.

380.38 Sister[s]ville, the centre of activity in West Added.

Virginia,

390.36a and medical aid summon[e]d. Added.

390.36b He remained uncon[s]cious two hours Added.

391.27 To ensure co[n/m]parative safety Replaced.

393.5 which Nit[r]o-Glycerine in its fluid state Added.

resembles closely,

414.11 under the manag[e]ment of one Board of Added.

Trustees

411.38 The cost of transpor[t]ation Added.

412.31 to sell at ex[h]orbitant prices Removed.

416.32 connected with the Standard[.] Added.

416.34 not connected with the Standard[./,] and never Replaced.

owned

419.47 yielding only malaria and [shakes] _sic_:

snakes?

424.6 kindly, affable and thoroug[h]ly upright. Added.

432.22 In this sand at three feet[ ]pressure of gas _sic_: the?

439.11 Corry and [C/O]il City were called Replaced.

445.30 who has managed the firm[’]s affairs wisely Added.

446.22 on a solid basis[.] Added.

449.17 scientists are much interested [l/i]n the Replaced.

strata

End of Project Gutenberg's Sketches in Crude-oil, by John J. McLaurin