USA > Pennsylvania > Clarion County > History of Clarion County, Pennsylvania > Part 37
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In 1874, Twenty-eighth senatorial district, Cameron, Elk, Clarion and Forest-Clarion county to have two representatives.
347
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PETROLEUM.
Statistics .- 1870; population 26,537.
Value of farm products, $1,568,836
66 home manufactures,
6,932
66 animals slaughtered or sold for slaughter, 311,902
live stock, 1,317,708
66
dairy products,
188,556
wool,
44,398
66
all other products (garden, etc.), 3,358
Total value of products, $3,441,690
There were comparatively few sheriff sales during the war: In 1862, thirty ; in 1864, ten. The minimum and maximum of sheriff sales between 1865 and 1887 were: For 1866, 9; 1878, 459.
County Finances .- In 1863 relief orders for the families of absent volun- teers (under the act providing therefor) were issued to the amount of $5,- 066.70,
To liquidate the debt contracted by the building of the new jail the com- missioners, in 1875, issued bonds for $70,000, bearing six per cent. interest. These were refunded and the interest reduced to four per cent. November 20, 1882, the last of these bonds were funded. The rate of taxation was raised to fifteen mills, and reduced after several years to ten.
At the Ist of January, 1878, the liabilities of the county were $56,535.98 ; assets $14,678.32. There was $1,429.28 in the treasurer's vaults.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PETROLEUM.
Deer Creek Oil Spring -- The Pocohontas -- Early Operations-Graham's Landing-Foxburg -- First Pipe Line-Grass Flats-St. Petersburg-Turkey City and Monroeville -- The St. Law- rence-Edenburg -- Beaver City-Elk City-Pipe Lines-Cogley Field-Reidsburg-Statistics.
C OLONEL THOMAS WATSON, grandfather of J. B. Watson, esq.,1 about 1810 began to operate for salt at the mouth of Deer Creek. He sank a well there and manufactured some salt, but the supply of water failing, he undertook to drill deeper. The "rig" of that day consisted chiefly of a spring pole, with one end fixed to the ground and supported about midway by a prop. The tools were attached to u. other end; a loop, or stirrup, was made in a rope suspended from near the tool end, and with his foot in this, the oper- ator swung the flexible beam up and down to good effect.
I Colonel Watson was a soldier from this county in the War of 1812, and participated in the Black Rock Campaign. He was not a member of either of the companies organized here.
348
HISTORY OF CLARION COUNTY.
After they had penetrated past the upper water veins, Abraham and James Watson, sons of Thomas, were working at night with a lamp or torch, when to their alarm and amazement, the well took fire, burning the rig and the sur- rounding structure. The drillers had a narrow escape from the flames. Not discouraged, Mr. Watson rebuilt the drilling apparatus and continued the work, till he struck a stream of salt water mixed with a mysterious yellow fluid of a strong odor, and very inflammable. Of course this made the salt water worth- less, and the enterprise was abandoned.
Some time after Job Packer came into possession of the property, gathered four or five barrels of the fluid and boated it to Pittsburgh for examination. Its light color and salty admixture condemned it as lacking the good qualities of the Seneca oil found in springs; and it was dumped into the river as a nuisance. Mr. Allen Wilson, at one time owner of the Piney mill, collected some of the " stuff" and used it in lamps and torches for light. The property passed into the hands of David Whitehill, and the hole was plugged.
In 1860, when petroleum was discovered in large quantities along Oil Creek, the well and the tract on which it was situated-rough hill-side land- was leased by Messrs. Jacob Hahn, Charles Hahn, and Jesse Thompson. The plug was removed and a few barrels of clear oil of light color and gravity floated to the surface. This was hailed as a great discovery ; the hole was cleaned out and pumping apparatus put in ; about 200 barrels were obtained and the well then failed. The war, which then arose, checked further specula- tive investments.
On the revival of the oil furore in 1864, nine companies of eastern parties, forming really one composite syndicate, were organized to develop the rich territory along the Clarion, which the Whitehill well and the springs along the Clarion (in which the drainings of iron pyrites were often mistaken for oil) in- dicated as existing there. These were the Davenport Oil Company ; John Lyon tract ; 318 acres; on Little Toby Creek, Highland township. Little Toby River Oil Company ; Samuel Duff tract; 318 acres; on Little Toby Creek, Highland township. Black Diamond Oil Company ; Breneman tract ; 336 acres ; on west side of Clarion River, Highland township. Highland Oil Company ; William Reed tract; 212 acres; on west side of Clarion River, Highland township. Greenland Oil Company ; Daniel Gilmore tract; 212 acres; on Little Toby Creek, Highland township. Deer Creek Oil Company ; at mouth of Deer Creek; 228 acres; on west side of Clarion River, Beaver township. Whitehill Oil Company; 228 acres; adjacent to the former tract. Clarion River Oil Company ; Seth Clover tract; 286 acres; on west side of Clarion River, Highland township. Pennsylvania Oil Company; Columbus Reed tract ; 318 acres ; on west side of Clarion River, Highland township.
Of these companies, W. P. Schell, of Bedford, was president; J. Simpson Africa, of Huntingdon, secretary and treasurer; Walter W. Greenland was sent out as superintendent.
349
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PETROLEUM.
The Deer Creek Oil Company, as we have seen, bought the Whitehill property at the mouth of Deer Creek, consisting of 225 acres ; and the White- hill Oil Company, 228, adjoining this on the north. Early in May, 1865, oil was discovered at a depth of 308 feet by a well on the Whitehill Company's tract, half a mile above the mouth of Deer Creek ; at first only a showing, the production increased without deeper drilling to ten barrels per day-Clarion county's first producing well. Shortly after this the Deer Creek Oil Com- pany's " Pocohontas " came in, gushing at the rate of fifty barrels a day; the fluid came from a second or salt water sand.
These strikes sent a thrill of excitement through Clarion county speculative circles ; and May saw a number of derricks spring up along the Clarion in that vicinity, and on the banks of its tributaries, Piney, Canoe, Deer and Beaver Creeks. But these high raised hopes were destined to be dashed to the ground. The Whitehill well survived about a month, and the Pocohontas two; five hun- dred barrels of petroleum were shipped in barges from both. These wells had merely happened on one of those small, easily exhausted pools of amber petro- leum which have occasionally been found here in extra- belt territory.
About the same time as the Pocohontas strike the Pennsylvania Salt Manu- facturing Company's well in Millcreek township, near the mouth of Blyson Run, of which Colonel J. B. Knox was superintendent, found heavy oil at nearly five hundred feet. The vein proved a profitable one, as the oil answered well for lubricating, and about one thousand barrels were shipped to Pittsburgh by flat boat. Abner James, the spiritualistic oil theorist, conceived faith in the Blyson territory, and from 1872 to 1874 put down several wells there, but the search was fruitless, except to show the meagerness of the deposit there. Not satis- fied with these experiments, Judge A. Cook, in 1885, again tested the mouth of Blyson, and found only a small showing of lubricating oil. It was obvious that the first well had drained the " pocket "
As may be imagined, the machinery of these early wells was primitive enough ; much of it being the handicraft of home machinists. Portable boil- ers were unknown; the string of tools then weighed about eight hundred pounds ; the auger stem was from one and a half to one and three-fourths inches in diameter; derricks forty-four feet high. For the first several years none but copper tubing was used; the " seed-bag " took the place of casing. The improved machinery came from Pittsburgh, most of it from Fisher Bros. ; the home-made rigging was antique and cumbrous, with cog-wheels, etc. The art of tool-dressing was then a minor item; the engineer's was the most im- portant station at a well; there was no apparatus to regulate the engine from the derrick. These old wells averaged nine hundred feet in depth ; rarely one thousand feet was attained. The Black Diamond on the Highland township side of the State road crossing was one of the deepest, 1,300 feet. It required from two to four months to sink a well of average depth ; seven feet a day was considered fair speed. 33
350
HISTORY OF CLARION COUNTY.
A universal belief, founded on the Oil Creek developments, obtained then, that the oleaginous fluid was to be found only in the bottom of valleys on the flats near the water's edge. Consequently operations were confined to the brink of the Clarion and its chief affluents for a short distance up. If some bold wild catter had left the barren flats near the mouth of Beaver or Canoe Creeks, and started to bore on the uplands of those streams, with the determination of drilling to the maximum depth, he would have been scouted as a visionary or a madman ; but his enterprise would in all probability have been rewarded by a rich discovery of the desired fluid, and the Clarion district would have been developed ten years earlier.
The ill success of these ventures dampened further attempts of the like character, and people had settled down to the belief that the golden age was as far off as ever which would see the earth respond to the persuasive touch of the drill, and the coveted fluid burst forth to enrich the vales of Clarion county, when it appeared in an unexpected quarter; and the operations begun there, slowly and obscurely at first, and afterwards with gradual and swifter advance, took up their march of discovery. The derricks first seen at Graham's Landing and Foxburg were to mark the progress of a new Eldorado into (perhaps through) the heart of Clarion county.
We will follow this interesting advance step by step, noticing in particular only the pioneer wells, those which defined the belt, and those whose extraor- dinary production is worthy of special remark.
In the May of 1869, on the outbreak of the Parker's Landing excitement, the Graham's Landing Oil Company, consisting of R. L. Brown, Simon Truby, W. H. H. Piper, William Robinson, and Robert Crawford, sank a hole at Gra- ham's Landing, immediately opposite Parker's, and obtained a three-barrel well, which increased spontaneously to eleven. It was situated in the gulch at the mouth of the streamlet that falls into the Allegheny there. This was the first permanent paying well struck in Clarion county. Soon after Duncan Karns met with success on the the James Pollock farm on the heights back from the river. The well produced fifteen barrels. The Buckeye, forty bar- rels, below Graham's Landing, was opened the same season. But the attempts to extend the territory inland, northeasterly, failed. A small well on the Mc- Ilwain farm marked the limit of production in that direction.
Attention was then directed to a more northern line toward Foxburg, where a few pumping-wells of small importance, on the Fox estate, were known to exist. Drilling on the Simpson farm yielded only barren results; it was evi- dent that a dry interval lay between Parker and the mouth of the Clarion.
In the fall of 1865 Messrs. Samuel Fox and Joel Fink commenced their well No. I, on the east side of the Allegheny, on the upper or " Reed" tract. Oil was found of good quality but in small quantity ; in those days of Pithole with its 500 and 1,000 barrelers, a well which pumped four or five barrels was
35I
TIIE DEVELOPMENT OF PETROLEUM
deemed almost worthless, and this received little attention. It must, however, be classed as Clarion county's first staying well of illuminating petroleum. In the succeeding summer No 2 was put down by the same firm and also proved a small producer. No. 3 was drilled in 1867, and was shortly abandoned. Its machinery was taken down the river below the "Stone House " and near the mouth of the Clarion, and on the 30th of September, 1869, No. 4 was struck with paying results; about fifteen barrels per day. About the same time the Gailey well on the south side of the Clarion, one-fourth of a mile above its mouth, commenced to pump the same quantity. These ventures created some excitement and activity in that vicinity, and soon quite a number of wells were under way.
In October A. S. Palmer obtained a lease from Mr. Fox, on the hillside above the station, and assigned it to Fertig and Hammond. Fertig No. I struck petroleum in paying quantities. About this time operators began to see the fallacy of the theory that oil would be found only in river bottoms; and rigs began to climb the hillsides. In the season of 1869 also the Mead Bros. sank a well at the river's mouth on the south, near the end of the A. V. Railroad bridge, and found oil; the Elephant well, farther up on the hillside, was struck about the same time, and the Island Queen, on Stump Island, astonished the operators with a production of over 100 barrels a day. This well was first owned by O. E. Shannon, - Hartley, - Washabaugh, Jno. Gailey, and E. H. Long, and became the property of Robert Gailey. Nearly all these old wells about Perryville and the mouth of the Clarion are still pumping.
THE ORIGINAL PIPE LINE.
Gus R. Harms, of Petroleum Centre, and M. C. Martin, of Foxburg, had entered into partnership in September, 1869, to engage in the business of trans- porting petroleum from wells to the railroads. On October 19th they signed the following agreement with Samuel Fox :
" For and in consideration of the sum of one dollar in hand paid, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, I, Samuel M. Fox, of Richland township, Clarion county, Pennsylvania, do hereby sell and assign, and by these presents, set over to M. C. Martin and Gus R. Harms, their heirs and assigns, for the period of five years from the date hereof, the exclusive right of way over my land in Perry township, Armstrong county, Pennsylvania, and my lands in Richland township, Clarion county, lying near the mouth of the Clarion River, for the purpose of piping, transporting and shipping petroleum oil over and across said lands for shipment on cars; provided always, that the rate of trans- portation charged by said M. C. Martin and Gus. R. Harms, shall never exceed twenty-five cents per barrel. Should said rate at any time be exceeded, this sale and transfer shall have its legal termination ; otherwise, I bind myself, my heirs and assigns, to protect said M. C. Martin and Gus. R. Harms, in exclusive
352
HISTORY OF CLARION COUNTY.
possession of said right of way for said term of five years; nevertheless the said S. M. Fox reserves for himself and his lessees on the east side of the river, the right to ship oil of their own production, by car or otherwise, as they may see fit, and to lay a pipe for that purpose. In witness whereof I hereunto set my hand and seal this 19th day of October, 1869.
"SAMUEL M. FOX." [L. S.] The other part of the agreement is as follows, viz. :
"In consideration of Samuel M. Fox having granted us the right of way through certain lands of his, for the purpose of piping petroleum, we agree to lay a pipe across the Allegheny River, and to extend the same through his lands in Perry township, Armstrong county, within two months from the date hereof, and to lay pipe to the tanks of his lessees as soon after their wells be- come productive as conveniently practicable, and to allow him a drawback of five cents per barrel on his oil piped over the river, unless our general charge should be reduced to fifteen cents per barrel, when the drawback shall only be two and a half cents. We also agree, in case the oil passed through our pipes shall amount to five hundred barrels per diem, to build an iron tank of not less than eight thousand barrels capacity, for its reception. And at the end of every four months, to divide among our customers, pro rata, any excess of oil that we may have received over and above what we may have given credit for. " Witness our hands and seals this 19th day of October, 1869. " M. C. MARTIN. [L. S.] " GUS R. HARMS. [L. S.]"
August 1870, Soult and Dower struck a fifteen barrel well, on the hill-top, Rupert tract, adjoining Fox's on the northeast; the well was a short distance off the road to St. Petersburg. Martin and Harms laid a line from the rack at the railroad to this well, necessarily across the Fox land ; the Foxes construed this as a privilege not accorded by the agreement, and their employees tore up the pipe. A suit ensued which resulted in mutual concessions. In the mean time, about the close of 1870, Martin and Harms had joined with James Bishop and C. Myer, under the name of the "Mutual Pipe Line Company," with headquarters at Foxburg.
" Grass Flats" is the name applied to the strip of level land lying along the Clarion between the hillside and the river, directly south of St. Petersburg. Most of this land belonged to Hon. Jno. Keating. In 1870 there had been some isolated drilling done in this direction, with small results till on June 3, 1871, the Bovard & Palmer well, "Nettie," at the southwestern extremity of the Flats near the bend, opened up this prolific field with seventy-five barrels. This marks the beginning of a new era in the history of Clarion county oil production. A great number of wells were soon under operation, and in July the Tillman Jackson well No. I, further up the river, came in with a good pro- duction. Back from the Clarion the Lewis Collner farm, and the Shoup farm
353
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PETROLEUM.
adjoining, proved to be very rich territory. In January, 1872, the Fleming and Salsbery wells on the Collner farm were completed and yielded between 400 and 500 barrels per day. In April Lady Harris No. I, on G. R. Harris's lease from Collner, added to the list of large producers.
By April, 1872, Grass Flats for its entire length, and the country between the river and St. Petersburg, were covered with wells, yielding a product of between 30 and 400 barrels each. In the succeeding summer St. Petersburg reached the climax of its prosperity, and was the scene of stirring activity and excitement unprecedented in Clarion county.
On October 23, 1871, the first well east of St. Petersburg, Marcus Hulings's famous Antwerp, on the Ashbaugh farm, was finished and proved a fountain of the first quality, flowing two hundred barrels of oil through the casing at first, and subsiding to the very respectable production of seventy-five barrels daily. This strike indicated the existence of petroleum in large quantities in a new quarter, and whetted the zeal of speculators. In a short while every avail- able foot lying on a forty-five degree line between St. Petersburg and Turkey Run was in the hands of eager operators. The fee simple of farms commanded $300 and $400 per acre, and "Pennsylvania Dutch" farmers, who had toiled for years on their paternal acres without amassing affluence, suddenly found themselves wealthy.
Hitherto, with Parker as a starting point, the general drift of development had been on lines ranging between twenty-two and thirty degrees east of north. It was soon discovered that a bend occurred at St. Petersburg. A month from the striking of the Antwerp, the well on the Hiram Neely farm (Richmond), owned by Patterson & Dickey, W. H. Nicholson and others, came in with a large showing and confirmed confidence in the new territory; at that time these were the only wells east of St. Petersburg. Soon after M. E. Hess's fine well on the D. Shoup farm advanced discoveries one step north- east from the Antwerp. This was followed in March, 1872, by Smith, Cook & Co'.s 150 barreler, in the same neighborhood ; and on April roth Harring- ton & Co. got a twenty-five barrel well on Turkey Run, far ahead of devel- opments. Operations in this direction soon became extensive and covered so wide an area that it is impossible to trace them, except generally. Among those completed in 1871-2 between St. Petersburg and Turkey we may men- tion as notable : M. Hulings's well, on the Stubble farm, north of Richland fur- nace ; J. W. Irwin's, 200 barrels, on Little Turkey, Edinger farm. On the extreme northwest were the wells on the land of Charles Masters and Daniel Heeter.
On the east the belt extended to the Isaac Neely farm, across Turkey Run, near its mouth, but northeast from that point was uncertain and streaky, retir- ing in the direction of Richmond. On the Fillman place, however, consider- ably east of Richmond, petroleum was found. On the west, or more correctly,
354
HISTORY OF CLARION COUNTY.
northwest, the producing region did not advance beyond the valleys of the small tributaries of Turkey Run, narrowing down north and northwest of St. Petersburg. Dry holes on D. Hale's heirs, Salem township, and on the upper end of the farm of D. Knight marked the northern limit, and inclined opera- tions to the east, where good wells were found on the J. Hale and Knappen- berger farms, opening the Monroeville field. The maximum width of the belt was three miles, and so continued to Edenburg.
In June, 1872, Hess & Veary's well, on the D. Knight farm, opened up at the rate of two barrels an hour, and on August 30, M. Hulings again led the star of empire northeastward by a seventy-five barreler on the farm of George Delo, in southern Salem township.
July 20, 1872, there were 233 producing and 106 drilling wells in the Clarion (third) district; by the middle of September the producing wells num- bered 300. About this time the Clarion producers met at St. Petersburg and resolved on a month's shut down, and suspension of drilling, in conjunction with the outside fraternity, on account of overstock and depression in the crude market ; as a consequence, all but sixteen wells in the Clarion district closed operations. When they resumed, November I, it was with a decreased pro- duction.
January, 1873, Lee & Plummer's one hundred and fifty barrel well on the Hummel farm was struck, and soon after Hammer and Geyer marked an ad- vance by success on the Exley farm, Beaver township. These were pioneer strikes in new territory, yet notwithstanding the incitement they gave to opera- tors, it was almost a year before the Turkey City, Monroeville and Paris City (Pickwick) fields rose into prominence. Clarion oil operations made slow head- way, as a rule, before a field reached full development. The belt was a wide one, its length indefinite, and it required a succession of rich finds to concen - trate activity in a particular district. In this way the field was developed by patches.
On June 27, 1873, attention was suddenly diverted to northern Beaver township by a strike by John Turner and Walter Lowry, at Bowers, three- fourths of a mile north of Edenburg-the St. Lawrence well, opening with sixty barrels. This was miles ahead of previous developments, and in the furore over this discovery many producers left Turkey City, Monroeville, and Pick- wick before the lateral limits of that portion of the belt had been reached, and with much advance territory untested. Shortly after the St. Lawrence, Hulings found oil on Canoe Creek, and September 9, 1873, Lee and Balliet brought in another large producer, a two hundred barrel well on the Bowers farm. This prolific tract was bought by Wetter and Bleakly.
In January, 1874, Gray Bros. and Spargo on the Mendenhall property, close to Edenburg, brought the developments a step farther south, while early in February, Smith, Cook & Co's., producing eighty barrels, following the dis-
355
DEVELOPMENT OF PETROLEUM.
covery at G. Exley's on Switzer Run widened the territory westward, and formed a link between Pickwick and Edenburg.
At this period there seemed to be no limit to the possibilities of the terri- tory, except in Salem, where upper Turkey Run formed a barrier on the west, and confined production to the corner. The summer of 1874 was an era of great activity in the field around Edenburg, and that village rose into notoriety as a petroleum centre. Producers began to discover, too, that a prolific field stretched southwestwardly, and started to retrace their steps to complete the connection between the St. Petersburg and Edenburg regions. The oil trade, however, was very much depressed, and operations progressed in the face of discouragements. Petroleum dragged along between forty and sixty cents, and not till the spring of 1875 did the advance begin which culminated in the boom of 1876. To add to this difficulty the producers who held their oil for a better market, were burdened with a storage rate of five cents per month for every barrel.
Petroleum was found at Jefferson Furnace,1 and in the middle of July a sixty-barrel find on the farm of George Kribbs - the future Beaver City - opened a prolific section. The belt now began to be defined on the northwest and southeast. It was apparent that it would only truncate the corner of Ash- land township, as it had done in Salem. On the south it was less distinctly -outlined, as it ran northeast in streaks, and was very "touchy" territory. But beyond Blair's and Wentling's corners, and east of the Hanst and Ditman farms, on Canoe Creek, the most enterprising wild-catting failed to show up oil terri- tory.
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