History of Venango County, Pennsylvania : its past and present, including, Part 34

Author: Bell, Herbert C. (Herbert Charles), 1868-
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Chicago : Brown, Runk & Co.
Number of Pages: 1323

USA > Pennsylvania > Venango County > History of Venango County, Pennsylvania : its past and present, including > Part 34

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Mention has been made of extensions of the oil field closely following the striking of the Drake well. These were for a short time confined to the valley of Oil creek, a few of its tributaries and hill farms adjoining, also on the Allegheny river from Tidioute to Franklin. With the advent of the oil companies, the pioneer "wild catters," the development took a wider range, extending not only to various portions of Venango but to adjoining counties. Oil was struck in West Virginia very soon after Drake's find, but no general development occurred in that state in the first years.

Among the earliest divergencies from the favored valley of Oil creek was the development of Cherry run, near Rouseville, on Oil creek. From this resulted the famous Reed & Criswell well, and the no less noted Smith farm, owned by Beers & Corners. Then came Shamburg and adjoining localities.

332

HISTORY OF VENANGO COUNTY.

January 8, 1865, the striking of the Frazier well, on the lands of the United States Oil Company, resulted in the development of the Pithole field, of world-wide renown. Following close after were the oil discoveries on the Alexander Cochran and Hoover farms below Franklin. Further extension of this line was soon made to Foster farm, Bully Hill, Bullion, Scrubgrass, Emlenton, Foxburg, and at Grass Flats, on the Clarion river. Then the Butler and Armstrong fields, the first of which proved prolific to an unprecedented degree, and is still in a thrifty state. The Clarion belt was also operated with good results. St. Petersburg, Turkey City, Beaver, Edenburg, Elk City, and Shippenville, and within the past few years the Clarion borough fields have been productive localities. Then came in the Bradford field of Mckean county and a portion of Allegany county, New York state. With the still later additions of Washington, Allegheny, and Greene counties, the oil producing fields of the present date in Pennsylva- nia, present and prospective, comprise a territory of several hundred square miles. That of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, will add to this indefinitely.

Improved facilities in machinery for drilling the oil wells and in the methods of transportation of the oil by railroads and pipe lines kept pace with the extension of the oil fields and the increase of the production. Large pools were struck at Troutman and adjoining farms, in Butler county, and at Cherry Grove and Richburg, Allegany county, New York. At the beginning of 1880 the daily production was estimated at fully seventy-six thousand barrels. In June, 1882, the highest daily record was given at one hundred and ten thousand barrels.

From what has already been given of the earlier modes of transporta- tion, some idea can be formed of the magnitude of the task of handling, providing means of storage, the refining and finding a market for so great a daily production.

By the early. enactment of a free pipe bill any who had the means and will could build a pipe line. A number of these were constructed leading from the various fields to nearest railroad points and thence to the seaboard cities, the points from which the product was exported; the railroads formed the only means of transport. The questions that vex the Inter-State Com- merce Commission of to-day existed in even greater extent during all those years. No effective concert of action could be decided on by the different pipeline companies. The desire for combination was as prevalent then as now. The only difference was that each pipe line incorporation wanted to be the combination, and the producer entertained something of the same idea for the conservation of his interests. The necessity of providing storage for the product of the wells was the factor that for all this time in- terested all classes engaged in the business.

With George V. Forman and J. J. Vandergrift originated the idea of

333

THE PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT.

consolidating the pipe lines under one general head. Having extensive pipe lines of their own these gentlemen went to work earnestly to effect this object, and the result was the final absorption of the different lines into the incorporation known as the United Pipe Lines, and still later as the National Transit. The details of their operations would make an interesting history of itself.

Once formed and in successful operation the new corporation made con- nections with every producing well in the oil country, erected hundreds of large iron storage tanks of thirty-five thousand barrel capacity, and took charge of the transportation and storage of the entire production. Seaboard pipe lines were constructed, a negotiable oil certificate was devised which is to-day for all commercial purposes as reliable as the government bonds or currency, a general average insurance against losses by fire or otherwise, and a uniform rate of transportation of twenty cents per barrel for oil from all points, were established. That has never been changed. The accomplishment of such results necessitated an investment of cash and of talent and skill far beyond individual possibility. The conception and execution of this plan solved the problem of oil transportation for that and all time to come. For this, if "for no other reason, its projectors and their able successors are to be commended.

The various towns and cities of this and other days deserve at least a passing notice. In the different years of the development these sprang up in each succeeding oil field like unto Jonah's gourd, and in the large majority of cases proved nearly as transient in duration. The names of many of these were suggested by the locality, while others were the happy and appro- priate conception of the first residents. As a general thing these places wore the appendage of "city," something after the manner of the curl in the pig's tail, more for ornament than any visible practical use.

Of the score or two towns of this class few had but a brief term of life. Their growth culminated with the height of oil production surrounding them, and then before they had scarcely reached the "teething" age their decadence began. The rows or blocks of wooden buildings that escaped the ravages of fire were deserted as soon as the oil productions of the wells surrounding were reduced to small pumpers, and their former occupants migrated to a newly discovered field. The amount of money and energy devoted to the building up of these oil towns would foot up a large amount. And this branch of business only ceased, at least in a great measure, as the boundaries of the oil territory became defined. But the oil town, in its typical sense, still lives, and will be seen as long as new oil fields are dis- covered.

Whether of longer or shorter duration each of the many towns had its history, and all of it goes to make the pages of the future chronicle inter- esting. In the matter of nomenclature that of the oil country has been both

334

HISTORY OF VENANGO COUNTY.

fitting and original, and this has been displayed in the naming of the towns as well as in other things. Space is lacking to enumerate tbe different names and their origin. Notable among the oil towns that in former years attained a world-wide reputation were Pithole and Petroleum Center. The >

. first named in the first few years of its brief life attained a population as estimated of from twelve to fifteen thousand. Its postoffice was rated as second-class. A daily paper, palatial hotels, opera houses, gorgeous saloons, business blocks, palaces of sin, abounded and flourished. Churches and schools marked the moral sentiment. To these the contributions were liberal to a degree equaled by but few sections or communities. Pipe lines were laid to this city of promise. The Oil City and Pithole and the Reno, Oil Creek and Pitbole railroads were projected and built. The first named reached Pithole and reaped a fair harvest, but before the completion of the second the glory of Pithole had begun to wane with its declining produc- tion.

At no one point in the history of the oil business did the tide of specula- tion rise so high as at Pithole. At no place did the ebb of the speculative tide show so great an amount of financial wreckage. Ruin was carried to thousands of homes by tbe unfortunate ventures of this noted oil field. To illustrate briefly: When the Frazier or United States well was struck oil was selling at eight dollars per barrel. Four thousand dollars bonus (and royalty of one-half the oil obtained) was paid for leases. The Rooker farm was bought by J. W. Bonta and James A. Bates for the sum of two hundred and eighty thousand dollars; in less than two months these parties sold ninety leases at an average price of three thousand five hundred dollars, some of the leases selling as high as seven thousand dollars; three acres of it, with wells, were afterward sold for eighty-two thousand five hundred dol- lars. Other farms in the same field averaged still better than this. The profit and loss account of Pithole represented many millions. At date scarcely a trace of the city whose fame in a brief time extended to the ends of the earth now remain, though afterward some good wells were had, and at present a brisk development is in progress in some portions of the ter- ritory.

Petroleum Center, on Oil creek, was scarcely less noted when at tbe height of prosperity than Pitbole, and nearly equaled it in size and impor- tance and possibly in wickedness. A few brief years of great prosperity were followed by the failure of oil production in its immediate vicinity, resulting in its abandonment, and now a store, a few dwellings, church building, school house, and a railroad station are all that remain to mark the site of the once noted city.

Oil City, Franklin, Titusville, and Bradford are the marked types of the survival of the fittest. The growth of these in all that goes to mark the best elements of this enlightened and progressive age is an honor to each

335

THE PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT.

and all of their respective communities. This was not achieved without the struggles incident to all other places. Each had seasons of depression that left an impress at the time, from the beginning to the date of the systema- tizing of the oil business upon a legitimate basis.

Oil City's experience has been most notable. In March, 1865, a flood swept away the business portion of the city. Scarcely had the destructive element commenced to recede ere its energetic people proceeded to rebuild again. In May, 1866, fire swept away the main portion of the city that had been rebuilt. The property loss by the flood of 1865 was estimated at five million dollars. For months business was practically suspended, and this was to be added. The loss by the fire footed up over a million of dollars. One item in the loss by the flood was five hundred thousand barrels of oil in boats and oil yards along the river and creek fronts. In this city as well as in other sections of the petroleum territory, fire, flood, business and financial reverses have during the different years taxed its residents to what has seemed the full measure of human endurance. These were met and overcome with the energetic spirit that everywhere and under all circum- stances has characterized the American people. The results are so apparent as to need no special comment here, the subject being given in detail else- where.

To do justice to the oil operators, or as they are generally termed, oil men, whose energy, labor, and capital made the possibilities that have pro- duced the almost phenomenal results of the vast petroleum development, a large chapter would be required. He was the man that prospected the ter- ritory and drilled the wells. Ever in the front he bore the heat and burden of the struggle, taking the chances, at all times uncertain, and whether suc- cessful or otherwise, never losing faith or hope in himself. The writer knows him well, and it is ever a pleasant task to bear testimony to the merits of the type of enterprising, public spirited men who have made a lasting mark on the most extensive and successful mineral development of this busy age. No obstacle has yet proved too great for him to overcome. Drake and his associates were the first prospectors, or "wild catters," and the hundreds that have followed, improving in method, have made the work that formerly required months of unremitting toil a mere matter of days. It required over a year to drill the Drake well to a depth of sixty-nine and a half feet. Drake's entire drilling outfit weighed about one hundred and twenty-five pounds. The drilling outfit of to-day weighs from two thousand to two thousand five hundred pounds, and in cases is even heavier. The average depths in the different fields is from one thousand two hundred to to one thousand five hundred feet, while the depth in the Washington and lower fields is from two thousand to two thousand five hundred feet for oil wells, and the gas veins are struck about nine hundred feet below the aver- age oil measures or rock. Ten days are only a fair record for drilling on

336

HISTORY OF VENANGO COUNTY.

the ordinary fields, though the average, except in case of unusual obstruc- tions or accidents, is from fifteen to twenty days for a well. And the cost has been lessened, notwithstanding the increased depth, from one-half to two-thirds. To enumerate the different appliances devised by the operator to penetrate the earth to any desired depth and overcome all obstacles met with is not requisite. The work of drilling an oil well at present date has to be witnessed to be fully comprehended. All other oil well machinery has kept pace with the drilling apparatus.

Thus equipped the operator goes forth to conquer every obstacle that intervenes between earth's surface and its hidden treasures of oil or gas, and he does so. He traced his belts or forty-five degree lines in the former years, on the natural trend of mineral deposits, northeast to southwest, and opened up many fields. Now he places his faith upon the kind of sandrock he meets. The science of geology plays an important part. In a clearing, hill-side, hill-top, cultivated farm, or in the forest the operator builds his derrick, sinks his well, and if fortune favors him finds himself in the midst of a productive oil field, of greater or less extent. This last is determined by the many who follow and seek to profit by his venture. Pipe lines and settlement follow, towns spring up, and during the excitement flourish and have more or less prosperity. In every direction and in the different states extending from the productive fields of Pennsylvania and Ohio to the far off prospective fields of Wyoming, Colorado, and on the shores of the Pacific, the restless "wild catter " has pushed his way and like Alexander of old, is constantly longing and seeking for new fields to conquer.

From the beginning he has been the pioneer of the business. Those who followed reaped a more permanent harvest. He has ever been on the skirmish line, cleared the way, and left to others the work of details. As the business is a distinctive one, so is the oil operator among all other of the men who are making the material business history of the great western hemisphere. To him is the success that has resulted due, and upon his constant ventures and apparently inexhaustible energy depend its extension and permanence. As a class the oil operator is a gentleman who should be re- ceived with grateful impulses, for prosperity is sure to follow in every locality in which he makes a successful strike. The benefits of increased wealth that he gains for himself are but a small part of that which assures to so many others, creating towns and cities and making prosperous and wealthy what had before his advent been comparatively waste places. He needs no fulsome eulogy. His achievements are a fitting and honored monument to skill, industry, intelligent and unremitting effort.

The petroleum mining and business history is not dissimilar in general respects to that of other mineral developments. If those who bore the burden in the beginning failed to reap the harvest they had planted, it is

337

THE PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT.

mainly due to the cold fact that in the decrees of fate it has been denied to individuals, save in exceptional cases, to realize more than a limited share of earth's wealth. In the beginning all were equal in this favored field, and each and all had their innings.

As previously stated the intention of these sketches is to give an outline of the frame work upon which the petroleum, the greatest of the modern business structures of the American nation, has been built, to date; slso the leading features of the different years. To compress twenty-seven years of such history, any one of which would make a volume the size of this work, into a single, brief chapter, has not been an easy nor an enviable task. No feeling of partiality toward class or locality has actuated the writer. While the omissions are doubtless many, the reader may attribute these more to the limited space allotted to this one feature in what is in- tended to be a general history, than to any desire on the part of the writer. The history of the petroleum development has yet to be written. Its prog- ress is too rapid to admit of more than a record of the passing events which will furnish the historian of the future with such brief data as can be noted in the busy whirl of its ever changing and rapid progress.

Without claim to prophetic vision the writer can see a future for the petro- leum business and those engaged in its various branches, in comparison with which the results of the past are insignificant. The extension of the oil and gas fields to present view appears to be without practical limit. It will only require a few brief years to develop a succession of these from Pennsylvania to the Pacific. Prosperity and all that it entails have ever followed close on the wake of this latest and most wonderful of the developments of nature's resources, stored for ages for the benefit of this, the most favored if not en- lightened, age of progress. Towns and cities will be built along the line marked out, and the settlement along this will exceed in a few years, wherever oil or gas is developed, that which a century of previous effort has failed to accomplish. Heat, light, and power is the motto of petroleum, and all these its products provide in practically inexhaustible measure. Its mission is to light cities, supply heat, and whirl the wheels of every industry, prove indispensable in art, science, and manufactures, sharing its benefits for the best good, in cottage and palace, wherever it reaches. The present cities and those that are to follow from its discovery will become busy centers of manufactures and commerce, and their people reap the reward that has re- sulted in the past in far greater volume. An industry that in little over a decade has taken rank as third in the list of exports from this vast conti- nent, and is as yet in the almost incipient state of its development, has possibilities beyond ordinary comprehension. We can only deal with the past and present of the petroleum industry. That we are now only in the beginning goes without saying. In a few years present methods will be so far superseded as to seem to the observer much as the first locomotive com-

338

HISTORY OF VENANGO COUNTY.

pared with the elaborate structure of the present one. The pipe line will be a familiar sight to the traveler as he journeys from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Venango county, where the petroleum development had its birth, will be found in history for all time to come.

The following table will furnish the reader an approximate basis of the growth, value and extent of the petroleum development in Venango county from 1859 to 1888:

Year.

No. Wells.

Bbls. Produced.

Av'ge Price.

Consumption.

Stock.

1859.

2,000

$20.00

1860

200

200,000

9.60

1861.

300

2,110,000

2.73

1862.

400

3,055,000

1.05

1863.

500

2,610,000

3.15

1864.

1,000

2,130,000

9.873

1865.

1,000

2,721,000

6.59

1866.

900

3,732,000

3.74

1867.

900

3,583,000

2.41

1868.

1,000

3,716,000

3.623

1869.

1,000

4,351,000

5.63₺

1870.

1,044

5,371,000

3.89

3,156,528

554,626

1871.

1,472

5,531,000

4.34

5,553,626

532,000

1872.

1,201

6,357,000

3.64

5,804,577

1,084,423

1873.

1,361

9,932,000

1.83

9,391,226

1,625,157

1874.

1,350

10,883,000

1.17

8,802,513

3,705,639

1875.

2,385

8,801,000

1.35

8,956,439

3,550,200

1876.

2,960

9,015,000

2.56ł

9,740,461

2,824,730

1877.

3,954

13,043,000

2.42

12,739,902

3,127.837

1878.

3,018

15,367,000

1.19

13,879,538

4,615,299

1879.

2,889

19,827,000

.85g

15,971,809

8,470,490

1880.

4,194

26,048,000

.943

15,590,040

18,928,430

1881.

3,848

27,238,000

.857

20,146,726

26,019,704

1882.

3,269

30,460,000

.783

21,883,098

34,596,612

1883.

2,886

24,300,000

1.054

22,096,612

36,800,000

1884.

2,309

23,500,000

.83}

23,500,000

36,800,000

1885.

2,857

20,900,000

.88

23,900,000

33,800,000

1886.

3,525

26,150,000

.71}

26,750,000

33,000,000

1887.

1,679

21,818,037

.66g

26,627,191

28,310,282

1888.

1,504

16,131,000

.872

26,470,655

18,595,474

Engaby FGK . .... "

M. Parks

341

CITY OF FRANKLIN.

CHAPTER XXI.

CITY OF FRANKLIN.

SURVEY AND SALE OF THE TOWN PLAT-SETTLEMENT AND GROWTH -- EARLY SURVEYORS-THE OLD MERCHANTS-EARLY MECHANICS-HOTELS -THE PRESS " THE NURSERY OF GREAT MEN"-EARLY PHYSI- CIANS AND LAWYERS-SOME OLD MINISTERS-THE FIRST SUN- DAY SCHOOL-INCIDENTS AND LANDMARKS-THE OLD WAY OF TRAVELING-ANCIENT ROADS-THE OLD CEMETERY-WATER, LIGIIT, AND SCENERY.

B OTH nature and the governments of this country destined this point to be the county seat. It was at the confluence of two large streams, anciently of more importance than now. France built her fort here as in a commanding position; England did the same, and so did the United States. All things then combined to make this meeting of the waters an important point.

The state reserved from general sales positions for four towns that were laid out under direction of her engineers and called, respectively: Erie, Waterford, Warren, and Franklin. By act of March 24, 1789, the general assembly declared that not exceeding three thousand acres should be sur- veyed at the fort of Venango, for the use of the commonwealth. By act of April 18, 1795, commissioners were appointed to survey one thousand acres of the reservation and lay out therein the town of Franklin. ' The name first applied to the site by Coffen in 1753 is Ganagarahare. This name is used but once. Then it is Weningo, then Wenango, Vinango, and finally Venango.

This engineering work was done by General William Irvine and Andrew Ellicott. They arrived at Fort Franklin in the summer of 1795, accom- panied by a corps of surveyors and escorted by a company of state troops under the command of Captain John Grubb, who subsequently settled in Erie county, where he served for many years as justice of the peace and associate judge.

After walking over the ground a plan was digested to suit the general features of the landscape, and work commenced by running a street one hun- dred feet wide down the creek, then making an angle down the river. Other streets were run parallel with Liberty until the flat was exhausted, when the

342

HISTORY OF VENANGO COUNTY.

proper number of cross streets were made and the whole laid out in lots. In the center of the town where Twelfth street crosses Liberty a large plat of ground was reserved for a public park.

So far the good taste of the engineers was manifest, but when the nam- ing of the streets was undertaken, it would seem as though the only book of reference at hand must have been the catalogue of some zoological garden, as they adopted the names of beasts and birds and fishes and creeping things of the earth. When the town became of sufficient importance to speak of streets by names, the disgusted citizens repudiated these names and a new system of nomenclature was adopted.

The surveys of the four towns mentioned having been completed, Irvine, Ellicott, and George Wilson were appointed state agents for the sale of lots, and in 1796 had the following advertisement inserted in the eastern news- papers:

Agreeably to instructions from his excellency, Thomas Mifflin, Governor of this Commonwealth, we shall offer for sale the following town and outlots of Erie, Water- ford, Franklin, and Warren, at the time and places hereafter specified, viz .. The sale of that portion of town and outlots of the several towns to be disposed of in the city of Philadelphia will commence on Monday, the 25th day of July next; that portion of the town and outlots of the several towns to be disposed of at Carlisle will commence at that borough on Wednesday, the 3rd of August next; and the sale of that portion of the town and outlots of the said towns to be disposed of at Pittsburgh will commence at that borough on Monday, the 15th day of August next.

WILLIAM IRVINE, ANDREW ELLICOTT, GEORGE WILSON, Agents.

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History of Venango County, Pennsylvania : its past and present, including, Part 34

Author: Bell, Herbert C. (Herbert Charles), 1868- Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Chicago : Brown, Runk & Co. Number of Pages: 1323

Author: Bell, Herbert C. (Herbert Charles), 1868-
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Chicago : Brown, Runk & Co.
Number of Pages: 1323