Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 28

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

USA > Pennsylvania > Venango County > Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1) > Part 28

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"The territory boomed immensely. Derricks and engine houses studded the McElhenny farms, which operators hustled to perforate as full of holes as a strainer. To haul machin- ery from the nearest railroad doubled its cost. Pumping five to twenty barrels a day, when ad- jacent wells flowed more hundreds spontane- ously, lost its charm, and most of the small fry were abandoned. A town-Funkville- arose on the northern end of the upper farm, sputtered a year or two, then 'folded its tent like the Arabs and silently stole away.' A search with a microscope would fail to unearth an atom of Funkville or the wells that cre- ated it. Fresh strikes in 1862 kept the fever raging. Davis & Wheelock's No. I poured out one thousand five hundred barrels ; the Dens- more Triplets, on a two-acre crumb, six hun- dred, five hundred and four hundred; the Olmstead, American, Canfield, Aikens, Burtis and two Hibberts, of the vintage of 1863, from two hundred to five hundred barrels each, and a band of lesser pumpers aided in holding the McElhenny field around six thousand five hundred barrels a day for sixteen months. 9

"Almost simultaneously with the mastodonic Empire, the Buckeye well on the George P. Espy farm, east of the lower McElhenny, in September of 1861 set off at a one thousand- barrel trot. The gas for a year forced the oil into tanks, two hundred feet up the steep hill, placed there for lack of room on the strip of level ground supporting the derrick. The pro- duction fell to eighty barrels and, tiring of a climbing job which smacked of Sisyphus and the rolling stone, rested permanently. From this spectacular well J. T. Briggs, broad- gauged and gilt-edged, manager of the Briggs and the Gillette Oil Companies, in 1862 shipped to Europe the first consignment of American petroleum ever sent across the Atlantic. The Buckeye Belle stood waist-high to its consort, a dozen others on the slope and hill-top pro- duced gently, and Northrop Brothers operated a refinery.

"North and west, at the bend of Oil creek, lay John Benninghoff's hilly three hundred acres, through which Benninghoff run flowed southward, Pioneer run crossing the northeast corner, the first developed. Some wells pumped and more spouted twenty-five to three hundred barrels seven days a week, taking no holidays nor vacations. The owner refused tempting offers for a potato-patch until he could dig the tubers. The Lady Herman, which Robert Herman politely named for his wife, was a two hundred-barrel beauty. Wil- liam Jenkins, the Huidekoper Oil Company, the Dekalb Company and Edward Harkins hooked bonanzas." Operations spread back of the hills and into the township. The first well ever cased and the first pump-station, piping crude to Shaffer, were on the hillside at the mouth of Benninghoff run. These and the platoon of wells John Mather photographed in 1866, within an hour of their destruction by fire that swept the hill bare as Mother Hub- bard's cupboard, lightning touching off a rig. Wealth surfeited the frugal landowner, who distrusted banks and stored his pelf in a cheap safe in the sitting-room, stocking it with a half-million dollars in gold and greenbacks. Cautious friends vainly warned him to be care- ful, lest 'thieves break through and steal.' James Saegar, a fly youth of Saegertown, en- gaged two Baltimore burglars and enlisted four pals to loot the flimsy safe. At midnight on Thursday, Jan. 16, 1868, Saegar and three of his party knocked at Benninghoff's door and were admitted by Henry Geiger, who worked on the farm and slept in the house. Binding and gagging the father, mother, daughter and Geiger, the marauders made short work of

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opening and rifling the safe. They bundled up $265,000, mostly in gold, missed $200,000 in large bills wrapped in a brown paper, sampled Mrs. Benninghoff's pie, drank a gallon of milk and drove off in their two-horse sleigh. Joseph Benninghoff, the son, who had attended a dance at Petroleum Center, returned in 'the wee sma' hours,' untied the prisoners and sounded the alarm. Telegraph wires flashed the news broadcast, papers printed sensational reports, and by noon on Friday the oil regions were agog and people all over the United States talked of 'The Great Benninghoff Rob- bery.' Three of the accomplices were con- victed and sent to the penitentiary, the pro- fessionals fled to Canada and could not be extradited, Saegar adjourned to Texas to raise cattle, Benninghoff sold his Venango prop- erty in the spring and removed to Mercer county, dying at Greenville in 1882.

"West and north of Benninghoff were the farms of John and Robert Stevenson. On the former, extending to Oil creek, in 1863 Reu- ben Painter, whom everybody liked for his courage and cheerfulness, drilled an interest- ing well. The contractor reporting it dry, Painter moved the machinery and canceled the lease. He and his brothers operated profitably in Butler and Mckean counties, Reuben dying at Olean in 1892. In November of 1864 the Ocean Oil Company of Philadelphia bought John Stevenson's lands. The Ocean well flowed at a six hundred-barrel pace on Sept. I, 1865, with the Arctic a good second. Fifty others varied from fifty to two hundred. Thomas McCool built a refinery and the farm paid the company two thousand per cent! The principal wells on both Stevenson tracts clus- tered far above the flats, the derricks and buildings resembling 'a city set on a hill.' Painter's alleged dry-hole, drilled seventeen feet deeper, gushed furiously, the best well in the collection. Said the Ocean manager, as he watched the oily stream ascend: 'A million dollars wouldn't touch one side of this prop- erty!' Sinking a four-inch hole seventeen feet farther would have given Reuben Painter this splendid return two years earlier. Phillips Brothers, Isaac N., Charles M., John I. and Thomas M., hailing from New Castle, cut a melon south of the Epsy and on the Niagara tract, Cherrytree run, the foundation of their ample fortunes and colossal strides in various fields.

PETROLEUM CENTER HAS ITS INNING

"Surrounded by farms unrivaled as oil ter- ritory and sold to Woods & Wright of New

York at a fancy price, James Boyd's seventy- five acres in Cornplanter township, south of the lower McElhenny, dodged the petroleum ar- terv. The sands were there, but so barren of oil that nine tenths of the forty wells did not pay one tenth their cost. The Boyd farm was for months the terminus of the railroad from Corry. Hotels and refineries were built and the place had a short existence, a brief inter- val separating its lying-in and its laying-out.

"G. W. McClintock, in February of 1864, sold his two hundred acres on the west side of Oil creek, midway between Titusville and Oil City, to the Central Petroleum Company of New York, organized by Frederic Prentice and George H. Bissell. The farm embraced the site of Petroleum Center and Wild-Cat Hollow, a circular ravine three fourths of a mile long, in which two hundred paying wells were drilled, Brown, Catlin & Co.'s medium one, finished in August of 1861, the first on the tract. The company bored a multitude of wells and granted leases only to actual oper- ators, for one-half royalty and a large bonus. For ten one-acre leases $100,000 cash and one half the oil, offered by a New York firm in 1865, were refused. The Mcclintock well, drilled in 1862, figured in the one thousand- barrel class. The Coldwater, Meyer, Clark, Anderson, Fox, Swamp-Ange! and Bluff made enviable records. Altogether the Central Pe- troleum Company and the corps of lessees har- vested at least $5,000,000 from the Mcclintock farm. The company staked off a half dozen streets and leased building lots at exorbitant figures. Board dwellings, offices, hotels, saloons and wells mingled promiscuously. Poor fare, worse beds and the worst liquors were tolerated by the hordes who flocked to the land of derricks. The owners of the ground opposed a borough organization and the town traveled at a headlong go-as-you- please. Sharpers and prostitutes flourished, with no fear of human or divine law. Dance- houses nightly counted their revelers by hun- dreds. Kindred spirits, like Woods, Frank Ripley, Edward Fox, David Young and Colonel Brady, were not hard to discover. George K. Anderson figured conspicuously, his income exceeding $5,000 a day for two years. He built a sumptuous residence at Ti- tusville, sought political preferment, served in the State Senate, bought thousands of acres of land, plunged deeply into stocks and insured his life for $315,000, at that time the largest risk in the country. If he sneezed or coughed the agents of the insurance companies grew nervous and summoned a posse of doctors to

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consult about the case. Outside speculations swamped him at last. The stately mansion, piles of bonds and scores of farms passed un- der the sheriff's hammer in 1880. Anderson tried the Bradford field, operating on Har- risburg run. The result was discouraging. He entered an insurance office in New York, and accepted a government berth in New Mexico. He arrived at his post, sickened and died in a few days, 'a stranger in a strange land.' For two or three years 'The Centre'-called that for convenient brevity-acted as a sort of safety-valve to blow off the surplus wickedness of the regions. Then 'the handwriting on the wall' manifested itself. Clarion and Butler speedily reduced the four thousand population to a remnant. Charley Wicker's Record col- lapsed, homes were torn down, and the giddy throngs scattered to the four winds. Bissell's brick bank building, two vacant churches, a weather-beaten hall, an apology for a depot and a modicum of dwellings are sole survivors of what was once surging, seething Petroleum Center.

A PATCH THAT YIELDED MILLIONS

"On the east side of the stream was Alex- ander Davidson's triangular plot of thirty-eight acres, a mud-flat, a portion of rising ground and the rest edgewise. Dr. A. G. Egbert, who had recently hung out his shingle at Cherry- tree village, in 1860 negotiated for the farm. Davidson died, a hitch in the title delayed the deal, but finally Mrs. Davidson signed the deed for $2,600 and one twelfth the oil. Charles

Hyde paid the Doctor this amount in 1862 for one half his purchase and it was termed the Hyde & Egbert farm. The Hollister well in 1861, the first on the land, flowed strongly. Owing to the dearness and scarcity of barrels, the oil was let run into the creek and the well was never tested. The lessees could not afford, as their contract demanded, to barrel the half due the land owners, because crude was selling at twenty-five cents and barrels at four dollars. Jerseyites in the spring of 1863 drilled the Jer- sey well on the south end of the property, which flowed three hundred barrels a day for nine months, another draining it early in 1864. The Maple Shade well touched the right spot in the third sand on Aug. 5. 1863, starting at one thousand barrels, averaging eight hundred for ten months, dropping to fifty the second year and holding pat until 1869. Fire on March 2, 1864, burned the rig and twenty-eight tanks of oil, but the well kept flowing just the same, netting the owners a clear profit of

$1,600,000. Maple Shade was only one of twenty-three healthy wells on the 'measly patch' poor Davidson offered in 1860 for $1,000.

"Companies and individuals strained and tugged to get even the smallest lease. Prob- ably no parcel of ground in America of equal size ever yielded a larger return, in proportion to expenditure. Six weeks' production of either of the two biggest gushers would drill all the wells and erect all the tanks on the property. The Keystone, Gettysburg, Kepler, Eagle, Benton, Olive Branch, Laurel Hill, Bird and Potts wells, with a score of minor note, maintained production that paid the holders of the royalty $8,000 a day in 1864-5. E. B. Grandin, William C. Hyde, A. C. Kepler and Titus Ridgway clinched a lease of one acre on the west side of the lot, north of the wells already down, subject to three-quarters roy- alty. Kepler dreamed that an Indian menaced him with bow and arrow. A coquettish young lady handed him a rifle, he fired at the dusky foe, the redskin vamoosed and a stream of oil burst forth. Visiting his brother, who super- intended the farm, he recognized the scene of his dream, secured a lease, and bored the Coquette well in the spring of 1864. Each partner would be entitled to one sixteenth of the oil. Hyde & Ridgway sold their interest for $10,000 a few days before the tools reached the sand. This interest Dr. M. C. Egbert, brother of the purchaser of the farm, next bought at a large advance. He had one sixth in fee and wished to own the Coquette. Gran- din and Kepler declined to sell. The well was finished and did not flow. Tubed and pumped a week, gas checked its working and the sucker rods were pulled. Immediately the oil streamed high in the air. Twelve hundred barrels a day was the gauge at first, settling to steady business for a year at eight hundred. A double row of tanks lined the bank, con- nected by pipes to load boats in bulk. Oil was 'on the jump' and the first cargo of ten thou- sand barrels brought $90,000, ten days' pro- duction. Three months later Grandin and Kepler sold their one eighth for $145,000. Kepler was a dreamer whom Joseph might be proud to accept as a chum.

"Dr. M. C. Egbert retained his share. Riches showered upon him by thousands of dollars a day. He built a comfortable home and lived on the tract. In company with John Brown, afterward manager of a big corpora- tion at Bradford, he sought to control the shipping branch of the trade and failed. He went to California, returned to Pennsylvania,

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operated in Mckean county and settled in Pittsburgh. Dr. A. G. Egbert sold one twelfth of the Coquette well for $250,000, cleared at least $1,500,000 from the Davidson investment, pitched his tent in Franklin, served capably in Congress and died in 1896. Charles Hyde en- gaged with his father and two brothers in mer- chandising and lumbering, originating Hyde- town, four miles above Titusville. The Hydes frequently procured oil from the 'springs' on Oil creek, selling it for medicine as early as 1841. From their store Colonel Drake ob- tained tools and supplies that Titusville could not furnish. Charles organized the Hydetown Oil Company, which drilled a two hundred- barrel well on the McClintock farm below Rouseville in 1860. He operated at different points, taking $2,000,000 from the Hyde & Egbert farm. Founding the Second National Bank at Titusville in 1865, he removed to New Jersey in 1869 and died in 1901, bequeathing $8,000,000 to his family and charity.

"The bluff overlooking Petroleum Center from the east formed the western side of the McCray farm. At its base, on the Hyde & Egbert plot, were several of the finest wells in Pennsylvania, the Coquette almost touching McCray's line. Dr. M. C. Egbert leased part of the slope and drilled three wells. Other parties drilled five and the eight behaved so handsomely that the owner of the land declined an offer, in 1865, of $500,000 for his eighty acres. A well on top of the hill, not deep enough to hit the sand and believed to be dry, postponed further operations five years. Jon- athan Watson, advised by a clairvoyant, in the spring of 1870 drilled a three hundred and thirty-three-barrel well on the uplands of the Dalzell farm, close to the southern boundary of the McCray. The clairvoyant's astonishing guess revived interest in Petroleum Center, which for a year or two had been on the down grade. Besieged for leases, McCray could not meet a tithe of the demand at $1,000 an acre and half the oil. Every well tapped the pool underlying fifteen acres, pumping as if draw- ing from a lake of petroleum. Within four months the daily production was three thou- sand barrels, for the landowner a regular in- come of $9,000 a day for the last quarter of 1870 and nine months of 1871. from one sixth of a farm sold to him in 1850 for $1,700. Mc- Cray's first venture in oil, a share in a two-acre lease at Rouseville, profited him $70,000. In- stead of selling his oil right along at an aver- age of five dollars, he stored one hundred and fifty thousand barrels in iron tanks, to await higher prices, rejecting a bid of $5.35 and in-

sisting upon $5.50. He kept it for years, los- ing thousands of barrels by leakage and evapo- ration and selling the bulk of it at one to two dollars. McCray removed to Franklin in 1872 and died long since. The wells drooped and withered and the fifteen-acre field is a pasture.

"The Dalzell or Hayes farm, on which the first well-fifty barrels-was drilled in 1861, boasted the Porcupine, Rhinoceros, Ramcat, Wildcat, and a menagerie of thirty others rang- ing from fifteen to three hundred. At the north end of the farm, in the rear of the Ma- ple Shade and Jersey wells, the Petroleum Shaft and Mining Company attempted to sink a hole seven feet by seventeen to the third sand. The shaft was dug and blasted one hun- dred feet, at immense cost. The funds ran out, gas threatened to asphyxiate the work- men, the big pumps could not exhaust the water, and the project was given up.

"East of Petroleum Center, three miles, on the bank of a limpid stream, John E. Mc- Laughlin, still living in Oil City, drilled a one thousand four hundred-barrel gusher in 1868. The sand was coarse, the oil dark, and the strike a surprise. Wide-awake operators struck a bee-line for ieases. A town was float- ed in two weeks, a grocer erecting the first building and labeling the place 'Cash-Up' as a gentle hint to patrons not to let their accounts get musty with age. A twelvemonth sufficed to sponge the town off the slate. Small wells and dry holes ruled the roost, even those nudg- ing 'the big 'un' missing the pay-streak. The Mclaughlin pumped seven years, having the reservoir all to itself. Located ten rods away in any direction, it would have been a duster and Cash-Up would not have existed. Two miles away Windsor Brothers, who built the Windsor block and had a hardware store in Oil City, lassoed a three hundred-barreler in 1869. Others followed rapidly, folks flocked to the newest center of attraction and a typical oil town strutted to the front. The territory lacked the staying quality, the Butler region was about to down, and 1871 saw Red-Hot reduced to three houses, a half dozen light wells and a muddy road. Not a scrap of the tropical town has been visible for four decades. Tip-Top, called into being by the Shamburg development and Pitcher's fair well, in 1866, on the Snedaker tract, also filled a short en- gagement. A medley of wells yielded pretty freely, but the territory depreciated and the elevated town glided down to nothingness. Carl Wageforth, a genius known in early years as one of the owners of the Story farm, started a 'town' in the woods two miles above

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Shamburg. The 'town' collapsed, Wageforth clung to his store a season and next turned up in Texas as the founder of a Ger- man colony. He secured a claim in the Lone Star State about the size of Rhode Island, set- tled it with thrifty immigrants from the 'Fad- erland,' scooped a bushel of ducats, drifted back to Crawford county, and died at Mead- ville.

BIG BONANZAS SET THE PACE

"William Story owned five hundred acres south of the G. W. McClintock farm, Oil creek, the Dalzell and Tarr farms bounding his land on the east. He sold in 1859 to Ritchie, Hartje & Co., of Pittsburgh, for $30,000. George H. Bissell had negotiated for the property, but Mrs. Story would not sign the deed. Next day Bissell returned to offer the wife a sufficient inducement, but the Pittsburgh agent had been there the previous evening and secured her signature to the Ritchie-Hartje deed by the promise of a silk dress. A twenty-dollar gown changed the ultimate ownership of mil- lions of dollars. The seven Pittsburghers or- ganized a stock company in 1860 to develop the farm, incorporated on May 1, 1861, as the Columbia Oil Company, with a nominal capital of $250,000, in shares of $25 each. Twenty- one thousand barrels of oil were produced in 1861 and ninety thousand in 1862, shares sell- ing at $2 to $10. Foreign demand for oil im- proved matters. On July 8, 1863, the first dividend of 30 per cent. was declared, followed in August and September by two of 25 per cent. and in October by one of 50 per cent. Four dividends, aggregating 160 per cent., were declared the first six months of 1864. The capital was increased to $2,500,000 by calling in the old stock and giving each holder of a twenty-five dollar share five new ones of $50 apiece. Four hundred per cent. were paid on this capital stock in six years! The orig- inal stockholders received their money back forty-three times, and had ten times their first stock to keep on drawing fat dividends! A person who bought one hundred shares in 1862 at two dollars, in eight years would have been paid $107,000 and have five hundred fifty- dollar shares on hand! From a mere speck of the Story farm the Columbia Oil Company in ten years produced oil that sold for $11,000,- 000. Andrew Carnegie, king bee of the steel trade, was a stockholder. The policy of the company was to operate its lands systematic- ally. Wells were not drilled at random over the farm, nor were leases granted to specu-

lators. The wells, never amazingly large, held on tenaciously. The Ladies' produced sixty- five thousand barrels, the Floral sixty thou- sand, the Big Tanks fifty thousand, the Story Center forty-five thousand, the Breedtown forty thousand, the Cherry Run fifty-five thou- sand, the Titus pair one hundred thousand and the Perry thirty-five thousand. The com- pany erected machine shops, built houses for employes, and the village of Columbia thrived. The Columbia Cornet Band, superbly appoint- ed, its thirty members in rich uniforms, its instruments the finest and its drum-major an acrobatic revelation, could have given Gil- more's or Sousa's points in ravishing music. G. S. Bancroft superintended the wells and D. H. Boulton assisted in conducting affairs. The village has vanished, the cornet band is hushed, the field is the prey of weeds and underbrush and brakemen no more call out 'Columby.' A few small wells, hidden amid the hills, pro- duce a morsel of oil, but the farm, despoiled of $16,000,000 of greasy treasure, would not bring one tenth the price paid William Story for it in the fall of 1859.

"James Tarr, a strong-limbed, loud-voiced, stout-hearted son of toil, farming in summer and hauling timber in winter to support his family, owned two hundred acres on the east bank of Oil creek, opposite the southern half of the Story farm. For himself, George B Delamater and I .. L. Lamb, in the summer of 1860, Orange Noble leased seven acres of the Tarr farm, at the bend in Oil creek. Dry holes which the partners 'kicked down' on the Stackpole and Jones farms dampening their ardor, they let the Tarr lease lie some months. Contracting with a Townville neighbor-N. S. Woodford-to juggle the 'spring-pole,' he cracked the first sand in June, 1861. The Crescent well tipped the beam at five hundred barrels. The first well on the Tarr farm, it flowed an average of three hundred and fifty barrels a day for a year, quitting without no- tice. It produced one hundred and twenty- five thousand barrels, yet paid not a dollar of profit, crude most of the period of its ex- istence bringing ten to twenty-five cents, drill- ing, royalty and tankage absorbing every nickel. On the evening of Aug. 1, 1861, as Tarr sat eating his supper of fried pork and johnny- cake, Herman Janes, of Erie, entered the room. 'Tarr,' he said, 'I'll give you $60,000 in spot cash for your farm!' Tarr almost fell off his chair. A year before $1,000 would have been big money for the whole planta- tion. 'I mean it,' continued the visitor; 'if you take me up I'll close the deal right here !'

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Tarr 'took him up' and the deal, which includ- ed a transfer of several leases, was closed quickly. Janes planked down the $60,000 and Tarr had stepped from poverty to affluence. This was the first large cash transaction in oil lands on the creek and people promptly pro- nounced Janes a proper candidate for the asy- lum. A short distance below the Crescent well William Phillips, who had leased a strip the whole length of the farm, was urging a 'spring pole' lustily on his Phillips No. I, in the spring of 1861. The Crescent's unexpected suc- cess spurred him to greater efforts. Hurrying an engine and boiler from Pittsburgh, he start- ed his second well on the flat twenty rods north of the Crescent. The first sand, from which meanwhile No. I was rivaling the Crescent's yield, had not a pinch of oil, but Phillips hus- tled the tools and on Oct. 19th, at four hun- dred and eighty feet, pierced the shell above the third sand. At dusk he shut down for the night. The weather was clear and the moon shone brightly. Suddenly a vivid flame illumined the sky, Reuben Painter's well on the Blood farm, a mile southward, had caught fire and blazed furiously. The rare spectacle of a burning well attracted everybody for miles. Phillips and Janes hastened to the fire, returning about midnight. An hour later they were summoned from bed by a man yelling : 'The Phillips is bu'sted and runnin' down the creek !' People ran to the spot on the double- quick, past the Crescent and down the bank. Gas was settling densely upon the flats and into the creek oil was pouring lavishly. For three or four days the flow raged unhindered, then a lull occurred and tubing was inserted. After the seed-bag swelled, a stop-cock was placed on the tubing and opened when oil was wanted, wooden troughs conveying the stuff to boats drawn up the creek by horses, the chief mode of transportation. The oil was 44° gravity and four thousand barrels a day gushed out. In June of 1862 a careful gauge showed it was doing three thousand six hun- dred and sixty barrels. The Phillips well held the champion belt twenty-seven years. It pro- duced until 1871, getting down to ten or twelve barrels and ceasing altogether the night James Tarr expired, having yielded nine hundred and fifty thousand barrels. Cargoes of the oil were sold to boatmen at five cents a barrel, thousands of barrels were wasted, tens of thousands were stored in underground tanks, and much was sold at three to thirteen dol- lars.

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Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 28

Author: Babcock, Charles A. Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: