Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 30

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 30

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short metre, hatless men and aproned women rushed to the scene, babies cried, children screamed, dogs barked, a church bell rang and two horses ran away. It was a red-letter forenoon in the annals of the placid county seat. That evening a young lawyer called at the Evans domicile, a daughter of the lucky smith greeting him at the door and saying jok- ingly : 'Dad's struck ile!' The expression caught the town, making a bigger hit than the well itself, printed everywhere, and booked for immortality. Sufficient oil, sold at $30 a barrel, was pumped to install steam power, increasing the grist to seventy barrels. Frederick Pren- tice, straight from Toledo, bid $40,000 for the well and lot and the same week an offer of $200,000 was likewise rejected, the owner sticking to the prize package, which declined to eight or ten barrels in six months. The price of oil shrank correspondingly, but Evans realized a competence, living some years to enjoy it quietly. Mosely & Co., of Philadel- phia, leased the well. It stood idle, the engine was taken away, the rig tumbled and the hole filled up with dirt and wreckage. Prices spurt- ed and it was hitched to a pumping rig operat- ing others. Capt. S. A. Hull ran a group of the wells on the flats and a dozen three miles down the Allegheny. His death in 1893 re- sulted in dismantling most of these wells, hard- ly a vestige remaining to tell that the Evans and its neighbors ever existed.

"The Franklin Oil & Mining Company, the first chartered while Evans was juggling the tools, drilled a well a few rods below on Oct. 5th, finding oil at two hundred and forty feet on Jan. 12, 1860. It pumped about half as much as the Evans for months and did not die of old age, its forty-two shares of stock ad- vancing tenfold in a week. The company sank three others and dissolved. In February, 1860, Caldwell & Co., a block southeast of Evans, finished a paying well at two hundred feet. The Farmers' and Mechanics' Company drilled a medium producer at the foot of High street, on the bank of the creek. Numerous compa- nies and individuals pushed work in the spring. Holes were sunk in front yards, gardens and water wells. Franklin was the objective point of immense crowds. The Mammoth, the first spouter, flowed one hundred barrels and in- tensified the excitement. Twenty-two wells were drilling and as many producing on July Ist. Farms for miles up French creek had been bought at high prices and the noise of the drill burdened the summer air. Sugar creek, emptying into French creek three miles west of Franklin, shared in the activity, and

the county farm is not yet out of the run- ning. Prices 'came down like a thousand of brick.' Pumping was expensive, lands were scarce and dear, hauling the oil to a railroad cost half its value, and hosts of small wells were abandoned. On Nov. Ist, within the borough limits, fifteen were yielding one hun- dred and forty barrels. Curtz & Strain had bored five hundred feet in October, the deep- est in the neighborhood, without finding addi- tional oil-bearing rock. 'Point Hill,' across French creek from the Evans well, went beg- ging for a purchaser at $1,500. At its south- ern base were profitable wells, but nobody dreamed of boring through the steep 'Point.' which Dr. A. G. Egbert and Col. James Bleak- tey bought at a nominal price, pocketing a keg of cash from royalties. The first well far up the ascent whetted the appetite for more, the basis of a dozen clean fortunes. Operations scaled the hills and invaded Sugar Creek town- ship. The Lamberton and McCalmont farms, the site of Rocky Grove, and the Galloway, were riddled with holes, enlarging the borders of the pool. A streak of black oil appeared on Two-Mile run, kin to that found in 1870 a mile beyond Hannaville, the northwest edge of the lubricating field. Cooperstown tests responded too feebly to stand alone, a de- tached pool at Sugar Lake doled out tiny pumpers, Utica was not quite within the cir- cle, and the production dropped from one hun- dred and thirty thousand barrels in 1875 to eighty-eight thousand barrels in 1877, to sev- enty thousand in 1878 and to sixty thousand in 1883, from one thousand three hundred and fifty wells, many times the present totals. The price of crude has stayed at $4 a barrel for a quarter-century.

"Taft & Payn laid a pipe line to the river in 1870, extended it to Galloway in 1872 and combined with the Franklin line in 1878. The principal manufacturer of lubricants is the world-famed Galena-Signal Oil Company, de- veloped by Gen. Charles Miller from a mini- ature plant in 1869, near the Evans well, to the magnificent works in the Third ward, seven acres of buildings and storage tanks. Every. appliance that skill and money can secure has been provided, ensuring the uniform grades of oils with unerring precision and supplying 98 per cent. of the railroad mileage of the United States and Canada, besides leading roads in Europe, an unapproachable record. The company also manufactures valve and sig- nal oils, perfected by Joseph C. Sibley and in constant use on practically every railway be- neath the Stars and Stripes. Oil transformed

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Franklin from a drowsy hamlet into Ameri- ca's most attractive hive of ten thousand busy bees, its industrial per capita leading the whole world in value and tonnage.

DOWN THE WINDING ALLEGHENY

"Starting with the Albion well at South Oil City, Cranberry township revealed the pro- ductive Milton field, back of the hills shelter- ing Reno, with a vigorous offshoot at Bredins- burg and nibbles at intervals, not omitting the environs of Monarch Park, Deep Hollow, the Dale lands, and specks between Prentice and Cochran. The first well on the Cochran farm, two miles below Franklin, started to flow one hundred barrels a day in February, 1860, from the second sand, the oil bringing $14 at the tank. Eighty wells on the tract, a score of them now pumping, were remunerative. Bran- don, Tarkiln, Ten-Mile Bottom and Hill City had fair innings. A mile up East Sandy creek, separating Cranberry and Rockland, a well sunk in 1864 exuded gas, caught fire and blazed seven years. Patrick Canning and E. E. Wightman drilled five good wells in 1871 and Gas City vaporized and flickered out. Here and there in the interior of Rockland small pools appeared and small wells are yet pump- ing, the 'burning well' and a number around Pittsville and Freedom having passed into ob- livion. The McMillan and ninety-nine com- panions headed a paying list, and Gregory, an ephemeral town, toddled into the limelight. Back a half-mile the territory was tricky, wells that showed for genuine strikes sometimes fall- ing flat. The wells retired from business, the depot burned, and Kennerdell Station was sub- stituted, a mile northward. Nickleville pool and a bunch of commonplace wells at Emlen- ton, up Ritchey run and at Agnew's Mills, summed up Richland's allotment, Pinegrove staying in the rear.

"The Hoover well, the first south of Frank- lin, in Sandy Creek township, flowed one hun- dred barrels from the second sand on Dec. 21, 1859, a pretty Christmas surprise. The Drake was for light, the Evans for grease and the Hoover combined the two in part, produc- ing for four years, and additional wells keeping up a generous yield. Fifteen of the first six- teen wells at Foster gladdened the hearts of the owners. Angell & Prentice brought Bully Hill and Mount Hope to the front, their finest entry a two hundred-barreler, and George V. Forman counted out $150,000 for a slice of the territory. Considerable drilling at Polk

proved of little account. Raymilton yielded enough to warrant a small refinery and a pipe line to connect at Hilliard's Mills with the But- ler system. C. D. Angell leased blocks of land from Foster to Scrubgrass in 1870-71, and numerous wells tended to confirm his 'belt the- ory.' Sixty farmers joined forces in 1859 to sink the first well in Scrubgrass township, on the Rhodaberger farm, punched it six hundred feet, declined to pay further assessments, and spilled the community of interest. The first productive well was Aaron Kepler's on the Russell farm, in 1863, and John Crawford's farm had the largest of the early trials. On the Witherup farm, at the mouth of Scrub- grass creek, paying wells were drilled in 1867 and Andrew Rapp rang in a three hundred- barrel gusher forty-five years later. Skirmish- ing was done without startling results. The first drilling in Clinton township was on the Kennerdell property, two miles west of the Allegheny, the Big Bend Oil Company sink- ing a dry hole in 1864-5. Jonathan Watson bored two in 1871, finding traces of oil in a thin layer of sand. On Aug. 9, 1876, John Taylor and Robert Cundle finished a two hun- dred-barrel spouter on the George W. Gealy farm, two miles north of Kennerdell. They sold to Phillips Brothers, who were drilling on neighboring farms. The new strike opened the Bullion field, toward which the current turned forthwith. Wells from one hundred to one thousand barrels were in order. Mit- chell & Lee's Big Injun, the mogul of them all, flowed three thousand one hundred barrels on June 18, 1877, and Franklinites drilled the dri- est kind of a hole eight rods away. The Bull- ion field extended seven miles in length and a scant mile in width, swerving the tide from Bradford and ruling the petroleum roost for over a year. Summit City, on the Simcox farm, Beringer City and Dean City flourished during the furore. Summit's first house was built on Dec. 8, 1876; in June, 1877, the town polled two hundred buildings and one thou- sand five hundred people; Abram Myers, its last resident, departed in April, 1889. The Bullion-Clinton district is now producing about four thousand barrels a month. Four hundred wells in the Bessmer field, Mercer county, pump a couple hundred barrels of light oil, adapted particularly to gasoline, and Lees- burg has a detached pool of dark complexion and slight dimensions. Lawrence county's seepages had small substance, Slippery Rock failing to back up its 'copious indications' when the drill sampled the supposed territory.

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PITHOLE AND PLEASANTVILLE APPEAR

"The Evans and Hoover wells at Franklin confirmed the view of men who did not be- lieve the petroleum sun was doomed to rise and set on Oil creek. Operators ventured up the ravines, ascended the hills and began to take chances miles away. The largest of twenty- five or thirty wells drilled around Walnut Bend, in President township, six miles up the river from Oil City, in 1860-65, was rated at two hundred barrels. Four miles farther, two miles northeast of the mouth of Pithole creek. Henry's Bend perpetuates the name of a pio- neer. The farm opposite, at the crown of the bend, Heydrick Brothers, of French Creek township, leased in the fall of 1859. Jesse Heydrick organized the Wolverine Oil Company, the second ever formed to drill for petroleum. Thirty shares of stock constituted its capital of $10,500. The first well, one hun- dred and sixty feet deep, pumped ten barrels a day. The second, also sunk in 1860, at three hundred feet flowed one thousand five hundred barrels. Beside this giant the Drake was a midget, the production of the Heydrick spout- er doubling that of all the others in the region put together. The oil was run into a piece of low ground and formed a pond through which yawl-boats were rowed fifty rods. By this means seven hundred barrels a day could be saved. Drawing the tubing decreased the yield and rendered pumping necessary. The well flowed and pumped about one hundred thousand barrels, doing eighty a day in 1864-65, when the oldest producer in Venango county. It was a ce- lebrity in its time and immensely profitable, one cargo boated to Pittsburgh one Christmas week selling at $13, three days before a thaw cleared the ice and glutted the market at $1.50. Wolverine shares climbed out of sight, Mr. Heydrick buying them in at from $4,000 to $15,000 each, to sell the larger portion on the basis of $1,500,000 for the farm and seventy wells the brothers, styled 'The Big Four,' drilled on the property. Edwin E. Clapp re- fused to sell, lease or operate his six thousand acres in the same township, ultimately letting Kahle Brothers drill on two hundred acres that yielded unstintedly. Hussey & McBride had a large production on the Henry farm in 1860- 61, begetting Henryville, of whose houses, ho- tels, stores and shipping platform no scrap sur- vives. C. Curtiss bought the McCrea tract of four hundred acres in 1861 and started the Eagle Oil Company of Philadelphia, which drilled many fair wells. the town of Eagle Rock rising to the dignity of three hundred buildings and taking the ordinary tumble.

"Nervy men invaded the northeastern quar- ter of Cornplanter township, tying up lands along Pithole creek, a tributary of the Alle- gheny at Oleopolis, three miles below Eagle Rock. An Oleopolis well struck a vein of gas, which ignited and flamed high, envelop- ing the derrick and scorching the bewildered driller, who yelled to his employer: 'Boss, jump into the river; I've knocked the bung out and hell's spilling over!' I. N. Frazer organ- ized the United States Oil Company, leased part of the Holmden farm, seven miles up the creek, and started a well in the fall of 1864. At six hundred feet the 'sixth sand' was punc- tured. Ten feet farther, on Jan. 7, 1865, the torrent broke loose, the well flowing six hun- dred and fifty barrels a day and ceasing final- ly on Nov. 10th. Kilgore & Keenan's Twin wells, good for eight hundred barrels, were finished on Jan. 17th and 19th. Unfathomable mud and disastrous floods held back the hegira from other sections, only to intensify the ex- citement when it found vent. Duncan & Pra- ther bought Holmden's land for $25,000 and divided the flats and slopes into half-acre leases. The first of May witnessed a small clearing in the forest, with three oil wells, one drilling well and three houses. Three months later the world gasped to hear of a city of sixteen thousand inhabitants, possessing most of the conveniences and luxuries of the largest and oldest communities. Capitalists eager to invest their greenbacks thronged to the scene. Labor and produce commanded ex- travagant figures, and every farm for miles was leased or bought at fabulous rates. New strikes perpetually inflated the mania. The Homestead well in June was a gusher; the Deshler, on Aug. Ist, started at one hundred barrels; the Grant, on Aug. 2d, at four hun- dred and fifty barrels; the Poole, on Aug. 28th, at eight hundred barrels ; the Ogden, on Sept. 5th. at one hundred barrels; the Poole & Perne, on Sept. 15th, at four hundred barrels, and the latter increased to eight hundred barrels, the Grant likewise mounting to seven hundred barrels. Speculators roamed far and wide in quest of the subterranean wealth that promised to outrival the golden measures of California or the silver lodes of Nevada. The value of oil lands was reckoned by millions. Small interests in single wells brought hun- dreds of thousands of dollars. Hosts of adven- turers sought the new Oil Dorado and the stocks of countless 'petroleum companies' were scattered broadcast over Europe and America. For the Holmden farm and wells,

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daily producing five thousand barrels of seven- dollar crude and seventy drilling under lease, Chicagoans paid $1,600,000 in the fall of 1865. James Rooker received $280,000 for his one hundred acres south of the Holmden, the buyers promptly disposing of ninety leases for $400,000 in bonuses and half the oil. A neighbor refused $800,000 for his barren acres. 'I don't keer ter hev my buckwheat tramped over,' he explained, 'but youse kin hev th' farm next winter for a mill- yun !' He kept the farm, reaped his crop, and was not disturbed until lodged in a plot six feet by two.

"Pithole post office ranked third in Pennsyl- vania, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh alone ex- celling it. There were sixty hotels; theaters, saloons, gambling dens and questionable re- sorts were counted by the score, two churches and schools denoting the moral sentiment. A fire department was organized, a daily paper printed and a mayor elected. The Swords- men's Club enjoyed a national reputation for hospitality and good cheer. Railways to Reno and Oleopolis were nearly completed before 'the beginning of the end' came with terrible swiftness. Fire wiped out the 'Tremont Ho- tel' and adjoining houses in February of 1866. Eighty buildings went up in smoke on May Ist and June 13th, and thirty wells and twenty thousand barrels of oil in August. Wells de- clined seriously in November and December, and the laying of pipe lines to Miller Farm and Oleopolis in one week drove one thousand five hundred teams to seek work elsewhere. The finest buildings were torn down to serve at Pleasantville and Oil City. The disappearance of Pithole was not less surprising than its un- precedented growth. In 1876 six voters re- mained, and now a dilapidated tenement, a de- serted church and traces of streets and cellars are lonely relics of 'The Magic City.'

"'Spirits' inspired four good wells at Pit- hole. One dry hole, a mile southeast of town, seriously depressed stock in their skill as 'oil- smellers.' A disciple of the Fox sisters, as- sured of 'a big well,' drilled two hundred feet below the sixth sand in search of oil-bearing rock. He drilled himself into debt, and the sheriff, whom nobody could mistake for an ethereal being, sold the outfit at junk prices. North of Pithole the tide surged into Alle- gheny township, the western half of which was set off as Oil Creek township. Balltown, a meadow on C. M. Ball's farm. in July, 1865, at the end of the year paraded stores, one hun- dred dwellings and one thousand people. Fires in 1866 singed it and waning production did

the rest. Dawson Center, on the Sawyer tract, bloomed, frosted and perished. Eight miles northeast of Titusville, where Godfrey Hill drilled a duster in 1860, and two companies drilled six, the Colorado district finally re- warded gritty operators. Small wells benefited Enterprise and the country down Pithole creek to its junction with the river was jabbed full of holes that weighed as dust in the balance.

"Three wells on the outskirts of Pleasant- ville produced a trifling amount of oil in 1865- 66. Late in the fall of 1867 Abram James, driving with three friends from Pithole to Ti- tusville, claimed his 'spirit guide' assumed con- trol, hurried him to the northern end of a field on the William Porter farm and hinted that streams of oil lay beneath and extended in a certain direction. He thrust a penny into the dirt, negotiated a lease, borrowed money to drill and on Feb. 12, 1868, at eight hundred and fifty feet, Harmonial well No. I pumped one hundred and thirty barrels of dark oil. The usual hurly-burly ensued. People who voted the James adventure a fish-story writhed and twisted to drill near the spirited Harmonial. New strikes increased the hub- bub, lands bringing $500 to $5,000 an acre and often changing hands. The production reached three thousand barrels in the summer of 1868, dropping to one thousand five hundred in 1870. Three banks prospered and imposing brick blocks succeeded unsubstantial frames. Fresh pastures invited the floating mass to Clarion. Armstrong and Butler. Wells were aban- doned, machinery was shipped southward and the pretty village moved backward gracefully. James located eight or ten 'spirit' wells that added to his wealth, but a dry hole on the Cla- rion river one thousand eight hundred feet deep, cost him $6,000 in 1874 and lost him much of his distinction.

"In 1870 John D. Rockefeller and his part- ners in a Cleveland refinery organized the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, with $1,000,- 000 capital, increased to $2,500,000 in 1872 and to $3,500,000 in 1873, when other interests were acquired. For years refining had been mainly disastrous, bankrupting many engaged in it. A Standard Oil Company had been or- ganized in Pittsburgh and was doing a large business. The Cleveland Standard Refinery, the Pittsburgh Standard Refinery, the Atlan- tic Refining Company of Philadelphia and Charles Pratt & Co. of New York were impor- tant. Because of the hazardous nature and pe- culiar conditions of the industry, the need of improved methods and the manifold advan- tages of combination, they entered into an al-

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liance for their mutual benefit. Refineries in the oil regions had combined before, hence the association was not a novelty. The cost of transportation and packages had been crippling the industry. Railroad rates were excessive and irregular. Refiners who could throw a large volume of business to any particular road secured favorable rates. The rebate-system was universal, not confined to oil alone, and possibly this fact had much to do with the combination of refiners afterward known as the Standard Oil Company.

"The Standard furnished, loaded and un- loaded its own tank cars, thereby eliminating barrels and materially cheapening the freight service. This reduced the price of refined in the East to a figure which greatly increased the demand and gave operations a healthy stimulus. Still more important was the intro- duction of improvements in refining, which yielded a larger percentage of illuminant and converted the residue into merchantable prod- ucts. Chemical and mechanical experts, em- ployed by the combined companies to conduct experiments, aided in devising processes which revolutionized refining. The highest quality of burning oil was obtained and nearly every particle of crude was utilized. Substances of commercial value took the place of the waste that formerly emptied into the streams, pol- luting the waters and the atmosphere. In this way the cost was so lessened that kerosene became the light of the nations. That smaller concerns were unable to compete under such circumstances was no reason why the public should be deprived of the advantages result- ing from concentration of capital and effort. Many of these, realizing that small capital is restricted to poor methods and dear produc- tion, either sold to the Standard or entered the combination. In not a few cases wide-awake refiners took stock for part of the price of their properties and engaged with the com- pany, adding their talents and experience to the common fund for the benefit of all con- cerned. Others, not strong enough to have their cars and provide all the latest improve- ments, made such changes as they could afford to meet the requirements of the local trade, let- ting the larger ones attend to distant markets. Some continued right along and they are still independent refiners, always a respectable fac- tor in the trade and never more active than to-day.

"On Jan. 2, 1881, the forty Standard share- holders, owning the entire capital of fifteen corporations and controlling a number of oth-

ers, vested all these stocks in nine trustees, who issued certificates and agreed to manage the affairs of each company in the interest of the whole. This was the inception of the Standard Oil Trust, designed to facilitate the conduct of contributory agencies by uniting them under one board of trustees. The Trust continued ten years, assailed viciously by ig- norance and prejudice, but managed admirably until liquidated in 1892-97. Each corporation was managed as though entirely independent of every other in the Trust, except the rivalry to show the best results. Many of the most skillful refiners and producers joined the com- bination and were retained to superintend their properties. The Standard Oil Company of . New York was reincorporated on June 14, 1899. to purchase the stocks of various com- panies previously held by the liquidating trus- tees. On Nov. 15, 1906, the government brought suit in the United States court at St. Louis to dissolve the New Jersey Company, as a combination in restraint of trade. The court on Nov. 20th granted the petition and the Supreme court in 1910 affirmed the deci- sion, ordering the dissolution of the company and the distribution of the stocks of thirty- three subsidiary companies to the sharehold- ers within six months. The decision of the Supreme court was distinguished by its em- phasis of the 'rule of reason' in dealing with cases under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law of 1890.

"Seventeen independent refiners of Penn- sylvania crude organized The National Petro- leum Association in 1902, first meeting in Pittsburgh on June 17, 'to create a permanent social and co-operative feeling between refin- ers of petroleum and its products throughout the United States, to remove by concerted ac- tion any evils and customs that are against good policy and sound business principles, to correct existing abuses and secure the enact- ment of wise and uniform State inspection laws, the operation of which may be equally fair to all and which may accomplish the ends designed, and to prevent unjust discrimination and that all grievances may be fairly and equitably adjusted.' The membership now in- cludes nearly all the refiners outside of the 'Standard Oil Group' in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and Illinois, and some in Kansas and Oklahoma. Five refineries at or near Oil City, three at Titusville, eight at Warren, two at North Clarendon, two at Bradford, four at Pittsburgh, four at Cleveland, two at Phila- delphia, three at Chicago and others in differ-

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Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 30

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

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