“I BE ORFUL GLAD TER SEE YO!”
“I BE ORFUL GLAD TER SEE YO!”
“I BE ORFUL GLAD TER SEE YO!”
“I ain’t seed Aunt Rachel for nigh a year an’ a half. My old man bed roomatiz and we couldn’t get ter meetin’ this summer. He sez thar’s ile onto our farm. I be seventy-four an’ him on the ruf be my son’n-law. Yo see he married, Jess did, my darter Sally an’ tha moved ter a place tha call Kansas. Tha’s bin thar seventeen year an’ hes six chil’ren. Jess he cum back las’ week ter see his fokeses an’ he be takin’ me ter Kansas ter see Sally an’ the babies. I never seed ’em things Jess calls cyars, an’ he sez tha ain’t drord by no hoss nuther! I wuz bo’n eight mile down hyar an’ never wuz from home more’n eighteen mile, when we goes ter June meetin’. But I be ter Monticeller six times.”
Truly this was a natural specimen, bubbling over with kindness, unspoiled by fashion and envy and frivolity and superficial pretense. Here was the counterpart of Cowper’s humble heroine, who “knew, and knew no more, her Bible true.” The wheezy stage was brighter for her presence. She told of her family, her cows, her pigs, her spinning and her neighbors. She lived four miles from the Cumberland River, yet never went to see a steamboat! When we alighted at the Burnside station and the train dashed up she looked sorely perplexed. “Jess” helped her up the steps and the “cyars” started. The whistle screeched, daylight vanished and the train had entered the tunnel below the depot. A fearful scream pierced the ears of the passengers. The good woman seventy-four years old, who “never seed ’em things” before, was terribly frightened. We tried to reassure her, but she begged to be let off. How “Jess” managed to get her to Kansas safely may be imagined. But what a story she would have to tell about the “cyars”and “Sally an’ the babies” when she returned to her quiet home after such a trip! Bless her old heart!
“EF YO KNOW’D COUSIN JIM.”
“EF YO KNOW’D COUSIN JIM.”
“EF YO KNOW’D COUSIN JIM.”
Although the broad hills and sweeping streams which grouped many sweet panoramas might be dull and meaningless to the average Kentuckian of former days, through some brains glowing visions flitted. Two miles south of Columbia, Adair county, on the road to Burksville, a heap of stones and pieces of rotting timber may still be seen. Fifty-five years ago the man who owned the farm constructed a huge wheel, loaded with rocks of different weights on its strong arms. Neighbors jeered and ridiculed, just as scoffers laughed at Noah’s ark and thought it wouldn’t be much of a shower anyway. The hour to start the wheel arrived and its builder stood by. A rock on an arm of the structure slipped off and struck him a fatal blow, felling him lifeless to the earth! He was a victim of the craze to solve the problem of Perpetual Motion. Who can tell what dreams and plans and fancies and struggles beset this obscure genius, cut off at the moment he anticipated a triumph? The wheel was permitted to crumble and decay, no human hand touching it more. The heap of stones is a pathetic memento of a sad tragedy. Not far from the spot Mark Twain was born and John Fitch whittled out the rough model of the first steamboat.
Riding in Scott county, Tennessee, at full gallop on a rainy afternoon, a cadaverous man emerged from a miserable hut and hailed me. The dialogue was not prolonged unduly.
“Gen’ral,” he queried, “air yo th’ oilman frum Pennsylvany?”
“Yes, what can I do for you?”
“I jes’ wanted ter ax ef yo know’d my cousin Jim!”
“Who is your cousin Jim?”
“Law, JimSickles!Sickles!I tho’t ez how ev’rybody know’d Jim! He went up No’th arter th’ wah an’ ain’t cum back yit. Ef yo see ’im tell ’im yo seed me!”
A promise to look out for “Jim” satisfied the verdant backwoodsman, who probably had never been ten miles from his shanty and deemed “up No’th” a place about the size of a Tennessee hunting-ground!
The South-Penn and the Forest Oil-Companies, branches of the Standard, have drilled considerably in Kentucky and Tennessee, sometimes finding oil in regular strata and occasionally encountering irregular formations. More operating is required to determine precisely what place to assign these pebbles on the beach as sources of oil-production.
Fair women, pure Bourbon and men extra plucky,No wonder blue-grass folks esteem themselves lucky—But wait till the oil-boom gets down to Kentucky!Let Fortune assume forms and fancies Protean,No matter for that, there will rise a loud pæanSo long as oil gladdens the proud Tennesseean!
Fair women, pure Bourbon and men extra plucky,No wonder blue-grass folks esteem themselves lucky—But wait till the oil-boom gets down to Kentucky!Let Fortune assume forms and fancies Protean,No matter for that, there will rise a loud pæanSo long as oil gladdens the proud Tennesseean!
Fair women, pure Bourbon and men extra plucky,No wonder blue-grass folks esteem themselves lucky—But wait till the oil-boom gets down to Kentucky!
Fair women, pure Bourbon and men extra plucky,
No wonder blue-grass folks esteem themselves lucky—
But wait till the oil-boom gets down to Kentucky!
Let Fortune assume forms and fancies Protean,No matter for that, there will rise a loud pæanSo long as oil gladdens the proud Tennesseean!
Let Fortune assume forms and fancies Protean,
No matter for that, there will rise a loud pæan
So long as oil gladdens the proud Tennesseean!
MapofVENANGO COUNTYPennsylvania
MapofVENANGO COUNTYPennsylvania
MapofVENANGO COUNTYPennsylvania
EARLY OPERATORS ON OIL CREEK.WM. BARNSDALL.GEO. H. BISSELL. DR. F. B. BREWER.DR. A. G. EGBERT. JONATHAN WATSON. COL. E. L. DRAKE.DAVID EMERY. CHARLES HYDE.DAVID CROSSLEY.
EARLY OPERATORS ON OIL CREEK.WM. BARNSDALL.GEO. H. BISSELL. DR. F. B. BREWER.DR. A. G. EGBERT. JONATHAN WATSON. COL. E. L. DRAKE.DAVID EMERY. CHARLES HYDE.DAVID CROSSLEY.
EARLY OPERATORS ON OIL CREEK.WM. BARNSDALL.GEO. H. BISSELL. DR. F. B. BREWER.DR. A. G. EGBERT. JONATHAN WATSON. COL. E. L. DRAKE.DAVID EMERY. CHARLES HYDE.DAVID CROSSLEY.