Chapter 17

“No duty could overtask him, no need his will outrun;Or ever our lips could ask him, his hand the work had done.”

“No duty could overtask him, no need his will outrun;

Or ever our lips could ask him, his hand the work had done.”

Twice Mr. Miller served as mayor of Franklin. Repeatedly has he declined nominations to high offices, private affairs demanding his time and attention. He is president or director of a score of commercial and industrial companies, with factories, mines and works in eight states. He has been president time after time of the Northwestern Association of Pennsylvania of the Grand Army of the Republic, Ordnance-Officer and Assistant Adjutant-General of the Second Brigade of Pennsylvania and Commander of Mays Post. He is a leading spirit in local enterprises. He enjoys his beautiful home and the society of his wife and children and friends. He prizes good horses, smokes good cigars and tells good stories. In him the wage-earner and the breadwinner have a steadfast helper, willing to lighten their burden and to better their condition. In short, Charles Miller is a typical American, plucky, progressive, energetic and invincible, with a heart to feel, genius to plan and talent to execute the noblest designs.

Hon. Joseph Crocker Sibley, eldest son of Dr. Joseph Crocker Sibley, was born at Friendship,N.Y.,N.Y.,in 1850. His father’s death obliging him to give upa college-course for which he had prepared, in 1866 he came to Franklin to clerk in Miller & Coon’s dry-goods store. From that time his business interests and Mr. Miller’s were closely allied. In 1870 he married Miss Metta E. Babcock, daughter of Simon M. Babcock, of Friendship. He was agent of the Galena Oil-Works at Chicago for two years, losing his effects and nearly losing his life in the terrible fire that devastated that city. His business-success may be said to date from 1873, when he returned to Franklin. After many experiments he produced a signal-oil superior in light, safety and cold-test to any in use. The Signal Oil-Works were established, with Mr. Sibley as president and the proprietors of the Galena Oil-Works, whose plant manufactured the new product, as partners. Next he compounded a valve-oil for locomotives, free from the bad qualities of animal-oils, which is now used on three-fourths of the railway mileage of the United States.

Every newspaper-reader in the land has heard of the remarkable Congressional fight of 1892 in the Erie-Crawford district. Both counties were overwhelmingly Republican. People learned with surprise that Hon. Joseph C. Sibley, a resident of another district, had accepted the invitation of a host of good citizens, by whom he was selected as the only man who could lead them to victory over the ring, to try conclusions with the nominee of the ruling party, who had stacks of money, the entire machine, extensive social connections, religious associations—he was a preacher—and a regular majority of five-thousand to bank upon. Some wiseacres shook their heads gravely and predicted disaster. Such persons understood neither the resistless force of quickened public sentiment nor the sterling qualities of the candidate from Venango county. Democrats, Populists and Prohibitionists endorsed Sibley. He conducted a campaign worthy of Henry Clay. Multitudes crowded to hear and see a man candid enough to deliver his honest opinions with the boldness of “Old Hickory.” The masses knew of Mr. Sibley’s courage, sagacity and success in business, but they were unprepared to find so sturdy a defender of their rights. His manly independence, ringing denunciations of wrong, grand simplicity and incisive logic aroused unbounded enthusiasm. The tide in favor of the fearless advocate of fair-play for the lowliest creature no earthly power could stem. His opponent was buried out of sight and Sibley was elected by a sweeping majority.

Mr. Sibley’s course in Congress amply met the expectations of his most ardent supporters. The prestige of his great victory, added to his personal magnetism and rare geniality, at the very outset gave him a measure of influence few members ever attain. During the extra-session he expressed his views with characteristic vigor. A natural leader, close student and keen observer, he did not wait for somebody to give him the cue before putting his ideas on record. In the silver-discussion he bore a prominent part, opposing resolutely the repeal of the Sherman act. His wonderful speech “set the ball rolling” for those who declined to follow the administration program. The House was electrified by Sibley’s effort. Throughout his speech of three hours he was honored with the largest Congressional audience of the decade. Aisles, halls, galleries and corridors were densely packed. Senators came from the other end of the Capitol to listen to the brave Pennsylvanian who dared plead for the white metal. For many years Mr. Sibley has been a close student of political and social economics and he so grouped his facts as to command the undivided attention and the highest respect of those who honestly differed from him in his conclusions. Satire, pathos, bright wit and pungent repartee awoke in his hearers the strongestemotions, entrancing the bimetalists and giving their enemies a cold chill, as the stream of eloquence flowed from lips “untrained to flatter, to dissemble or to play the hypocrite.” Thenceforth the position of the representative of the Twenty-sixth district was assured, despite the assaults of hireling journals and discomfited worshippers of the golden calf.

He took advanced ground on the Chinese question, delivering a speech replete with patriotism and common-sense. An American by birth, habit and education, he prefers his own country to any other under the blue vault of heaven. The American workman he would protect from pauper immigration and refuse to put on the European or Asiatic level. He stands up for American skill, American ingenuity, American labor and American wages. Tariff for revenue he approves of, not a tariff to diminish revenue or to enrich one class at the expense of all. The tiller of the soil, the mechanic, the coal-miner, the coke-burner and the day-laborer have found him an outspoken champion of their cause. Small wonder is it that good men and women of all creeds and parties have abiding faith in Joseph C. Sibley and would fain bestow on him the highest office in the nation’s gift.

Human nature is a queer medley and sometimes manifests streaks of envy and meanness in queer ways. Mr. Sibley’s motives have been impugned, his efforts belittled, his methods assailed and his neckties criticised by men who could not understand his lofty character and purposes. The generous ex-Congressman must plead guilty to the charge of wearing clothes that fit him, of smoking decent cigars, of driving fine horses and of living comfortably. Of course it would be cheaper to buy hand-me-down misfits, to indulge in loud-smelling tobies, to walk or ride muleback, to curry his own horses and let his wife do the washing instead of hiring competent helpers. But he goes right ahead increasing his business, improving his farms, developing American trotters and furnishing work at the highest wages to willing hands in his factories, at his oil-wells, on his lands, in his barns and his hospitable home. He dispenses large sums in charity. His benevolence and enterprise reach far beyond Pennsylvania. He does not hoard up money to loan it at exorbitant rates. As a matter of fact, from the hundreds of men he has helped pecuniarily he never accepted one penny of interest. He has been mayor of Franklin, president of the Pennsylvania State-Dairymen’s Association, director of the American Jersey-Cattle Club and member of the State Board of Agriculture. He is a brilliant talker, a profound thinker, a capital story-teller and a loyal friend. “May he live long and prosper!”

Miller & Sibley’s Prospect-Hill Stock-Farm is one of the largest, best equipped and most favorably known in the world. Different farms comprising the establishment include a thousand acres of land adjacent to Franklin and a farm, with stabling for two-hundred horses and the finest kite-track in the United States, at Meadville. On one of these farms is the first silo built west of the Allegheny mountains. Trotting stock, Jersey cattle, Shetland ponies and Angora goats of the highest grades are bred. For Michael Angelo, when a calf six weeks old, twelve-thousand-five-hundred dollars in cash were paid A. B. Darling, proprietor of the Fifth-Avenue Hotel, New York City. Animals of the best strain were purchased, regardless of cost. In 1886 Mr. Sibley bought from Senator Leland Stanford, of California, for ten-thousand dollars, the four-year-old trotting-stallion St. Bel. Seventy-five thousand were offered for him a few weeks before the famous sire of numerous prize-winners died. Cows that have broken all records for milk and butter, and horses that have won the biggestpurses on the leading race-tracks of the country are the results of the liberal policy pursued at Prospect-Hill. Charles Marvin, the prince of horsemen, superintends the trotting department and E. H. Sibley is manager of all the Miller & Sibley interests. Hundreds of the choicest animals are raised every year. Prospect-Hill Farm is one of the sights of Franklin and the enterprise represents an investment not far short of one-million dollars. Wouldn’t men like Charles Miller and Joseph C. Sibley sweep away the cobwebs, give business an impetus and infuse new life and new ideas into any community?

Franklin had tallied one for heavy-oil, but its resources were not exhausted. On October seventeenth, 1859, Colonel James P. Hoover, C. M. Hoover and Vance Stewart began to drill on the Robert-Brandon—now the Hoover—farm of three-hundred acres, in Sandycreek township, on the west bank of the Allegheny river, three miles south of Franklin. They found oil on December twenty-first, the well yielding one-hundred barrels a day! This pretty Christmas gift was another surprise. Owing to its distance from “springs” and the two wells—Drake and Evans—already producing, the stay-in-the-rut element felt confident that the Hoover Well would not “amount to a hill of beans.” It was “piling Ossa on Pelion” for the well to produce, from thesecond sand, oil with properties adapted to illumination and lubrication. The Drake was for light, the Evans for grease and the Hoover combined the two in part. Where and when was this variegated dissimilarity to cease? Perhaps its latest phase is to come shortly. Henry F. James is beginning a well south-west of town, on the N. B. Myers tract, between a sweet and a sour spring. Savans, scientists, beer-drinkers, tee-totalers and oil-operators are on the ragged edge of suspense, some hoping, some fearing, some praying that James may tap a perennial fount of creamy ’alf-and-’alf.

Once at a drilling-well on the “Point” the tools dropped suddenly. The driller relieved the tension on his rope and let the tools down slowly. They descended six or eight feet! The bare thought of a crevice of such dimensions paralyzed the knight of the temper-screw, all the more that the hole was not to the first sand. What a lake of oil must underlie that derrick! He drew up the tools. They were dripping amber fluid, which had a flavor quite unlike petroleum. Did his nose deceive him? It was the aroma of beer! A lick of the stuff confirmed the nasal diagnosis—it had the taste of beer! The alarm was sounded and the sand-pump run down. It came up brimming over with beer! Ten times the trip was repeated with the same result. Think of an ocean of the delicious, foamy, appetizing German beverage! Word was sent to the owners of the well, who ordered the tubing to be put in. They tried to figure how many breweries the production of their well would retire. Pumping was about to begin, in presence of a party of impatient, thirsty spectators, when an excited Teuton, blowing and puffing, was seen approaching at a breakneck pace. Evidently he had something on his mind. “Gott in Himmel!” he shrieked, “you vas proke mit Grossman’s vault!” The mystery was quickly explained. Philip Grossman, the brewer, had cut a tunnel a hundred feet into the hill-side to store his liquid-stock in a cool place. The well chanced to be squarely over this tunnel, the roof of which the tools pierced and stove in the head of a tun of beer! Workmen who came for a load were astonished to discover one end of a string of tubing dangling in the tun. It dawned upon them that the drillers three-hundred feet above must have imagined they struck a crevice and a messenger speeded to the well. The saddened crowd slinked off, muttering words that would not look nice in print. The tubing was withdrawn, the hogsheadwas shoved aside, the tools were again swung and two weeks later the well was pumping thirty barrels a day of unmistakable heavy-oil.

The Hoover strike fed the flame the Evans Well had kindled. Lands in the neighborhood were in demand on any terms the owners might impose. From Franklin to the new well, on both sides of the Allegheny, was the favorite choice, on a theory that a pool connected the deposits. Leases were snapped up at one-half royalty and a cash-bonus. Additional wells on the Hoover rivaled No. 1, which produced gamely for four years. The tools were stuck in cleaning it out and a new well beside it started at sixty barrels. The “Big-Emma Vein” was really an artery to which for years “whoa, Emma!” did not apply. Bissell & Co. and the Cameron Petroleum-Company secured control of the property, on which fifteen wells were producing two-hundred barrels ten years from the advent of the Hoover & Vance. Harry Smith, a city-father, is operating on the tract and drilling paying wells at reasonable intervals. Colonel James P. Hoover died on February fourth, 1871, aged sixty-nine. Born in Centre county, he settled in the southern part of Clarion, was appointed by Governor Porter in 1839 Prothonotary of Venango county and removed to Franklin. The people elected him to the same office for three years and State-Senator in 1844. The Canal-Commissioners in 1851 appointed him collector of the tolls at Hollidaysburg, Blair county, for five years. He filled these positions efficiently, strict adherence to principle and a high sense of duty marking his whole career. The esteem and confidence he enjoyed all through his useful life were attested by universal regret at his death and the largest funeral ever witnessed in Franklin. His estimable widow survived Colonel Hoover twenty years, dying at the residence of her son-in-law, Arnold Plumer, in Minnesota. Their son, C. M. Hoover, ex-sheriff of the county, has been interested in the street railway. Vance Stewart, who owned a farm near the lower river-bridge, removed to Greenville and preceded his wife and several children, one of them Rev. Orlando V. Stewart, to the tomb. Another son, James Stewart, was a prominent member of the Erie bar.

B. E. SWAN.

The opening months of 1860 were decidedly lively on the Cochran Farm, in Cranberry township, opposite the Hoover. The first well, the Keystone, on the flats above where the station now stands, was a second-sander of the hundred-barrel class. The first oil sold for fourteen dollars a barrel, at which rate land-owners and operators were not in danger of bankruptcy or the poor-house. Fourteen-hundred dollars a day from a three-inch hole would have seemed too preposterous for Munchausen before the Pennsylvania oil-regions demonstrated that “truth is stranger than fiction.” The Monitor, Raymond, Williams, McCutcheon and other wells kept the production at a satisfactory figure. Dale & Morrow, Horton & Son, Hoover & Co., George R. Hobby, Cornelius Fulkerson and George S. McCartney were early operators. B. E. Swan located on the farm in May of 1865 and drilled numerous fair wells. He has operated there for thirty-two years, sticking to the second-sand territory with a tenacity equal to the “perseverance of the saints.” When thousands of producers, imitating the dog that let go the bone to grasp the shadow in the water, quit their enduring small wellsto take their chance of larger ones in costlier fields, he did not lose his head and add another to the financial wrecks that strewed the greasian shore. Appreciating his moral stamina, his steadfastness and ability, Mr. Swan’s friends insist that he shall serve the public in some important office. Walter Pennell—his father made the first car-wheels—and W. P. Smith drilled several snug wells on the uplands, Sweet & Shaffer following with six or eight. Eighteen wells are producing on the tract, which containsone-hundred-and-fortyone-hundred-and-fortyacres and has had only two dry-holes in its thirty-six years of active developments.

ALEXANDER COCHRAN.

Alexander Cochran, for forty years owner of the well-known farm bearing his name, is one of the oldest citizens of Franklin. Winning his way in the world by sheer force of character, scrupulous integrity and a fixed determination to succeed, he is in the highest and best sense a self-made man. Working hard in boyhood to secure an education, he taught school, clerked in general stores, studied law and was twice elected Prothonotary without asking one voter for his support. In these days of button-holing, log-rolling, wire-pulling, buying and soliciting votes this is a record to recall with pride. Marrying Miss Mary Bole—her father removed from Lewistown to Franklin seventy-five years ago—he built the home at “Cochran Spring” that is one of the land-marks of the town and established a large dry-goods store. As his means permitted he bought city-lots, put up dwelling-houses and about 1852 paid sixteen-hundred dollars for the farm in Cranberry township for which in 1863, after it had yielded a fortune, he refused seven-hundred-thousand! The farm was in two blocks. A neighbor expostulated with him for buying the second piece, saying it was “foolish to waste money that way.” In 1861, when the same neighbor wished to mortgage his land for a loan, he naively remarked: “Well, Aleck, I guess I was the fool, not you, in 1852.” A man of broad views, Mr. Cochran freely grants to others the liberality of thought he claims for himself. A hater of cant and sham and hollow pretence, he believes less in musty creeds than kindly deeds, more in giving loaves than tracts to the hungry, and takes no stock in religion that thinks only of dodging punishment in the next world and fails to help humanity in this. In the dark days of low-priced oil and depressed trade, he would accept neither interest from his debtors nor royalty from the operators who had little wells on his farm. He never hounded the sheriff on a hapless borrower, foreclosed a mortgage to grab a coveted property or seized the chattels of a struggling victim to satisfy a shirt-tail note. There is no shred of the Pecksniff, the Shylock or the Uriah-Heep in his anatomy. At fourscore he is hale and hearty, rides on horseback, cultivates his garden, attends to business, likes a good play and keeps up with the literature of the day. The productive oil-farm is now owned by his daughters, Mrs. J. J. McLaurin, of Harrisburg, and Mrs. George R. Sheasley, of Franklin. The proudest eulogy he could desire is Alexander Cochran’s just desert: “The Poor Man’s Friend.”

Down to Sandy Creek many wells were drilled from 1860 to 1865, producing fairly at an average depth of four-hundred-and-fifty to five-hundred feet.These operations included the Miller, Smith and Pope farms, on the west side of the river, and the Rice, Nicklin, Martin and Harmon, on the east side, all second-sand territory. North of the Cochran and the Hoover work was pushed actively. George H. Bissell and Vance Stewart bored twelve or fifteen medium wells on the Stewart farm of two-hundred acres, which the Cameron Petroleum Company purchased in 1865 and Joseph Dale operated for some years. It lies below the lower bridge, opposite the Bleakley tract, from which a light production is still derived. Above the Stewart are the Fuller and the Chambers farms, the latter extending to the Allegheny-Valley depot. Scores of eager operators thronged the streets of Franklin and drilled along the Allegheny. Joseph Powley and Charles Cowgill entered the lists in the Cranberry district. Henry M. Wilson and George Piagett veered into the township and sank a bevy of dry-holes to vary the monotony. That was a horse on Wilson, but he got ahead of the game by a deal that won him the nicest territory on Horse Creek. Stirling Bonsall and Colonel Lewis—they’re dead now—were in thethickestthickestof the fray, with Captain Goddard, Philip Montgomery, Boyd, Roberts, Foster, Brown, Murphy and many more whom old-timers remember pleasantly. Thomas King, whole-souled, genial “Tom”—no squarer man e’er owned a well or handled oil-certificates—and Captain Griffith were “a good pair to draw to.” King has “crossed over,” as have most of the kindred spirits that dispelled the gloom in the sixties.

Colonel W. T. Pelton, nephew of Samuel J. Tilden, participated in the scenes of that exciting period. He lived at Franklin and drilled wells on French Creek. He was a royal entertainer, shrewd in business, finely educated and polished in manner and address. He and his wife—a lovely and accomplished woman—were fond of society and gained hosts of friends. They boarded at the United-States Hotel, where Mrs. Pelton died suddenly. This affliction led Colonel Pelton to sell his oil-properties and abandon the oil-regions. Returning to New York, when next he came into view as the active agent of his uncle in the secret negotiations that grew out of the election of 1876, it was with a national fame. His death in 1880 closed a busy, promising career.

In the spring of 1864 a young man, black-haired, dark-eyed, an Apollo in form and strikingly handsome, arrived at Franklin and engaged rooms at Mrs. Webber’s, on Buffalo street. The stranger had money, wore good clothes and presented a letter of introduction to Joseph H. Simonds, dealer in real-estate, oil-wells and leases. He looked around a few days and concluded to invest in sixty acres of the Fuller farm, Cranberry township, fronting on the Allegheny river. The block was sliced off the north end of the farm, a short distance below the upper bridge and the Valley station. Mr. Simonds consented to be a partner in the transaction. The transfer was effected, the deed recorded and a well started. It was situated on the hill, had twenty feet of second-sand and pumped twenty barrels a day. The owner drilled two others on the bluff, the three yielding twenty barrels for months. The ranks of the oil-producers had received an addition in the person of—John Wilkes Booth.

The firm prospered, each of the members speculating and trading individually. M. J. Colman, a capital fellow, was interested with one or both in various deals. Men generally liked Booth and women admired him immensely. His lustrous orbs, “twin-windows of the soul,” could look so sad and pensive as to awaken the tenderest pity, or fascinate like “the glittering eye” of the Ancient Mariner or the gaze of the basilisk. “Trilby” had not come to light, or he might have enacted the hypnotic role of Svengali. His moods were variableand uncertain. At times he seemed morose and petulant, tired of everybody and “unsocial as a clam.” Again he would court society, attend parties, dance, recite and be “the life of the company.” He belonged to a select circle that exchanged visits with a coterie of young folks in Oil City. A Confederate sympathizer and an enemy of the government, his closest intimates were staunch Republicans and loyal citizens. William J. Wallis, the veteran actor who died in December of 1895, in a Philadelphia theater slapped him on the mouth for calling President Lincoln a foul name. Booth’s acting, while inferior to his brother Edwin’s, evinced much dramatic power. He controlled his voice admirably, his movements were graceful and he spoke distinctly, as Franklinites whom he sometimes favored with a reading can testify.

JOSEPH H. SIMONDS.J. WILKES BOOTH.MOSES J. COLMAN.

JOSEPH H. SIMONDS.

J. WILKES BOOTH.

MOSES J. COLMAN.

One morning in April, 1865, he left Franklin, telling Mr. Simonds he was going east for a few days. He carried a satchel, which indicated that he did not expect his stay to be prolonged indefinitely. His wardrobe, books and papers remained in his room. Nothing was heard of him until the crime of the century stilled all hearts and the wires flashed the horrible news of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. The excitement in Franklin, the murderer’s latest home, was intense. Crowds gathered to learn the dread particulars and discuss Booth’s conduct and utterances. Not a word or act previous to his departure pointed to deliberate preparation for the frightful deed that plunged the nation in grief. That he contemplated it before leaving Franklin the weight of evidence tended to disprove. He made no attempt to sell any of his property, to convert his lands and wells into cash, to settle his partnership accounts or to pack his effects. He had money in the bank, wells bringing a good income and important business pending. All these things went to show that, if not a sudden impulse, the killing of Lincoln was prompted by some occurrence in Washington that fired the passionate nature John Wilkes Booth inherited from his father. The world is familiar with the closing chapters of the dark tragedy—the assassin’s flight, the pursuit into Virginia, the burning barn, Sergeant Corbett’s fatal bullet, the pathetic death-scene on the Garrett porch and the last message, just as the dawn was breaking on the glassy eyes that opened feebly for a moment: “Tell my mother I died for my country. I did what I thought was best.”

The wells and the land on the river were held by Booth’s heirs until 1869, when the tract changed hands. The farm is producing no oil and the Simonds-Boothwells have disappeared. Had he not intended to return to Franklin, Booth would certainly have disposed of these interests and given the proceeds to his mother. “Joe” Simonds removed to Bradford to keep books for Whitney & Wheeler, bankers and oil-operators, and died there years ago. He was an expert accountant, quick, accurate and neat in his work and most fastidious in his attire. A blot on his paper, a figure not exactly formed, a line one hair-breath crooked, a spot on his linen or a speck of dust on his coat was simply intolerable. He was correct in language and deportment and honorable in his dealings. Colman continued his oil-operations, in company with W. R. Crawford, a real-estate agency, until the eighties. He married Miss Ella Hull, the finest vocalist Franklin ever boasted, daughter of Captain S. A. Hull, and removed to Boston. For years paralytic trouble has confined him to his home. He is “one of nature’s nobleman.”

“French Kate,” the woman who aided Ben Hogan at Pithole and followed him to Babylon and Parker, was a Confederate spy and supposed to be very friendly with J. Wilkes Booth. Besides his oil-interests at Franklin, the slayer of Abraham Lincoln owned a share in the Homestead well at Pithole. A favorite legend tells how, by a singular coincidence, which produced a sensation, the well was burned on the evening of the President’s assassination. It caught fire about the same instant the fatal bullet was fired in Ford’s Theater and tanks of burning oil enveloped Pithole in a dense smoke when the news of the tragedy flashed over the trembling wires. The Homestead well was not down until Lincoln had been dead seven weeks, Pithole had no existence and there were no blazing tanks; otherwise the legend is correct. Two weeks before his appalling crime Booth was one of a number of passengers on the scow doing duty as a ferry-boat across the Allegheny, after the Franklin bridge had burned. The day was damp and the water very cold. Some inhuman whelp threw a fine setter into the river. The poor beast swam to the rear of the scow and Booth pulled him on board. He caressed the dog and bitterly denounced the fellow who could treat a dumb animal so cruelly. At another time he knocked down a cowardly ruffian for beating a horse that was unable to pull a heavy load out of a mud-hole. He has been known to shelter stray kittens, to buy them milk and induce his landlady to care for them until they could be provided with a home. Truly his was a contradictory nature. He sympathized with horses, dogs and cats, yet robbed the nation of its illustrious chief and plunged mankind into mourning. To newsboys Booth was always liberal, not infrequently handing a dollar for a paper and saying: “No change; buy something useful with the money.” The first time he went to the Methodist Sunday-school, with “Joe” Simonds, he asked and answered questions and put a ten-dollar bill in the collection-box.

Over the hills to the interior of the townships developments spread. Bredinsburg, Milton and Tarkiln loomed up in Cranberry, where Taylor & Torrey, S. P. McCalmont, Jacob Sheasley, B. W. Bredin and E. W. Echols have sugar-plums. In Sandycreek, between Franklin and Foster, Angell & Prentice brought Bully Hill and Mount Hope to the front. The biggest well in the package was a two-hundred barreler on Mount Hope, which created a mount of hopes that were not fully realized. George V. Forman counted out one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars for the Mount Hope corner. The territory lasted well and averaged fairly. Bully Hill merited its somewhat slangy title. Dr. C. D. Galbraith, George R. Sheasley and Mattern & Son are among its present operators. Angell and Prentice parted company, each to engage inopening up the Butler region. Prentice, Crawford, Barbour & Co. did not let the grass grow under their feet. They “knew a good thing at sight” and pumped tens-of-thousands of barrels of oil from the country south of Franklin. The firm was notable in the seventies. Considerable drilling was done at Polk, where the state is providing a half-million-dollar Home for Feeble-Minded Children, and in the latitude of Utica, with about enough oil to be an aggravation. The Shippen wells, a mile north of the county poor-house, have produced for thirty years. West of them, on the Russell farm, the Twin wells, joined as tightly as the derricks could be placed, pumped for years. This was the verge of productive territory, test wells on the lands of William Sanders, William Bean, A. Reynolds, John McKenzie, Alexander Frazier and W. Booth, clear to Cooperstown, finding a trifle of sand and scarcely a vestige of oil. The Raymonds, S. Ramage, John J. Doyle and Daniel Grimm had a very tidy offshoot at Raymilton. On this wise lubricating and second-sand oils were revealed for the benefit of mankind generally. The fly in the ointment was the clerical crank who wrote to President Lincoln to demand that the producing of heavy-oil be stopped peremptorily, as it had been stored in the ground to grease the axletree of the earth in its diurnal revolution! This communication reminded Lincoln of a “little story,” which he fired at the fellow with such effect that the candidate for a strait-jacket was perpetually squelched.

ANGELL & PRENTICE’S WELLS BELOW FRANKLIN IN 1873.

JOHN P. CRAWFORD.

Hon. William Reid Crawford, a member of the firm of Prentice, Crawford, Barbour & Co., lives in Franklin. His parents were early settlers in north-western Pennsylvania. Alexander Grant, his maternal grandfather, built the first stone-house in Lancaster county, removed to Butler county and located finally in Armstrong county, where he died sixty-five years ago. In 1854 William R. and four of his brothers went to California and spent some time mining gold. Upon his return he settled on a farm in Scrubgrass township, Venango county, of which section the Crawfords had been prominent citizens from the beginning of its history. Removing to Franklin in 1865, Mr. Crawford engaged actively in the productionof petroleum, operating extensively in various portions of the oil-regions for twenty years. He acquired a high reputation for enterprise and integrity, was twice a city-councillor, served three terms as mayor, was long president of the school-board, was elected sheriff in 1887 and State-Senator in 1890. Untiring fidelity to the interests of the people and uncompromising hostility to whatever he believed detrimental to the general welfare distinguished his public career. Genial and kindly to all, the friend of humanity and benefactor of the poor, no man stands better in popular estimation or is more deserving of confidence and respect. His friends could not be crowded into the Coliseum without bulging out the walls. Ebenezer Crawford, brother of William R., died at Emlenton in August of 1897, on his seventy-sixth birthday. John P. Crawford, another brother, who made the California trip in 1849, still resides in the southern end of the county and is engaged in oil-operations. E. G. Crawford, a nephew, twice prothonotary of Venango and universally liked, passed away last June. His cousin, C. J. Crawford, a first-class man anywhere and everywhere, served as register and recorder with credit and ability. The Crawfords “are all right.”

For money may come and money may go,But a good name stays to the end of the show.

For money may come and money may go,

But a good name stays to the end of the show.

Captain John K. Barbour, a man of imposing presence and admirable qualities, removed to Philadelphia after the dissolution of the firm. The Standard Oil-Company gave him charge of the right-of-way department of its pipe-line service and he returned to Franklin. Two years ago, during a business visit to Ohio, he died unexpectedly, to the deep regret of the entire community. S. A. Wheeler operated largely in the Bradford field and organized the Tuna-Valley Bank of Whitney & Wheeler. For a dozen years he has resided at Toledo, his early home. Like Captain Barbour, “Fred,” as he was commonly called, had an exhaustless mine of bright stories and a liberal share of the elements of popularity. One afternoon in 1875, three days before the fire that wiped out the town, a party of us chanced to meet at St. Joe, Butler county, then the centre of oil-developments. An itinerating artist had his car moored opposite the drug-store. Somebody proposed to have a group-picture. The motion carried unanimously and a toss-up decided that L. H. Smith was to foot the bill. The photographer brought out his camera, positions were taken on the store-platform and the pictures were mailed an hour ahead of the blaze that destroyed most of the buildings and compelled the artist to hustle off his car on the double-quick. Samuel R. Reed, at the extreme right, operated in the Clarion field. He had a hardware-store in company with the late Dr. Durrant and his home is in Franklin. James Orr, between whom and Reed a telegraph-pole is seen, was connected with the Central Hotel at Petrolia and later was a broker in the Producers’ Exchange at Bradford. On the step is Thomas McLaughlin, now oil-buyer at Lima, once captain of a talented base-ball club at Oil City and an active oil-broker. Back of him is “Fred” Wheeler, with Captain Barbour on his right and L. H. Smith sitting comfortably in front. Mr. Smith figured largely at Pithole, operated satisfactorily around Petrolia and removed years ago to New York. Cast in a giant mould, he weighs three-hundred pounds and does creditto the illustrious legions of Smiths. He is a millionaire and has an office over the Seaboard Bank, at the lower end of Broadway. Joseph Seep, the king-bee of good fellows, sits besides Smith. Pratt S. Crosby, formerly a jolly broker at Parker and Oil City, stands behind Seep. Next him is “Tom” King, who has “gone to the land of the leal,” J. J. McLaurin ending the row. James Amm, who went from an Oil-city clerkship to coin a fortune at Bradford—a street bears his name—sits on the platform. Every man, woman, child and baby near Oil City knew and admired “Jamie” Amm, who is now enjoying his wealth in Buffalo. Two out of the eleven in the group have “passed beyond the last scene” and the other nine are scattered widely.

“Friend after friend departs,Who hath not lost a friend?”

“Friend after friend departs,

Who hath not lost a friend?”

GROUP AT ST. JOE, BUTLER COUNTY, IN 1874.

Frederic Prentice, one of the pluckiest operators ever known in petroleum-annals, was the first white child born on the site of Toledo, when Indians were the neighbors of the pioneers of Northern Ohio. His father left a fine estate, which the son increased greatly by extensive lumbering, in which he employed three-thousand men. Losses in the panic of 1857 retired him from the business. He retrieved his fortune and paid his creditors their claims in full, with ten per cent. interest, an act indicative of his sterling character. Reading in a newspaper about the Drake well, he decided to see for himself whether the story was fast colors. Journeying to Venango county by way of Pittsburg, he met and engaged William Reed to accompany him. Reed had worked at the Tarentum salt-wells and knew a thing or two about artesian-boring. The two arrived at Franklin on the afternoon of the day Evans’s well turned the settlement topsy-turvy. Next morning Prentice offered Evans forty-thousand dollars for a controlling interest in the well, one-fourth down and the balance in thirty, sixty and ninety days. Evans declining to sell, the Toledo visitor bought from Martin & Epley an acre of ground on the north bank of French Creek, at the base of the hill, and contracted with Reed to “kick down” a well, the third in the district. Prentice and Reed tramped over the country for days, locating oil-deposits by means of the witch-hazel, which the Tarentumite handled skillfully. This was a forked stick, which it was claimed turned in the hands of the holder at spots where oil existed. Various causes delayed the completion of the well, which at last proved disappointingly small. Meanwhile Mr. Prentice leased the Neeley farm, two miles up the Allegheny, in Cranberry township, and bored several paying wells. A railroad station on the tract is named after him and R. G. Lamberton has converted the property into a first-class stock-farm. Favorable reports from Little Kanawha River took him to West Virginia, where he leased and purchased immense blocks of land. Among them was the Oil-Springs tract, on the Hughes River, from which oil had been skimmed for generations. Twoof his wells on the Kanawha yielded six-hundred barrels a day, which had to be stored in ponds or lakes for want of tankage. Confederate raiders burned the wells, oil and machinery and drove off the workmen, putting an extinguisher on operations until the Grant-Lee episode beneath the apple-tree at Appomattox.

Assuming that the general direction of profitable developments would be north-east and south-west, Mr. Prentice surveyed a line from Venango county through West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. This idea, really the foundation of “the belt theory,” he spent thousands of dollars to establish. Personal investigation and careful surveys confirmed his opinion, which was based upon observations in the Pennsylvania fields. The line run thirty years ago touched numerous “springs” and “surface shows” and recent tests prove its remarkable accuracy. On this theory he drilled at Mount Hope and Foster, opening a section that has produced several-million barrels of oil. C. D. Angell applied the principle in Clarion and Butler counties, mapping out the probable course of the “belt” and leasing much prolific territory. His success led others to adopt the same plan, developing a number of pools in four states, although nature’s lines are seldom straight and the oil-bearing strata are deposited in curves and beds at irregular intervals.

FREDERIC PRENTICE.

In company with W. W. Clark of New York, to whom he had traded a portion of his West-Virginia lands, Mr. Prentice secured a quarter-interest in the Tarr farm, on Oil Creek, shortly before the sinking of the Phillips well, and began shipping oil to New York. They paid three dollars apiece for barrels, four dollars a barrel for hauling to the railroad and enormous freights to the east. The price dropping below the cost of freights and barrels, the firm dug acres of pits to put tanks under ground, covering them with planks and earth to prevent evaporation. Traces of these storage-vats remain on the east bank of Oil Creek. Crude fell to twenty-five cents a barrel at the wells and the outlook was discouraging. Clark & Prentice stopped drilling and turned their attention to finding a market. They constructed neat wooden packages that would hold two cans of refined-oil, two oil-lamps and a dozen chimneys and sent one to each United-States Consul in Europe. Orders soon rushed in from foreign countries, especially Germany, France and England, stimulating the erection of refineries and creating a large export-trade. Clark & Summer, who also owned an interest in the Tarr farm, built the Standard Refinery at Pittsburg and agreed to take from Clark & Prentice one-hundred-thousand barrels of crude at a dollar a barrel, to be delivered as required during the year. Before the delivery of the first twenty-five-thousand barrels the price climbed to one-fifty and to six dollars before the completion of the contract, which was carried out to the letter. The advance continued to fourteen dollars a barrel, lasting only one day at this figure. These were vivifying days in oleaginous circles, never to be repeated while Chronos wields his trusty blade.

When crude reached two dollars Mr. Prentice bought the Washington-McClintock farm, on which Petroleum Centre was afterwards located, for three-hundred-thousanddollars. Five New-Yorkers, one of them the president of the Shoe and Leather Bank and another the proprietor of the Brevoort House, advanced fifty-thousand dollars for the first payment. Within sixty days Prentice sold three-quarters of his interest for nine-hundred-thousand dollars and organized the Central Petroleum Oil-Company, with a capital of five-millions! Wishing to repay the New-York loan, the Brevoort landlord desired him to retain his share of the money and invest it as he pleased. For his ten-thousand dollars mine host received eighty-thousand in six months, a return that leaves government-bond syndicates and Cripple-Creek speculations out in the latitude of Nansen’s north-pole. The company netted fifty-thousand dollars a month in dividends for years and lessees cleared three or four millions from their operations on the farm. Greenbacks circulated like waste-paper, Jules Verne’s fancies were surpassed constantly by actual occurrences and everybody had money to burn.

Prentice and his associates purchased many tracts along Oil Creek, including the lands where Oil City stands and the Blood farm of five-hundred acres. In the Butler district he drilled hundreds of wells and built the Relief Pipe-Line. Organizing The Producers’ Consolidated Land-and-Petroleum-Company, with a capital of two-and-a-half millions, he managed it efficiently and had a prominent part in the Bradford development. Boston capitalists paid in twelve-hundred-thousand dollars, Prentice keeping a share in his oil-properties representing thirteen-hundred-thousand more. The company is now controlled by the Standard, with L. B. Lockhart as superintendent. Its indefatigable founder also organized the Boston Oil Company to operate in Kentucky and Tennessee, put down oil-wells in Peru and gas-wells in West Virginia, produced and piped thousands of barrels of crude daily and was a vital force in petroleum-affairs for eighteen years. The confidence and esteem of his compatriots were attested by his unanimous election to the presidency of the Oilmen’s League, a secret-society formed to resist the proposed encroachments of the South-Improvement Company. The League accomplished its mission and then quietly melted out of existence.

Since 1877 Mr. Prentice has devoted his attention chiefly to lumbering in West Virginia and to his brown-stone quarries at Ashland, Wisconsin. The death of his son, Frederick A., by accidental shooting, was a sad bereavement to the aged father. His suits to get possession of the site of Duluth, the city of Proctor Knott’s impassioned eulogy, included in a huge grant of land deeded to him by the Indians, were scarcely less famous than Mrs. Gaines’s protracted litigation to recover a slice of New Orleans. The claim involved the title to property valued at twelve-millions of dollars. From his Ashland quarries the owner took out a monolith, designed for the Columbian Exposition in 1893, forty yards long and ten feet square at the base. Beside this monster stone Cleopatra’s Needle, disintegrating in Central Park, Pompey’s Pillar and the biggest blocks in the pyramids are Tom-Thumb pigmies. At seventy-four Mr. Prentice, foremost in energy and enterprise, retains much of his youthful vigor. Earnest and sincere, a master of business, his word as good as gold, Frederic Prentice holds an honored place in the ranks of representative oil-producers, “nobles of nature’s own creating.”

CYRUS D. ANGELL.

A native of Chautauqua county, N. Y., where he was born in 1826, Cyrus D. Angell received a liberal education, served as School-Commissioner and engaged in mercantile pursuits at Forestville. Forced through treachery and the monetary stringency of the times to compromise with his creditors, he recoveredhis financial standing and paid every cent of his indebtedness, principal and interest. In 1867 he came to the oil-regions with a loan of one-thousand dollars and purchased an interest in property at Petroleum Centre that paid handsomely. Prior to this, in connection with Buffalo capitalists, he had bought Belle Island, in the Allegheny River at Scrubgrass, upon which soon after his arrival he drilled three wells that averaged one-hundred barrels each for two years, netting the owners over two-hundred-thousand dollars. Operations below Franklin, in company with Frederic Prentice, also proved highly profitable. His observations of the course of developments along Oil Creek and the Allegheny led Mr. Angell to the conclusion that petroleum would be found in “belts” or regular lines. He adopted the theory that two “belts” existed, one running from Petroleum Centre to Scrubgrass and the other from St. Petersburg through Butler county. Satisfied of the correctness of this view, he leased or purchased all the lands within the probable boundaries of the “belt” from Foster to Belle Island, a distance of six miles. The result justified his expectations, ninety per cent. of the wells yielding abundantly. With “the belt theory,” which he followed up with equal success farther south, Mr. Angell’s name is linked indissolubly. His researches enriched him and were of vast benefit to the producers generally. He did much to extend the Butler region, drilling far ahead of tested territory. The town of Angelica owed its creation to his fortunate operations in the neighborhood, conducted on a comprehensive scale. Reverses could not crush his manly spirit. He did a large real-estate business at Bradford for some years, opening an office at Pittsburg when the Washington field began to loom up. Failing health compelling him to seek relief in foreign travel, last year he went to Mexico and Europe to recuperate. Mr. Angell is endowed with boundless energy, fine intellectual powers and rare social acquirements. During his career in Oildom he was an excellent sample of the courageous, unconquerable men who have made petroleum the commercial wonder of the world.

An old couple in Cranberry township, who eked out a scanty living on a rocky farm near the river, sold their land for sixty-thousand dollars at the highest pitch of the oil-excitement around Foster. This was more money than the pair had ever before seen, much less expected to handle and own. It was paid in bank-notes at noon and the log-house was to be vacated next day. Towards evening the poor old woman burst into tears and insisted that her husband should give back the money to the man that “wanted to rob them of their home.” She was inconsolable, declaring they would be “turned out to starve, without a roof to cover them.” The idea that sixty-thousand dollars would buy an ideal home brought no comfort to the simple-minded creature, whose hopes and ambitions were confined to the lowly abode that had sheltered her for a half-century. A promise to settle near her brother in Ohio reconciled her somewhat, but it almost broke her faithful heart to leave a spot endeared by many tender associations. John Howard Payne, himself a homeless wanderer,whose song has been sung in every tongue and echoed in every soul, jingled by innumerable hand-organs and played by the masters of music, was right:

Back to Index Next