WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS.

“Over the river!Sailing on waters where lotuses smile,Passing by many a tropical isle,Sighting savannas there mile upon mile,Over the river!Music forever and beauty for aye,Sunlight unending—the sunlight and day,Never a farewell to weep on the way,Over the river!”

“Over the river!

Sailing on waters where lotuses smile,

Passing by many a tropical isle,

Sighting savannas there mile upon mile,

Over the river!

Music forever and beauty for aye,

Sunlight unending—the sunlight and day,

Never a farewell to weep on the way,

Over the river!”

BEAVER CREEK AT JEFFERSON FURNACE.

East, north and west the area of prolific territory widened. Wells on the Young farm started a jaunty development at Jefferson Furnace. Once the scene of activity in iron-manufacture, the old furnace had been neglected for three decades. Oil awakened the spot from its Rip-Van-Winkle slumber. A narrow-gauge railroad crossed Beaver Creek on a dizzy trestle, which afforded an enticing view of derricks, streams, hills, dales, cleared farms and wooded slopes. The wells have pumped out, the railroad has been switched off and the stout furnace stands again in its solitary dignity. James M. Guffey, J. T. Jones, Wesley Chambers and other live operators kept branching out until Beaver City, Mongtown, Mertina, Edenburg, Knox, Elk City, Fern City and Jerusalem, with Cogley as a supplement, were the centers of a production that aggregated ten-thousand barrels a day. The St. Lawrence well, on the Bowers farm, a mile north of Edenburg, was finished in June of 1872 and directed attention to Elk township. For two years it pumped sixty-nine barrels a day, six days each week, the owners shutting it down on Sunday. Previously Captain Hasson, of Oil City, and R. Richardson, then of Tarr Farm and now of Franklin, had drilled in the vicinity. Ten dusters north of the Bowers farm augured poorly for the St. Lawrence. It disappointed the prophets of evil by striking a capital sand and producing with a regularity surpassedonly by one well on Cherry Run. It was not “a lovely toy, most fiercely sought, that lost its charm by being caught.”

The St. Lawrence jumped the northern end of the Clarion district to the front. Hundreds of wells ushered in new towns. Knox, on the Bowers farm, attained a post-office, a hardware store and a dozen dwellings, its proximity to Edenburg preventing larger growth. The cross-roads collection offive housesfive housesand a store known as Edenburg progressed immensely. John Mendenhall and J. I. Best’s farm-houses, ’Squire Kribbs’s country-store and justice-mill, a blacksmith-shop and three dwellings constituted the place at the date of the St. Lawrence advent. The nearest hotel—the Berlin House—was three miles northward. In six months the quiet village became a busy, hustling, prosperous town of twenty-five hundred population. It had fine hotels, fine stores, banks and people whom a destructive fire—it eliminated two-thirds of the buildings in one night—could not “send to the bench.” When the flames had been subdued, a crowd of sufferers gathered at two o’clock in the morning, sang “Home, Sweet Home,” and at seven were clearing away the embers to rebuild. Narrow-gauge railroads were built and the folks didn’t scare at the cars. Elk City flung its antlers to the breeze two miles east. Isaac N. Patterson—he is president of the Franklin Savings Bank and a big operator in Indiana—had a creamy patch on the Kaiser farm. Jerusalem’s first arrival—Guffey’s wells created it—was a Clarion delegate with a tent and a cargo of liquids. He dealt the drink over a rough board, improvised as a counter, so briskly that his receipts in two days footed up seven-hundred dollars. He had no license, an officer got on the trail and the vendor decamped. He is now advance-agent of a popular show, wears diamonds the size of walnuts and tells hosts of oil-region stories. The Clarion field was not inflamed by enormous gushers, but the wells averaged nicely and possessed the cardinal virtue of enduring year after year. It is Old Sol, steady and persevering, and not the flashing meteor, “a moment here, then gone forever,” that lights and heats the earth and is the fellow to bank upon.

An Edenburg mother fed her year-old baby on sliced cucumbers and milk, and then desired the prayers of the church “because the Lord took away her darling.” “How is the baby?” anxiously inquired one lady of another at Beaver City. “Oh, baby died last week, I thank you,” was the equivocal reply.

Some of the oilmen were liberally endowed with the devotional sentiment. When the news of a blazing tank of oil at Mertina reached Edenburg, a jolly operator telegraphed the fact to Oil City, with the addendum: “Everything has gone hellward.” A half-hour later came his second dispatch: “The oil is blazing, with big flames going heavenward.” Such a happy blending of the infernal with the celestial is seldom witnessed in ordinary business.

The behavior of some people in a crisis is a wonderful puzzle, sometimes funnier than a pig-circus. At the St. Petersburg fire, which sent half the town up in smoke, an old woman rescued from the Adams House, with a bag of money containing four-hundred dollars, was indignant that her fifty-cent spectacles had been left to burn. A male guest stormed over the loss of his satchel, which a servant had carried into the street, and threatened a suit for damages. The satchel was found and opened. It had a pair of dirty socks, two dirty collars, a comb and a toothbrush! The man with presence of mind to throw his mother-in-law from the fourth-story window and carry a feather-pillow down stairs was not on hand. St. Petersburg had no four-story buildings.

John Kiley and “Ed.” Callaghan headed a circle of jolly jokers at TriangleCity and Edenburg. Hatching practical sells was their meat and drink. One evening they employed a stranger to personate a constable from Clarion and arrest a pipe-line clerk for the paternity of a bogus offspring. In vain the astonished victim protested his innocence, although he acknowledged knowing the alleged mother of the alleged kid. The minion of the law turned a deaf ear to his prayers for release, but consented to let him go until morning upon paying a five-dollar note. The poor fellow thought of an everlasting flight from Oildom and was leaving the room to pack up his satchel when the “constable” appeared with a supply of fluids. The joke was explained and the crowd liquidated at the expense of the subject of their pleasantry. Kiley was an oilman and operated in the northern fields. Callaghan slung lightning in the telegraph-office. He married at Edenburg and went to Chicago. His wife procured a divorce and married a well-known Harrisburger.

A letter from his feminine sweetness, advising him to hurry up if he wished her not to marry his rival, so flustrated an Edenburg druggist that he imbibed a full tumbler of Jersey lightning. An irresistible longing to lie down seized him and he stretched himself for a nap on a lounge in a room back of the store. John Kiley discovered the sleeping beauty, spread a sheet over him and prepared for a little sport. He let down the blinds, hung a piece of crape on the door and rushed out to announce that “Jim” was dead. People flocked to learn the particulars. Entering the drug-store a placard met their gaze: “Walk lightly, not to disturb the corpse!” They were next taken to the door of the rear apartment, to see a pair of boots protruding from beneath a sheet. Nobody was permitted to touch the body, on a plea that it must await the coroner, but the friends were invited to drink to the memory of the deceased pill-dispenser and suggest the best time for his funeral. Thus matters continued two hours, when the “corpse” wakened up, kicked off the sheet and walked out! His friends at first refused to recognize him, declaring the apparition was a ghost, but finally consented to renew the acquaintance upon condition that he “set ’em up” for the thirsty multitude.

A Clarion operator, having to spend Sunday in New York, strayed into a fashionable church and was shown to a swell seat. Shortly after a gentleman walked down the aisle, glared at the stranger, drew a pencil from his pocket, wrote a moment and handed him a slip of paper inscribed, “This is my pew.” The unabashed Clarionite didn’t bluff a little bit. He wrote and handed back the paper: “It’s a darned nice pew. How much rent do you ante up for it?” The New-Yorker saw the joke, sat down quietly and when the service closed shook hands with the intruder and asked him to dinner. The acquaintance begun so oddly ripened into a poker-game next evening, at which the oilman won enough from the city clubman to pay ten years’ pew-rent. At parting he remarked: “Who’s in the wrong pew now?” Then he whistled softly: “Let me off at Buffalo!”

Clarion’s products were not confined to prize pumpkins, mammoth corn and oil-wells. The staunch county supplied the tallest member of the National Guard, in the person of Thomas Near, twenty-one years old, six feet eleven in altitudinous measurement and about twice the thickness of a fence-rail. The Clarion company was mustered in at Meadville. General Latta’s look of astonishment as hesurveyedsurveyedthe latitude and longitude of the new recruit was exceedingly comical. He rushed to Governor Hartranft and whispered, “Where in the name of Goliath did you pick up that young Anak?” At the next annual review Near stood at the end of the Clarion column. A staff-officer,noticing a man towering a foot above his comrades, spurred his horse across the field and yelled: “Get down off that stump, you blankety-blank son of a gun!” The tall boy did not “get down” and the enraged officer did not discover how it was until within a rod of the line. His chagrin rivaled that of Moses Primrose with the shagreen spectacles. Poor Near, long in inches and short in years, was not long for this world and died in youthful manhood.

JAMES M. GUFFEY.WESLEY S. GUFFEY.

JAMES M. GUFFEY.

WESLEY S. GUFFEY.

Hon. James M. Guffey, one of Pennsylvania’s most popular and successful citizens, began his career as a producer in the Clarion district. Born and reared on a Westmoreland farm, his business aptitude early manifested itself. In youth he went south to fill a position under the superintendent of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. The practical training was put to good use by the earnest young Pennsylvanian. Its opportunities for dash and energy to gain rich rewards attracted him to the oil-region. Profiting by what he learned from the experiences of others in Venango—a careful observer, he did not have to scorch himself to find out that fire is hot—he located at St. Petersburg in 1872. Clarion was budding into prominence as a prospective oil-field. Handling well-machinery as agent of the Gibbs & Sterrett Manufacturing Company brought him into close relations with operators and operations in the new territory. He improved his advantages, leased lands, secured interests in promising farms, drilled wells and soon stepped to the front as a first-class producer. Fortune smiled upon the plucky Westmorelander, whose tireless push and fearless courage cool judgment and sound discretion tempered admirably. While always ready to accept the risks incident to producing oil and developing untried sections, he was not a reckless plunger, going ahead blindly and not counting the cost. He decided promptly, moved forward resolutely and took nobody’s dust. Those who endeavored to keep up with him had to “ride the horse of Pacolet” and travel fast. He invested in pipe-lines and local enterprises, helped every deserving cause, stood by his friends and his convictions,believed in progress and acted strictly on the square. Not one dollar of his splendid winnings came to him in a manner for which he needs blush, or apologize or be ashamed to look any man on earth straight in the face. He did not get his money at the expense of his conscience, of his self-respect, of his generous instincts or of his fellow-men. Of how many millionaires, in this age of shoddy and chicanery, of jobbery and corruption, of low trickery and inordinate desire for wealth, can this be said?

Mr. Guffey is an ardent Democrat, but sensible voters of all classes wished him to represent them in Congress and gave him a superb send-off in the oil-portion of the Clarion district. Unfortunately the fossils in the back-townships prevented his nomination. The uncompromising foe of ring-rule, boss-domination and machine-crookedness, he is a leader of the best elements of his party and not a noisy ward-politician. His voice is potent in Democratic councils and his name is familiar in every corner of the producing-regions. His oil-operations have reached to Butler, Forest, Warren, McKean and Allegheny counties. He furnished the cash that unlocked the Kinzua pool and extended the Bradford field miles up Foster Brook. In company with John Galey, Michael Murphy and Edward Jennings, he drilled the renowned Matthews well and owned the juiciest slice of the phenomenal McDonald field. He started developments in Kansas, putting down scores of wells, erecting a refinery and giving the state of Mary Ellen Lease a product drouths cannot blight nor grasshoppers devour. He was largely instrumental in developing the natural-gas fields of Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, heading the companies that piped it into Pittsburg, Johnstown, Wheeling, Indianapolis and hundreds of small towns. He owns thousands of acres of the famous gas-coal lands of his native county, vast coal-tracts in West Virginia and valuable reality in Pittsburg. He lives in a handsome house at East Liberty, brightened by a devoted wife and four children, and dispenses a bountiful hospitality. Quick to mature and execute his plans, he dispatches business with great celerity, keeping in touch constantly with the details of his manifold enterprises. He is the soul of honor in his dealings, liberal in his benefactions and always approachable. His charm of manner, kindness of heart, keen intuition and rare geniality draw men to him and inspire their confidence and regard. He is a striking personality, his lithe frame, alert movements, flowing hair, luxuriant mustache, rolling collar, streaming tie, frock-coat and broad-brimmed hat suggesting General Custer. When at last the vital fires burn low, when his brave heart beats weak and slow, when the evening shadows lengthen and he enters the deepening dusk at the ending of many happy years, James M. Guffey will have lived a life worth living for its worth to himself, to his family, to the community and to the race.

“The grass is softer to his treadFor rest it yields unnumber’d feet;Sweeter to him the wild rose redBecause it makes the whole world sweet.”

“The grass is softer to his tread

For rest it yields unnumber’d feet;

Sweeter to him the wild rose red

Because it makes the whole world sweet.”

Wesley S. Guffey, for many years a prominent operator, resembles his brother in enterprise, activity and the manly qualities that win respect. He owns scores of productive wells, and the firm of Guffey & Queen ranks high in the southern fields. He has labored zealously to secure political reform and free Pittsburg, where he has his beautiful home and office, from the odious thraldom of corrupt bossism. Unhappily the last legislature defeated the efforts of good citizens in this direction. Mr. Guffey is a fluent talker, knows lots of rich stories and reckons his friends by whole battalions. Pride andmeanness he despises and “his word is his bond.” Another brother, John Guffey, has been sheriff of Westmoreland county and is a leading citizen. The Guffeys are men to trust implicitly, to tie to, to swear by and to bank upon at all times and under all circumstances.

HENRY WETTER.

Major Henry Wetter, the embodiment of honor and energy, was the largest operator in the Clarion district until swamped by the low price of oil. Death overtook him while struggling against heavy odds to recuperate his health and fortune. How sad it is that the flower must die before the fruit can bloom. A terrible decline in oil-values caused his failure in 1877 and compelled Merrick & Conley’s Edenburg bank to close.

“I falter where I firmly trod.”

Edenburg, in its prime the liveliest inland town the Clarion district could boast, is in Beaver township, ten miles from Foxburg and Emlenton. It was named by. J. G. Mendenhall, who located on a big farm and opened the Eden Inn fifty years ago. Two farms, one two miles north and the other a mile south-west of his home-farm, he dubbed Jerusalem and Egypt respectively. Mendenhall lived to see all three tracts productive oil-territory, with a busy town occupying part of the central tract. J. I. Best, who died in 1880, was his early neighbor and P. F. Kribbs started a country-store opposite the Mendenhall homestead. In the spring of 1872 Balliet & Co. drilled a duster on the Best farm. Hahn & Co. had similar ill-luck on the Kiser farm, a mile south, following in the wake of W. J. Brundred’s dry-hole on the Eischelman tract a month previous. The St. Lawrence strike changed the aspect of affairs and brought the territory into notice. Wooden buildings were hurried up, wells were rushed through the sand, crowds thronged the streets and Edenburg became the centre of attraction. Page Maplestone had the first hotel, to which Robert Orr quickly succeeded. The Winebrennerians had the first church, chased closely by the Methodists. Two banks, countless stores and shops, plenty of saloons, hundreds of houses and hosts of operators were soon in evidence. Knox, Elk City, Slam Bang, Wentling, Jefferson, Beaver and other suburban oil-towns put in an appearance. Ross Haney, D. J. Wyncoop, Charles Lavens, A. J. Urquhart, Gray Brothers, G. M. Cushing, Clark Hayes, B. F. Painter, J. D. Wolff, G. W. Moltz, Joseph E. Zuver, James Travis, M. E. Hess, Charles Shaw and dozens of others were familiar figures. J. M. Gifford launched theHerald, J. Edd Leslie exploited theSpirit, Campbell Brothers loaded theOil-Timesand Tom Whittaker fired off the malodorousGattling Gun. Col. J. S. Brown dealt in real-estate and wrote breezily for the Oil-CityDerrick. Sam Magee, M. M. Meredith and William Wirt Johnson practised law. Major J. B. Maitland managed the United Pipe-Lines and Goss Brothers owned the best well in the diggings.Narrow-gaugeNarrow-gaugerailroads were built from Emlenton and Foxburg, a borough charter was obtained and 1877 saw the town at its highest point. Severe fires scourged it frightfully, the Butler field lured many of the operators and Edenburg relapsed into a tidy village.

Thomas McConnell, Smith K. Campbell, W. D. Robinson and Col. J. B. Finlay, of Kittanning, in 1860 purchased two acres of land on the west bank ofthe Allegheny, ninety rods above Tom’s Run, from Elisha Robinson. Organizing the Foxburg Oil-Company of sixteen shares, they drilled a well four-hundred-and-sixty feet. An obstruction delayed work a few days, the war broke out and the well was abandoned. The same parties paid Robinson five-thousand dollars in 1865 for one-hundred acres and sold thirty to Philadelphia capitalists. The latter formed the Clarion and Allegheny-River Oil-Company and sunk a well which struck oil on October tenth, the first produced in the upper end of Armstrong county and the beginning of the Parker development. Venango was drooping and operators sought the southern trail. The Robinson farm was not perforated as quickly as “you could say Jack Robinson,” the owners choosing not to cut it into small leases, but other tracts were seized eagerly. Drilled deeper, the original Robinson well was utterly dry! Had it been finished in 1860-1 the territory might have been condemned and the Parker field never heard of!

John Galey’s hundred-barrel well, drilled in 1869 on the island above Parker, relieved the monotony of commonplace strikes—twenty to fifty barrels—on the Robinson and adjacent farms and elevated the district to the top rung of the ladder. Parker’s Landing—a ferry and a dozen houses—named from a pioneer settler, ambled merrily to the head of the procession. The center of operations that stretched into Butler county and demonstrated the existence of three greasy streaks, Parker speedily became a red-hot town of three-thousand inhabitants. Hotels, stores, offices, banks and houses crowded the strip of land at the base of the steep cliff, surged over the hill, absorbed the suburbs of Lawrenceburg and Farrentown and proudly wore the title of “Parker City.” Hosts of capital fellows made life a perpetual whirl of business and jollity. Operators of every class and condition, men of eminent ability, indomitable hustlers, speculators, gamblers and adventurers thronged the streets. It was the vim and spice and vigor of Oil City, Rouseville, Petroleum Centre and Pithole done up in a single package. A hundred of the liveliest laddies that ever capered about a “bull-ring” traded jokes and stories and oil-certificates at the Oil-Exchange. Two fires obliterated nine-tenths of the town, which was never wholly rebuilt. Developments tended southward for years and the sun of Parker set finally when Bradford’s rose in the northern sky. The bridge and a few buildings have held on, but the banks have wound up their accounts, the multitudes have dispersed, the residence-section of the cliff is a waste and the glory of Parker a tradition. As the ghost of Hamlet’s father observed concerning the bicycle academy, where beginners on wheels were plentiful: “What a falling off was there!”

Galey leased lands, sunk wells and sold to Phillips Brothers for a million dollars. He played a strong hand in Butler and Allegheny and removed to Pittsburg, his present headquarters. He possessed nerve, energy and endurance and, like the country-boy applying for a job, “wuz jam’d full ov day’s work.” He would lend a hand to tube his wells, lay pipes, move a boiler or twist the tools. There wasn’t a lazy bone in his anatomy. Rain, mud, storm or darkness had no terrors for the bold rider, who bestrode a raw-boned horse and “took Time by the forelock.” A young lady from New York, whose father was interested with Galey in a tract of oil-land, accompanied him on one of his visits to Millerstown. She had heard a great deal about her father’s partner and the producers, whom she imagined to be clothed in broadcloth and diamonds. When the stage from Brady drew up at the Central Hotel a gorgeous chap was standing on the platform. He sported a stunning suit, a hugegold-chain, a diamond-pin and polished boots, the whole outfit got up regardless of expense. “Oh, papa, I see a producer! That must be Mr. Galey,” exclaimed the girl as this prototype of the dude met her gaze. The father glanced at the object, recognized him as a neighboring bar-tender and spoiled his daughter’s fanciful notion by the curt rejoinder: “That blamed fool is a gin-slinger!” Butler had long been a sort of by-word for poverty and meanness, the settlers going by the nickname of “Buckwheats.” This was an unjust imputation, as the simple people were kind, honest and industrious, in these respects presenting a decided contrast to some of the new elements in the wake of the petroleum-development. The New-York visitor drove out in the afternoon to meet his business-associate. A mile below the Diviner farm a man on horseback was seen approaching. Mud covered the panting steed and his rider. The young lady, anxious to show how much she knew about the country, hazarded another guess. “Oh! papa,” she said earnestly, “I’m sure that’s a Buckwheat!” The father chuckled, next moment greeted the rider warmly and introduced him to his astonished daughter as “My partner, Mr. Galey!” A hearty laugh followed the father’s version of the day’s incidents.

JOHN H. GALEY.JAMES M. LAMBING.

JOHN H. GALEY.

JAMES M. LAMBING.

John H. Galey has been engaged in oil-operations for a generation. Coming from Clarion county to Oil Creek in the sixties, he participated in the Pithole excitement, drilled a test-well that broadened the Pleasantville field and started the Parker furore with his island-strike. He is every inch a petroleum-pioneer. To him belongs the honor of ushering in various new districts in Pennsylvania and the oil-developments in Kansas and Texas. Well-earned success has rewarded his persistent, indomitable energy. He owns a fat slice of the finest silver-mine in Idaho and holds a large stake in California, Colorado and Nova-Scotia gold-mines. Mr. Galey is thoroughly practical and companionable, has traveled much and observed closely, nor can any excel him in narrating reminiscences and experiences of life in the oil-regions.

John McKeown drilled on the Farren hill and the slopes bordering the north bank of Bear Creek. Glory Hole popped up on B. B. Campbell’s Bear-Creek farm. Campbell-bluff, whole-souled “Ben”—is a Pittsburg capitalist, big in body and mind, outspoken and independent. “The Campbells are coming” could not have found a better herald. He produced largely, bought stacks of farms, refined and piped oil and was an important factor in the Armstrong-Butler development. At the Ursa Major well, the first on the farm, large casing and heavy tools were first used, with gratifying results. “Charley” Cramer juggled the temper-screw and laughed at the chaps who solemnly predicted the joints would not stand the strain and the engine would not jerk the tools out of the hole. The tool-dresser on Cramer’s “tower”—drilling went on night and day, each “tower” lasting twelve hours and the men changing at noon and midnight—was A. M. Lambing, now the learned and zealous parish-priest at Braddock. The well, completed in June of 1871 and good for a hundred barrels, was owned by James M. Lambing, to whom more than any other man the world is indebted for the extension of the Butler field.

Born in Armstrong county, in 1861 young Lambing concluded to invest some time and labor—his sole capital—in a well at the mouth of Tubb’s Run, two miles above Tionesta. A dry-hole was the poor reward of his efforts. Enlisting in the Eighty-third Regiment, he received disabling injuries, was discharged honorably, returned to Forest county in 1863, superintended the Denver Petroleum-Company, dealt in real estate and in 1866 commenced operating at Tidioute. A vein of bad luck in 1867 exhausting his last dollar, he sold his gold-watch and chain to pay the wages of his drillers. Facing the future bravely, he worked by the day, contracted to bore wells at Pleasantville, Church Run, Shamburg and Red Hot and bore up cheerfully during three years of adversity. In the winter of 1869 he traded an engine for an interest in a well at Parker that smelled of oil. For another interest he drilled the Wilt & Crawford well and secured leases on Tom’s Run. His Pharos, Gipsy Queen and Lady Mary wells enabled him to strike out boldly. In company with his brother—John A. Lambing—C. D. Angell and B. B. Campbell, he ventured beyond the prescribed limits to the Campbell, Morrison and Gibson farms. He “wildcatted” farther south, at times with varying success, pointing the way to Modoc and Millerstown. Reverses beset him temporarily, but hope and courage and integrity remained and he recovered the lost ground. Charitable, enterprising and sincere, no truer, squarer, manlier man than James M. Lambing ever marched in the grand cavalcade of Pennsylvania oil-producers. He and John A. retired from the business years ago to engage in other pursuits. James M. settled at Corry and served so capably as mayor that the citizens wanted to elect him for life. His noble, womanly wife, a real helpmeet always, made his hospitable home an earthly paradise. He had an office in Pittsburg and customers for his Ajax machinery wherever oil is produced. He died in January, 1897. “Who can blot his name with any just reproach?”

Counselled by “spirits,” Abram James selected a block of land on Blyson Run, twenty miles up the Clarion River, as the location of a rich petroleum-field. His luck at Pleasantville induced numbers to believe him an infallible oil-smeller. The test-well that was to deluge Blyson with crude was bored eighteen-hundred feet. It had no sand or oil and the tools were stuck in the hole! The “spirits” couldn’t have missed the mark more widely if they had directed James to mine for gold in a snow-bank.

The Big-Injun well at Bullion, owned originally by Prentice, Wheeler &Crawford, was located in the center of a wheat-patch by William R. Crawford, of Franklin, a member of the firm. His opinion carried against the choice of his partners, who preferred a spot fifteen rods eastward, where a well drilled later was “dry as a powder-horn.” The direction “Smiley’s Frog” might happen to jump was less uncertain than the outcome of many a Bullion well before the tools pierced the sand to the last foot and settled the matter positively.

On October third, 1875, the boiler at the Goss well, J. I. Best farm, exploded, fatally injuring Alonzo Goss and instantly killing A. Wilson, the man in charge.

The first pipe-line in Clarion County was laid in 1871, by Martin & Harms, on lands of the Fox estate. In October of 1877 the Rev. Dr. Newman, President Grant’s pastor in Washington, dedicated the second church the Methodists built at Edenburg. Fire cremated the structure and seriously damaged the third one on the site in 1879. Probably no other town of its size on the face of the earth has suffered so repeatedly and disastrously at the hands of incendiaries as Edenburg. The third great conflagration, on October thirteenth, 1878, destroyed two-hundred buildings and thirteen oil-wells.

Sad accidents happened before drillers learned how to manage a flowing oil-well with casing in it. At Frank Fertig’s well, Antwerp, a man was burned to death. The burning of the Shoup & Vensel well at Turkey City cost three lives and led to an indignation-meeting at St. Petersburg to protest against casing. Danger from its use was soon removed by Victor Gretter’s invention of the oil-saver. Gretter, a small, dark-haired, dark-eyed man, lived at St. Petersburg. He was an inventive genius and a joker of the first water. His oil-saver doubtless saved many lives, by preventing gas and oil from escaping when a vein was tapped and coming in contact with the tool-dresser’s fire in the derrick.

Captain John Kissinger, a pioneer settler, died in 1880 at the age of eighty-five. He was the father of thirty-four children, nine of whom perished by his dwelling taking fire during the absence of the parents from home. His second wife, who survived him ten years, weighed three-hundred pounds.

Lillian Edgarton, the plump and talented platform-speaker, was billed to appear at Franklin. She traveled from Pittsburg by rail. A Parker broker was a passenger on the train and wired to the oil-exchange that Josie Mansfield was on board. The news flew and five-hundred men stood on the platform when the train arrived. The broker jumped off and said the lady had a seat near the center of the coach he had just left. The boys climbed on the car-platform, opened the door and marched in single file along the aisle to get a look at “Josie.” The conductor tore his hair in anguish that the train would not carry such a crowd as struggled to get on, but he was dumbfounded when the long procession began to get off. The sell was not discovered until next morning, by which time the author of the joke had started on his summer-vacation and could not be reached by the vigilance-committee.

Down the zig-zagged stream proved to not a few operators a pleasant voyage to wealth and to others the direct road to disaster. Venango, Clarion and Armstrong counties had been explored, with Butler on deck to surprise mankind by the extent and richness of its amazing territory.

WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS.

The first building at Triangle bore in bold letters and bad spelling a sign labeled “Tryangle Hotel.”

“A Black Justice of the Peace” ran the off-color legend, painted by an artist not up in punctuation, on the weather-beaten sign of ’Squire Black, at Shippenville.

An honest Dutchman near Turkey City declined to lease his farm at one-fourth royalty, insisting uponone-eighthas the very lowest he would accept. He did not discover that one-eighth was not twice one-fourth until he received his first instalment of oil, when he fired off the simple expletive, “Kreutzmillionendonnerwetter!”

A farmer rather shy on grammar, who represented Butler county in the Legislature at the outset of developments around Petrolia, “brought down the house” and a unanimous appropriation by his maiden-speech: “Feller citizens, if we’uns up to Butler county wuz yu’uns down to Harrisburg we’uns would give yu’uns what we’uns is after!”

At Oil City in 1863-4 J. B. Allen, of Michigan, a first-class chemist, had charge of the prescription-department in Dr. Colbert and Dr. Egbert’s drug-store. He could read Greek as readily as English, declaim in Latin by the hour, quote from any of the classics and speak three or four modern languages. To raise money to pay off a mortgage on his father’s farm he walked across the Allegheny on a wire thirty feet above the water. He carried a large flag, attached to a frame mounted on a pulley-wheel, which he shoved with one hand, holding a balance-pole in the other. It was a feat Blondin could not excel. Allen was decidedly eccentric and the hero of unnumbered stories. Once a mud-bespattered horseman rushed into the store with aprescriptionprescriptionthat called for a deadly poison. The horseman was informed it was not safe to fill it, but he insisted upon having it, saying it bore a prominent doctor’s signature and there could be no mistake. Allen filled it and wrote on the label: “Caution—If any damphool takes this prescription it will kill him as dead as the devil!”

General Reed, of Erie, the largest vessel-owner on the lakes, represented his district in Congress and desired a second term. The Democrats nominated Judge Thompson and Clarion county was the pivot upon which the election turned. The contest waxed furious. Near its close the two candidates brought up at a big meeting in the wilds of Clarion to debate. Lumbermen and furnacemen were out in force. Reed led off and on the homestretch told the people how he loved them and their county. He had built the fastest craft on the lakes and named the vessel Clarion. As the craft sailed from Buffalo to Erie, and from Cleveland to Detroit, and from Saginaw to Mackinaw, to Oconomowoc and Manitowoc, Oshkosh, Milwaukee and Chicago, in every port she folded her white wings and told of the county that honored him with a seat in Congress. The people were untutored in nautical affairs and listened with rapt attention. As the General closed his speech the enthusiasm was unbounded. Things looked blue for Judge Thompson. After a few moments required to get the audience out of the seventh heaven of rapture, he stepped to the front of the platform, leaned over it, motioned to the crowd to come up close and said: “Citizens of Clarion, what General Reed has told you is true. He has built a brig and a grand one. But where do you suppose he painted the proud name of Clarion?” Turning to General Reed, he said: “Stand up here, sir, and tell these honest people where you had the painter put the name of Clarion. You never thought the truth would reach back here. I shall tell these people the truth and I challenge you to deny one word of it. Yes, fellow-citizens, he painted the proud name of Clarion under the stern of the brig—under her stern, gentlemen!” The indignation of the people found vent in groans and curses. General Reed sat stunned and speechless. No excuses would be accepted and the vote of proud Clarion made Judge Thompson a Congressman.

HASCAL L. TAYLOR.MARCUS BROWNSON.JOHN SATTERFIELD.PARKER—FROM PROSPECT ROCKARGYLE CITY-1872.KARNS CITY-1873GREECE CITY 1873MILLERSTOWN 1874PETROLIA 1873

HASCAL L. TAYLOR.MARCUS BROWNSON.JOHN SATTERFIELD.

HASCAL L. TAYLOR.

MARCUS BROWNSON.

JOHN SATTERFIELD.

PARKER—FROM PROSPECT ROCKARGYLE CITY-1872.KARNS CITY-1873GREECE CITY 1873MILLERSTOWN 1874PETROLIA 1873

PARKER—FROM PROSPECT ROCK

ARGYLE CITY-1872.

KARNS CITY-1873

GREECE CITY 1873

MILLERSTOWN 1874

PETROLIA 1873

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