XIII.ON THE SOUTHERN TRAIL.

Butler’s Rich Pastures Unfold Their Oleaginous Treasures—The Cross-Belt Deals Trumps—Petrolia, Karns City and Millerstown—Thorn Creek Knocks the Persimmons for a Time—McDonald Mammoths Break All Records—Invasion of Washington—Green County Has Some Surprises—Gleanings of More or Less Interest.

“I’m comin’ from de Souf, Susanna, do’ant yo cry.”—Negro Melody.

“Again the lurid light gleamed out.”—J. Boyle O’Reilly.

“I have never been known to miss one end of the trail.”—J. Fennimore Cooper.

“An eagle does not catch flies.”—Latin Proverb.

“Step by step one goes very far.”—French Proverb.

“The light fell like a halo upon their bent heads.”—Rev. John Watson.

“Either I will find a way or make one.”—Norman Crest.

“I stretch lame hands of faith and grope.”—Tennyson.

“We but catch at the skirts of the thing we would be.”—Owen Meredith.

“Where are frost and snow when the hawthorn blooms?”—Julius Stinde.

“The things we see are shadows of the things to be.”—Phœbe Cary.

“Oh! but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp.”—Robert Browning.

“These little things are great to little man.”—Oliver Goldsmith.

“So will a greater fame redound to thee.”—Dante.

“Every white will have its black and every sweet its sour.”—Dr. Percy.

DAVID DOUGALL.

Klondyke nuggets, cold, yellow and glittering, could not be more fascinating to lovers of the most exciting methods of gaining wealth than were the oil-wells that started Parker on the highway to prosperity. All eyes turned instinctively southward, believing the next center of activity lay in that direction. The Israelites scanning the horizon for a glimpse of the promised land were less earnest and anxious. Butler, not Canaan, was on everybody’s lips. “On to Richmond,” the frenzied cry during the civil war, appeared in the new dress of “On to Butler!” For a time, just to catch breath for the supreme movement, operators groped their way cautiously. But Napoleon scaled the Alps and the advance-couriers of the coming host of oilmen climbed Farren Hill and the slopes beyond. Julius Cæsar crossed the Rubicon in days of old, so Campbell and Lambing in 1871 crossed Bear Creek, three miles south-west of Parker, to plant the tall derricks which signified that the invasion of Butler by the petroleumites was about to begin and to be carried through to a finish. With Richard each of the bold invaders might declare:

“I have set my life upon a cast,And I will stand the hazard of the die.”

“I have set my life upon a cast,

And I will stand the hazard of the die.”

Butler, the county-seat of Butler county, was laid out in 1802 by the Cunninghams, two brothers from Lancaster, who repose in the old cemetery. The surveyor was David Dougall, who lived seventy-five years alone, in a shantynear the court-house, dying at ninety-eight. He owned a row of tumble-down frames on the public-square, eye-sores to the community, but would not sell lest his poor tenants might suffer by a change of proprietors! His memory of local events was marvelous. He walked from Detroit through the forest to Butler, following an Indian trail, and remembered when Pittsburg had only three brick-buildings. He was agent of the McCandless family and once consented to spend a night at the mansion of his friends in Pittsburg. To do honor to the occasion he wore trousers made of striped bed-ticking. Fearing fire, he would not sleep up-stairs and a bed was provided in the parlor. About midnight an alarm sounded. Dougall jumped up, grabbed his shoes and hat and walked home-thirty-three miles-before breakfast. He was an eccentric bachelor and had his coffin ready for years. It was constructed of oak, grown on one of his farms, which he willed to a friend upon condition that the legatee buried him at the foot of a particular tree and kept a night-watchman at his grave one year. He was the last of his race and the last survivor of the bold pioneers to whom Butler owed its settlement.

BUTLER COUNTY

Well-known operators figured in the vicinity of Bear Creek. Joseph Overy drilled rows of good wells, pushed south and founded the town embalmed as St. Joe in compliment to its progenitor. Marcus Brownson—he was active in Venango and McKean and died at Titusville—had a walkover on the Walker farm, a mile in advance. On Donnelly’s eleven-hundred acres, offered in 1868 for six-thousand-dollars, scores of medium wells yielded from 1871 to 1878. S. D. Karns drained the Morrison farm and John McKeown hit the “sucker-rod belt”—so called from its extreme narrowness—near Martinsburg. Ralph Brothers tickled the sand on the Sheakley farm. Up the stream operations jogged and Argyle City sprouted on the hillside. Two miles ahead, upon the line dividing the Jameson and Blaney farms, Dimick, Nesbit & Co. finished a wildcat well on April seventeenth, 1892. This was the noted Fanny Jane—gallantly named in honor of a pretty girl—which pumped one-hundred barrels and gave birth to Petrolia, seven miles south by west of Parker. George H. Dimick, examining lands in Fairview township, Butler county, decided that a natural basin at the junction of South Bear Creek and Dougherty Run was oil-territory. Fifty men were raising a barn on the Campbell farm, overlooking this basin. Proceeding to the spot, he proposed to drill a test well if the owners of the soil would lease enough land to warrant the undertaking. Terms were agreed upon which secured twenty acres of the Blaney farm, sixteen of the Jameson, ten of the W. A. Wilson, ten of the James Wilson and ten of the Graham, at one-eighth royalty. The nearest producing wells at that date were three miles north. The Fanny Jane stirred the blood of the oil-clans. The moving mass began to-arrive in May and by July two-thousand people had their home at Petrolia.

A charter was obtained and Mr. Dimick was chosen burgess at the first borough-election, in February of 1873. The town expanded like the turnip Longfellow said “grew and it grew and it grew all it was able.” Hotels, stores, shops and offices lined the valley and dwellings crowned the hills. A narrow-gauge railroad from Parker was built in 1874, extended to Karns City and Millerstown and ultimately to Butler. Fisher Brothers paid sixty-thousand dollars for the Blaney farm and wells multiplied in all directions. A dog-fight or a street-scrap would gather hundreds of spectators. The Argyle Savings Bank handled hundreds-of-thousands of dollars daily. Ben Hogan erected a big opera-house and May Marshall was the Cora Pearl of the frail sisterhood. R. W. Cram ran the post-office and news-room. “Steve” Harley wafted newsy items to the newspapers. Dr. Frank H. Johnston, now of Franklin, was the first physician. Kindred spirits met at “Sam” McBride’s drug-store andPeter Christie’s Central Hotel. Poor “Sam,” “Dave” Mosier, H. L. McCance and S. S. Avery are in their graves and others have wandered nobody knows whither. Petrolia continued the metropolis four years and then dropped out of the game. Some straggling houses and left-over derricks alone remain of the gayest, sprightliest, hottest, busiest town that bloomed and withered in old Butler.

RICHARD JENNINGSGEO NESBIT S. D. KARNS.GEORGE DIMICK

George H. Dimick, the son of a Wisconsin farmer and sire of Petrolia, is liberally stocked with the never-say-die qualities of the breezy Westerner. At nineteen he taught a Milwaukee school, landed on Oil Creek in 1860 and was appointed superintendent of the two Buchanan farms by Rouse & Mitchell. He drilled on his own account in the spring of 1861, aided in settling the Rouse estate, enrolled as a private in “Scott’s Nine-Hundred” and came out a captain at the close of the war. In May of 1865 he bent his footsteps towards Pithole, sold lands for the United States Petroleum-Company and drilled eleven dry-holes on the McKinney farm! Interests in the Poole, Grant, Eureka and Burchill spouters offset these losses and added thousands of dollars a week to his wealth. Staying at Pithole too long, values had shrunk to such a degree that he was virtually penniless at his departure from the “Magic City” in 1867. A whaling voyage of fifteen months in the Arctic seas and a sojourn at his boyhood home improved his health and he returned in time to share in the Pleasantville excitement. He located at Parker’s Landing in 1871 as partner of McKinney & Nesbit in the sale of oil-well supplies. He operated in the Parker field, at St. Petersburg, Petrolia, Greece City and Slippery Rock. Disposing of his properties in these localities, he and Captain Peter Grace drilled the wildcat-well that opened Cherry Grove and paralyzed the market in 1882. He had been active at Bradford and the middle field felt the influence of his shrewd movements. He has kept abreast of developments in the southern districts, sometimes getting several lengths ahead. He is now interested in West Virginia and Kentucky. Those who know his quick perception, his executive ability and his intense love for opening new fields would not wonder to hear of his striking a gusher at Oshkosh or Kamtschatka. Mr. Dimick is a man of active temperament, high character and sturdy industry, a genuine pathfinder and tireless explorer.

An Erie boy of fifteen when he left his father’s house for the oil-region in 1862, George H. Nesbit first fired a still in a Titusville refinery and in 1863 engaged with Dinsmore Brothers at Tarr Farm. He built a small refinery at Shaffer, sold it in 1864 and in the spring of 1865 drilled wells for himself on Benninghoff and Cherry-Tree Runs. He spent two years at Pithole, gaining a fortune and remaining until the collapse swallowed the bulk of his profits. He operated at Pioneer in 1867 and a year later at Pleasantville. He and George H. Dimick prospected in 1869 for oil-belts and fresh territory, located rich leases on Hickory Creek and established the line of the Venture well at Fagundas. In 1870 Nesbit moved to Parker and, in company with John L. McKinney, sold oil-well machinery and oil-lands. McKinney & Nesbit drilled along Bear Creek, especially on the Black and Dutchess farms, prospering greatly. The firm ranked with the most enterprising and realized large returns from wells at St. Petersburg and Parker. Dimick & Nesbit, with Mr. McKinney as their associate, opened the Petrolia field in 1872. William Lardin, the contractor of the Fanny Jane, bought McKinney’s interest in the well and leases. The three partners were right in the swim, their first six wells at Petrolia yielding them a thousand barrels a day. Nesbit bought the Patton farm, below town, in 1872for twenty-thousand dollars, selling five-eighths. Five third-sand wells ranged from thirty to one-hundred barrels and oil ruled at three to five dollars. The fourth-sand was found in 1873, and in January of 1874 Nesbit & Lardin struck a thousand-barrel gusher on the Patton. The farm paid enormously and Nesbit became an “oil-prince.” He developed hundreds of acres and displayed masterly tact. His check was good for a half-million any day and his luck was so remarkable that, had he fallen into the river, probably he would not have been wet. He paid the highest wages and met his bills at sight. He entered the oil-exchange at Parker, for a time was a high-roller and ended a bankrupt! The desk on which he wrote his bold, round signature on checks aggregating many hundred-thousand dollars was stored away among shocks of corn and sheaves of oats in the weather-stained barn on the Patton farm. J. N. Ireland bought the tract for seven-thousand dollars. Nesbit drifted about aimlessly, heard from occasionally at Macksburg and fetching up at last in Cincinnati. His prestige was gone, his star had waned and he never “caught on” again. He was no sluggard in business, no dullard in society, no niggard with money, no laggard in the petroleum-column. Surely the oil-region has furnished its full allotment of sad romances from real life. Nesbit died July eighth, 1897.

“Time, with a face like a mystery,And hands as busy as hands can be,Sits at the loom with its warp outspread,To catch in its meshes each glancing thread.Click, click! there’s a thread of love wove in!Click, click! and another of wrong and sin!What a checkered thing this web will beWhen we see it unrolled in eternity!”

“Time, with a face like a mystery,

And hands as busy as hands can be,

Sits at the loom with its warp outspread,

To catch in its meshes each glancing thread.

Click, click! there’s a thread of love wove in!

Click, click! and another of wrong and sin!

What a checkered thing this web will be

When we see it unrolled in eternity!”

James E. Brown, to whom Nesbit sold one-quarter of the Patton farm, made his mark upon the industries of the state. A carpenter’s son, he started a store on the site of Kittanning, saved money, purchased lands and at his death in 1880 left his family four-millions. He manufactured iron at various furnaces and owned a big block of stock in the rolling-mills at East Brady. Samuel J. Tilden was a stockholder in the works, which employed sixteen hundred men, turned out the first T-rails west of the Alleghenies and tottered to their fall in 1874. Mr. Brown cleared eight-hundred-thousand dollars in 1872 by the advance in iron. He owned oil-farms in Butler county, took stock in the Parker Bridge, the Parker & Karns City Railroad and the Karns Pipe-Line Company and conducted a bank at Kittanning. His granddaughter, Miss Findley, who inherited half his wealth, married Lord Linton, a British baronet. The aged banker—he stuck it out to eighty-two—knew how to pile up money.

Stephen Duncan Karns, who had a railroad and a town named in his honor, was a picturesque figure in the Armstrong-Butler district. With his two uncles he operated the first West-Virginia well, at the mouth of Burning-Spring Run, in 1860. His experience at his father’s Tarentum salt-wells enabled him to run engine, to sharpen tools and clean out an old salt-well to be tested for oil. The well pumped forty barrels a day during the winter of 1860-1. Fort Sumter was bombarded, several Kanawha operators were killed and young Karns escaped by night in a canoe. He enlisted, served three years, led his company at Antietam and Chancellorsville and in 1866 leased one acre at Parker’s Landing from Fullerton Parker. His first well, starting at one barrel a day, by months of pumping was increased to twelve barrels and earned him twenty-thousand dollars. From the Miles Oil-Company of New York he leased a farmand an abandoned well a mile below Parker. He drilled the well through the sand and it produced twenty-five barrels a day. This settled the question of oil south of Parker. “Dunc,” as he was usually called by his friends, leased the Farren farm, drilled on Bear Creek, secured the famous Stonehouse farm of three-hundred acres and in 1872 enjoyed an income of five-thousand dollars a day! A mile south of Petrolia, on the McClymonds farm, Cooper Brothers were about to give up their first well as a hopeless duster. Karns thought the hole not deep enough, bought the property, resumed drilling and in two days the well was flowing one-hundred barrels! The town of Karns City blossomed into a community of twenty-five-hundred people, with three big hotels, stores, offices and dwellings galore. It fell a prey to the flames eventually. The McClymonds, Riddle and J. B. Campbell farms doubled “Dunc’s” big income for many moons. He had the second well at Greece City and for a year or more was the largest producer in the oil-region. He built a pipe-line from Karns City to Harrisburg to fight the United Lines, held fifty-five-thousand dollars’ stock in the Parker Bridge and controlled the Parker & Karns-City Railroad and the Exchange Bank.

Near Freeport, on the Allegheny River, thirty miles above Pittsburg, he lassoed a great farm and erected a fifty-thousand-dollar mansion. Fourteen race-horses fed in his palatial stables. Guests might bathe in champagne and the generous host spent money royally. A good strike or a point gained meant a general jollification. He played billiards skillfully, handled cards expertly and wagered heavily on anything that hit his fancy. He and his wife were in Paris during the siege. Upon his return from Europe he built the Fredericksburg & Orange Railroad, in Virginia. The glut of crude from Butler wells dropped the price in 1874 to forty cents. Losses of different kinds cramped Karns and the man worth three-millions in 1872-3 was obliged to surrender his stocks and lands and wells and begin anew! James E. Brown secured Glen-Karns, the beautiful home below Freeport. In 1880 Karns induced E. O. Emerson, the wealthy Titusville producer, to start a cattle-ranch in Western Colorado. For six years he superintended the herds on the immense plains, joining the round-ups, sleeping on the ground with the boys, roping and branding cattle and accumulating a stock of health and muscle which he thinks will carry him to the hundred-year mark. Emerson had bought from Karns the Riddle farm for eleven-thousand dollars. He deepened one well—supposed dry—to the fourth sand. It flowed six-hundred barrels and Emerson sold the tract in sixty days for ninety-thousand dollars. Karns returned from the west, practiced law a short while in Philadelphia and for some years has managed a Populist paper at Pittsburg. He ran against John Dalzell for Congress and walked at the head of the parade when General Coxey’s “Army of the Commonweal” marched through the Smoky City. He enjoyed making money more than handling it, was honorable in his dealings, intensely active, comprehensive in his views and positive in his opinions. His “yes” or “no” was given promptly. “Dunc” is of slender build and nervoustemperamenttemperament, easy in his manners, frank in his utterances and not scared by spooks in politics or trade. He had his share of light and shade, struggle and triumph, defeat and victory, incident and adventure in his pilgrimage.

“How chances mock,And changes fill the cup of alterationWith divers liquors!”

“How chances mock,

And changes fill the cup of alteration

With divers liquors!”

Richard Jennings, over whose head the grass and flowers are growing, andhis brother-in-law, the late Jacob L. Meldren, did much to develop the territory east of Petrolia. Coming from England to Armstrong county a half-century ago, they located at what is now Queenstown. Meldren bought the farm at the head of Armstrong Run on which the noted Armstrong well was struck in 1870. It opened “the Cross-Belt,” an abnormal strip running nearly at right angles to the main lines and remarkable for mammoth gushers. This unprecedented “belt” upset the theories of geologists and operators. The first and only one of its kind, it resembled the mule that “had no pride of ancestry and no hope of posterity.” Mr. Jennings drilled on many farms and gathered a large fortune. He was a man of character and ability, with a priceless reputation for integrity and truthfulness. Once he sent his foreman, Daniel Evans, to secure the Dougherty farm, on the southern edge of Petrolia, owned by two maiden sisters. The foreman knocked at the door, engaged board for a week, was engaged to the elder sister before the week expired and had the pleasure of reaping a harvest of greenbacks from the property in due course. It is satisfactory to find such enterprise abundantly recompensed. Not so lucky was a gay and festive operator with an ancient maiden who owned a tempting patch of land near Millerstown. He exhausted every art to get a lease, in desperation finally hinting at matrimony. The indignant lady exploded like a ton of dynamite, seizing a broom and compelling the bold visitor to beat an ungraceful retreat through the window, minus his hat and gloves! Evans leased part of the farm to his former employer, who finished the Dougherty spouter on November twenty-second, 1873. It flowed twenty-seven-hundred barrels a day from the fourth sand, loading Jennings with greenbacks and sending the speculative trade into convulsions. A patriotic citizen, devoted parent and genuine philanthropist, Richard Jennings was sincerely respected and his death was deeply mourned. His sons inherited their father’s sagacity and manly principle. They have operated in the McDonald field and are prominent in banking and business at Pittsburg.

The “Cross-Belt” crossed the petroleum-horizon in dead earnest in March of 1874. Taylor & Satterfield’s Boss well, on the James Parker farm, two miles east of Petrolia, flowed three-thousand barrels a day! William Hartley—General Harrison Allen defeated him for Auditor-General in 1872—organized the Stump Island Oil-Company and drilled from the mouth of the Clarion River six miles south, in 1866-7. He and John Galey owned the Island-King well at Parker’s Landing and a hundred others, some of which crept well down into Armstrong county. Richard Jennings and Jacob L. Meldren had punched holes on Armstrong Run and around Queenstown, but the spouter in the Parker-farm ravine was the fellow that touched the spot and hypnotized the trade. A solid stream of oil poured into the tank as if butted through the pipe by a hundred hydraulic-rams. The billowy mass of fluid heaved and foamed and boiled and tried its level best to climb over the wooden walls and unload the roof. David S. Criswell, of Oil City, had an interest in the gusher, and Criswell City—a shop, a lunch-room and five or six dwellings—was imprinted on Heydrick & Stevenson’s map. Stages between Petrolia and Brady halted at the bantling town for the convenience of pilgrims to the shrine of the Boss—a “boss” representing innumerable “bar’ls.” Wells were hurried down at a spanking gait, to divy up the oily freshet. “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley” and the uncertainty of fourth-sand wells was forcibly illustrated. Jennings had dry-holes on the Steele and Bedford farms, the latter ten rods north-west of the mastodon. Taylor & Satterfield’sNo. 2, thirty rods west, was a small affair. Dusters and light pumpers studded the road from Criswell to Petrolia, with the Hazelwood Oil-Company’s two-hundred-barreler a trifle north to tantalize believers in a straight “belt.” Lines and belts and theories and former experiences amounted to little or nothing. The only safe method was to “go it blind” and bear with exemplary resignation whatever might turn up, be it a big gusher or a measly duster.

H. H. CUMMINGS. JAHU HUNTER.

The Boss weakened to eleven-hundred barrels in July and to a humble pumper by the end of the year. Forty rods east, on the Crawford farm, Hunter & Cummings plucked a September pippin. Their Lady Hunter, sixteen-hundred feet deep and flowing twenty-five-hundred barrels, was a trophy to enrapture any hunter coming from the chase. The Boss and the Lady Hunter were the lord and lady of the manor, none of the others approaching them in importance. Hunter & Cummings laid a pipe-line to East Brady, to load their oil on the Allegheny-Valley Railroad. The railroad company refused to furnish cars, urging a variety of pretexts to disguise the unfair discrimination. The owners of the oil had a Roland for the Oliver of the officials. They quietly gauged their output and let it run upon the ground, notifying the company to pay for the oil. A new light dawned upon the railroaders, who discovered they had to deal with men who knew their rights and dared maintain them. Crawling off their high stool, they footed the bill, apologized meekly and thenceforth took precious care Hunter & Cummings should not have reason to complain of a car-famine. Simon Legree was not the only braggart whom good men have been obliged to knock down to inspire with decent respect for fair-play.

Hunter & Cummings stayed in the business, opening the “Pontius Pool,”east of Millerstown, and sinking many wells at Herman Station, where they acquired a snug production. They operated on the lands of the Brady’s Bend Iron-company, putting down the wells on the hills opposite East Brady and a number in the Bradford region. They owned the Tidioute Savings Bank and large tracts in North Dakota—the scene of their “bonanza farming”—and were interested with the Grandins in the great lumber-mills at Grandin, Missouri, the largest in the south-west. In connection with these mills they were building railroads to develop their two-hundred-thousand acres of timber lands and establish experimental farms. Both members of the firm were the architects of their own fortunes, public-spirited, generous and eminently deserving of the liberal measure of success that has attended their labors during the twenty-three years of their association as partners.

Jahu Hunter was born on a farm two miles above Tidioute in 1830. From seventeen to twenty-seven he lumbered and farmed, in 1857 engaged in merchandising and in 1861 sold his store and embarked in oil. He operated moderately five years, increasing his interests largely in 1866 and forming a partnership with H. H. Cummings in 1873, which death ended. Mr. Hunter married Miss Margaret R. Magee in 1860 and one son, L. L. Hunter, survives to aid in managing his extensive business-enterprises. He occupied a delightful home at Tidioute, was president of the Savings Bank and of the chair-factory, a Mason of the thirty-second degree and a leader in all progressive movements. He had lands in various states and was prospered in manifold undertakings. He served as school-director fifteen years, contributing time and money freely in behalf of education. He believed in bettering humanity, in relieving distress, in befriending the poor, in helping the struggling and in building up the community. Retired from active work, the evening of Jahu Hunter’s useful life was serene and unclouded. As the shadows lengthened he reviewed the past with calm content and awaited the future without apprehension. He died last March.

Captain H. H. Cummings removed from Illinois, his birthplace in 1840, to Ohio and was graduated from Oberlin College at twenty-two. Enlisting in July, 1862, he shared the privations and achievements of the Army of the Cumberland until mustered out in June, 1865. Three months later he visited theoil-regionoil-regionand in January of 1866 located at Tidioute in charge of Day & Co.’s refinery. Becoming a partner, he refined and exported oil seven years and was interested in wells at Tidioute and Fagundas. The firm dissolving in 1873, he joined hands with Jahu Hunter and operated extensively in the lower country. Hunter & Cummings stood in the front rank as representative producers. Captain Cummings is president of the Missouri Mining and Lumbering Company, which has a paid-up capital of five-hundred-thousand dollars and saws forty-million feet of lumber a year. L. L. Hunter is secretary, E. B. Grandin is treasurer and Hon. J. B. White, formerly a member of the Legislature from Warren county, is general manager. As Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic in Pennsylvania, Judge Darte succeeding him this year, Captain Cummings is favorably known to veterans over the entire state. He is a man of fine attainments, broad views and noble traits—a man who sizes up to a high ideal, who can be trusted and whose friendship “does not shrink in the wash.”

Taylor & Satterfield began operations in the lower fields in 1870, secured much of the finest territory in Butler and became one of the wealthiest firms in the oil-region. Harvesters rather than sowers, their usual policy was to buy lands tested by one or more wells and avoid the risk of wildcatting. In thisway they acquired productive farms in every part of the district, which yielded thousands of barrels a day when fully developed. Their transactions footed up many millions yearly. They established banks at Petrolia and Millerstown, employed an army of drillers and pumpers and clerks and were always ready fora big purchase that promised fat returns. In company with Vandergrift & Forman, John Pitcairn and Fisher Brothers, they built the Fairview Pipe-Line from Argyle to Brady, the nucleus of the magnificent National-Transit system of oil-transportation. Captain J. J. Vandergrift, George V. Forman and John Pitcairn were associated with them in their gigantic producing-operations, which in 1879 extended to the Bradford field and grew to such magnitude that the Union Oil-Company was formed in 1881, with five-millions capital. The Union was almost uniformly successful, owning big wells and paying big dividends. In 1883 it paid Forman a million dollars for his separate holdings in Allegany county, up to that date the largest individual sale in the region. All its properties were sold to the Forest Oil-Company and the Union was dissolved, Taylor retiring and Satterfield continuing to assist in the management some months.

Hascal L. Taylor was first known in Oildom as a member of the firm of Taylor & Day, Fredonia, N. Y., whose “buckboards” had a tremendous sale in Venango, Clarion, Armstrong and Butler. He lived at Petrolia several years, having charge of the office of Taylor & Satterfield and general oversight of the Argyle Savings Bank. After his retirement from the oil-business with an ample fortune he lived at Buffalo, speculated in real-estate and purchased miles of Florida lands. He died last year, as he was arranging to erect a fifteen-story office-block in Buffalo. Mr. Taylor was of medium height and stout build, energetic, resourceful and notable in the busy world of petroleum. His only son, Emory G., clerked in the bank at Petrolia, engaged in manufacturing at Williamsport a year or two and removed to Buffalo before his father’s death. He and his sister inherited the estate.

John Satterfield, a man of heart and brain, imposing in stature, frank in speech and square in his dealings, was a Mercer boy. He served four years in a regiment organized at Greenville and opened a grocery at Pithole in 1865, with James A. Waugh as partner. Selling the remnants of the grocery in 1867, he superintended wells at Tarr Farm three years and went to Parker in 1870. His work in the Butler field increased his excellent reputation for honesty and enterprise. He married Miss Matilda Martin, of Allentown, lived four years at Millerstown, removed to Titusville and built an elegant house on Delaware avenue, Buffalo. When the Union Oil-Company’s accounts were closed, the books balanced and the assets transferred to the Forest he engaged in banking. He was vice-president of the Third National Bank of Buffalo and president of the Fidelity Trust Company, whose new bank-building is the boast of the Bison City. George V. Forman and Thomas L. McFarland joined him in the Fidelity. Mr. McFarland, formerly cashier of the bank at Petrolia and secretary of the Union Company, is exceedingly affable, capable and popular. Failing health induced Mr. Satterfield to go on a trip designed to include France, the Mediterranean Sea and the warmer countries of the east. With his brother-in-law, Dr. T. J. Martin, he reached Paris, took seriously ill and died on April sixth, 1894, in his fifty-fourth year. Besides his wife, who was on the ocean hastening to his bedside when the end came, he left one son and one daughter. Dr. Martin cremated the body, pursuant to the wish of the deceased, and brought the ashes home for interment. Charitable and unostentatious,upright and active, all men liked and trusted “Jack” Satterfield, whom old friends miss sadly and remember tenderly.

The sinless land some of his friends have enter’d long ago,Some others stay a little while to struggle here below;But, be the conflict short or long, life’s battle will be wonAnd lovingly he’ll welcome us when earthly toil is done.Nor will our joy be less sincere—we’ll slap him on the back,Clasp his brave hand and warmly say: “We’re glad to see you, Jack!”

The sinless land some of his friends have enter’d long ago,

Some others stay a little while to struggle here below;

But, be the conflict short or long, life’s battle will be won

And lovingly he’ll welcome us when earthly toil is done.

Nor will our joy be less sincere—we’ll slap him on the back,

Clasp his brave hand and warmly say: “We’re glad to see you, Jack!”

W. J. YOUNG.

The Forest Oil-Company, into which the Union was merged, reckons its capital by millions, numbers its wells by thousands and is at the head of producing companies. Its operations cover five states. The company has hundreds of wells and farms in Pennsylvania, operates extensively in Ohio, is developing large interests in Kansas and seems certain to place Kentucky and Tennessee high up in the petroleum-galaxy. From its inception as a Limited Company the management has been progressive and efficient. To meet the increasing demands of new sections the original company was closed out and the present one incorporated, with Captain Vandergrift as president and W. J. Young as vice-president and general manager. Mr. Young, who was also elected treasurer in 1890, was peculiarly fitted for his responsible duties by long experience and executive ability. Born and educated in Pittsburg, he entered the employ of a leather-merchant in 1856, spent six years in the establishment and in 1862 went to Oil City to take charge of the forwarding and storage business of John and William Hanna. The Hannas owned the steamboat Allegheny Belle No. 4 and Hanna’s wharf, the site of the National-Transit machine-shops in the Third Ward. Captain John Hanna dying, John Burgess & Co. bought the firm’s storage interests and admitted Young as a partner. Burgess & Co. sold to Fisher Brothers, who used the wharf and yard for shipping and appointed Mr. Young their financial agent. How capably he filled the place every operator on Oil Creek can attest. He and John J. Fisher, under the name of Young & Co., bought and shipped crude-oil in bulk-barges. His relations with the Fishers ceased in 1872 with his appointment as book-keeper of the Oil-City Savings Bank. Elected cashier of the Oil-City Trust Company in 1874, he was afterwards vice-president and president, holding the latter office until 1891. John Pitcairn retiring from the firm of Vandergrift, Pitcairn & Co., he purchased an interest in the business. The firm of Vandergrift, Young & Co. was organized and sold its property to the Forest Oil-Company, of which Mr. Young was one of the incorporators and chairman. The business of the Forest necessitated his removal to Pittsburg in 1889. He is president of the Washington Oil-Company and the Taylorstown Natural-Gas Company and has his offices in the Vandergrift building, on Fourth avenue. During his twenty-seven years’ residence in Oil City he was active in promoting the welfare of the community. In 1866 he married Miss Morrow, sister-in-law and adopted daughter of Captain Vandergrift. Two daughters, one the wife of Lieutenant P. E. Pierce, West Point, N. Y., and the other a young lady residing with her parents, blessed the happy union. The hospitable home at Oil City was adelightful center of moral and social influence. Mr. Young represented the First Ward nine years in Common and Select Councils and was school-director six years. He furthered every good cause and was a helpful, honored citizen. Now at the meridian of life, his judgment matured and his acute perceptions quickened, young in heart and earnest in spirit, a wider sphere enlarges his opportunities. Of W. J. Young, true and tried, faithful and competent, a loyal friend and prudent counsellor, it can never be said: “Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.”

Fairview, charmingly located two miles south-west of Petrolia, was on one side of the greased streak. James M. Lambing’s gas-well a mile west lighted and heated the town, but vapor-fuel and pretty scenery could not offset the lack of oil and the dog-in-the-manger policy of greedy land-holders. Portly Major Adams—under the sod for years—built a spacious hotel, which William Lecky, Isaac Reineman, William Fleming and kindred spirits patronized. A mile-and-a-half east of Fairview and as far south of Petrolia, on a branch of Bear Creek, the Cooper well originated Karns City in June of 1872. S. D. Karns laid down eight-thousand dollars for the supposed dry-hole on the McClymonds farm, drilled forty feet and struck a hundred-barreler. Cooper Brothers finished the second well—it flowed two-hundred barrels for months—on the Saturday preceding “the thirty-day shut-down.” Tabor & Thompson and Captain Grace had moguls on the Riddle and Story farms. Big-hearted, open-handed “Tommy” Thompson—a whiter man ne’er drew breath—operated profitably in Butler and McKean and was active in the movements that made 1872-3 memorable to oil-producers. The biggest well in the bunch was A. J. Salisbury’s five-hundred-barrel spouter on the J. B. Campbell farm, in January of 1873. Salisbury conducted the favorite Empire House, which perished in the noon-day blaze that extinguished two-thirds of Karns City in December of 1874. One day he bought a wagon-load of potatoes from a verdant native, who dumped the tubers into the cellar and was given a check for the purchase. He gazed at the check long and earnestly, finally breaking out: “Vot for you gives me dose paper?” Salisbury explained that it was payment for the murphies. “Mein Gott!” ejaculated the ruralist, “you dinks me von tarn fool to take dot papers for mein potatoes?” The proprietor strove to enlighten the farmer, telling him to step across the street to the bank and get his money. “I see nein monish there,” replied the innocent, looking at John Shirley’s hardware-store, part of which a bank occupied. Discussing finance with the rustic would be useless, so “Jack” sent the hotel-clerk for the cash and counted it out in crisp documents bearing the serpentine autograph of General Spinner.

Vandergrift & Forman paid ninety-thousand dollars for the McCafferty farm, a mile south-west of Karns City. Mr. Forman closed the deal, going to the house with a lawyer and a New-York draft. The honest granger, not familiar with bank-drafts, would not receive anything except actual greenbacks. The parties journeyed to the county-seat to convert the draft into legal-tenders, which the seller of the property carried home. William McCafferty was a thrifty tiller of the soil and cultivated his farm thoroughly. He bought a home at Greenville, near John Benninghoff’s, put his money in Government bonds and died in 1880. Half the farm was fine territory and repaid its cost several times. One-twentieth of the price in 1873 would be good value to-day for the broad acres. For John Blaney’s farm, adjoining the McCafferty, Melville, Payne & Fleming put up fifteen-thousand dollars, bored a well and sold out toVandergrift & Forman at fifty-thousand. The Rob Roy well, on the McClymonds farm, produced forty-thousand barrels of fourth-sand oil, while a dry hole was sunk thirty yards away. Colonel Woodward, Mattison & McDonald, Tack & Moorhead and John Markham owned wells good for thirty to eight-hundred barrels. A cloud of dry-holes encompassed the May Marshall, on the Wallace farm. Haysville, on the Thomas Hays farm, had a brief run, a harvest of small strikes and dusters nipping it off prematurely. The epitaph of the Philadelphia baby would about fit:

“Died when young and full of promise,Our own little darling Thomas;We can’t have things here to please us—He has gone to dwell with Jesus.”

“Died when young and full of promise,

Our own little darling Thomas;

We can’t have things here to please us—

He has gone to dwell with Jesus.”

Branching off a mile south of Karns City, on January thirty-first, 1873, the first well—one-hundred and fifty barrels—was finished on the Moore & Hepler farm of three-hundred acres. Another in February strengthened “the belt theory,” belief in which induced C. D. Angell, John L. McKinney, Phillips Brothers and O. K. Warren to form a company and test the tract. Their faith was recompensed “an hundred fold” by an array of dandy wells and the unfolding of Angelica.OperatorsOperatorswere feeling their way steadfastly. Two miles south-east of Angelica, on the Simon Barnhart farm, Messimer & Backus’s wild-cat—also a February plant—pumped eight barrels a day. Shreve & Kingsley’s, on the Stewart farm, a mile north-east, found good sand and flowed one-hundred-and-forty barrels, in April, 1873. The fickle tide turned in that direction and Millerstown, a dingy, pokey hamlet on a side-elevation in Donegal township, a half-mile south-east of the Shreve-spouter, was on everybody’s lips. Some persons and some communities have greatness thrust upon them and Millerstown was of this brood. The natives awakened one April morning to find their settlement invaded by the irrepressible oilmen.

For sixty years the quiet hamlet of Barnhart’s Mills—a colony of Barnharts settled in Donegal when the nineteenth century was in its teens—stuck contentedly in the old rut, “the world unknowing, by the world unknown.” It consisted chiefly of log-houses, looking sufficiently antiquated to have been imported in William Penn’s good ship Welcome. A church, a school, a blacksmith-shop, a grocery, a general store and a tavern had existed from time immemorial. A grist-mill ground wheat and the name of Barnhart’s Mills was adopted by the post-office authorities. It yielded to Millerstown and finally to Chicora. The two-hundred villagers went to bed at dark and breakfasted by candle-light in winter. A birth, a marriage or a funeral aroused profound interest. At last news of oil “from Parker down” was heard occasionally. Petrolia arose and the Millerites shivered with apprehension. Was the petroleum-wave to submerge their peaceful homes? The Shreve well answered the query affirmatively and the invasion was not delayed. Crowds came, properties changed hands, old houses were razed and by July the ancient borough was disguised as a modern oil-town. Dr. Book built a grand hotel, Taylor & Satterfield established a bank, the United and Relief Pipe-Lines opened offices, the best firms were represented and “on to Millerstown” was the shibboleth of the hour. McFarland & Co.’s seventy-barrel well on the Thorn farm, a mile north-east of town, the third in the district, fed the oily flame. Dr. James, on R. Barnhart’s lands, finished the fourth, an eighty-barreler, in June, a half-mile west of the Shreve & Kingsley, which Clark & Timblin bought for twenty-thousand dollars. Wyatt, Fertig & Hammond’s mammoth flowed one-thousandbarrels a day! Col. Wyatt was a real Virginian, chivalric, educated and high-strung. Hon. John Fertig was a pioneer on Oil Creek and had operated at Foxburg with John W. Hammond. The Wyatt spouted for months.

McKeown & Morissey drilled rib-ticklers on the Nolan farm. Warden & Frew, F. Prentice, Taylor & Satterfield, Captain Grace, John Preston, Cook & Goldsboro, Samuel P. Boyer, C. D. Angell and multitudes more scored big hits. McKinney Brothers & Galey secured the Hemphill and Frederick farms, on which they drilled scores of splendid wells. James M. Lambing had a chunk near the Wyatt, with Col. Brady next door. Lee & Plumer, fresh from their triumphs in Clarion, leased the Diviner farm, two miles south-west of Millerstown, for two-hundred dollars an acre bonus and one-eighth royalty. Their first well flowed fifteen-hundred barrels and they sold to Taylor & Satterfield for ninety-thousand dollars after its production paid the bonus and the drilling. Henry Greene drilled on the Johnson farm, two miles straight south of the village, and P. M. Shannon’s, on the Boyle, was the lion of the eastern belt. A dry strip divided the field into two productive lines. P. H. Burchfield opened the Gillespie farm and Joseph Overy touched the Mead, four miles south of Millerstown, for a two-hundred-barreler that installed St. Joe. Dr. Hunter, of Pittsburg, monkeyed a well on the Gillespie for many weeks, inaugurating the odious “mystery” racket. Millerstown was a peach of the most approved pattern, holding its own bravely until Bradford overwhelmed the southern region. A narrow-gauge railroad connected it with Parker in 1876. Fire in 1875 swept away the central portion of the town and blotted out seven lives. Oil has receded, the operators have departed and the town is once more a placid country village.

The Barnhart and Hemphill farms yielded McKinney Brothers a lavish return, the wells averaging fifty to three-hundred barrels month after month. The two brothers, John L. and J. C., were not amateurs in oil-matters. Sons of a well-to-do lumberman and farmer in Warren county, they learned business-methods in boyhood and were fitted by habit and education to manage important enterprises. Their connection with petroleum dated back to the sixties, in the oldest districts. The knowledge stored up on Oil Creek and around Franklin and at Pleasantville was of immense benefit in the lower fields. Organizing the firm of McKinney Brothers in 1890, to operate at Parker, they kept pace with the trend of developments southward. Millerstown impressed them favorably and they paid seventy-thousand dollars for the Barnhart and two Hemphill farms, two-hundred-and-seventy acres in the heart of the richest territory. John Galey purchased an interest in the properties, which the partners developed judiciously. J. C. McKinney and Galey resided at Millerstown to oversee the numerous details of their extensive operations. In 1877, H. L. Taylor, John Satterfield, John Pitcairn and the brothers formed the partnership known as John L. McKinney & Co. It was controlled and managed by the McKinneys, until the sale of its interests to the Standard Oil-Company. John L. and J. C. McKinney sold their Ohio lands and wells in 1889 and their Pennsylvania oil-properties in 1890, since which period they have been associated with the Standard in one of its great producing branches, the South Penn Oil-Company. Noah S. Clark is president of the South Penn, with headquarters at Oil City and Pittsburg. This company has thousands of wells in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. The wise policy that has made the Standard the world’s foremost corporation has nowhere been manifested more effectively than in the formation of such companies as the Forest and the South Penn. Letting sellers of productionshare in the ownership and management of properties united in one grand system secures the advantages of concerted action, unlimited capital, identity of interest and combined experience. Thus men of the highest skill join hands for the good of all, using the latest appliances, buying at wholesale for cash, producing oil at the smallest cost and giving the public the fruits of systematic coöperation. In this free country “the poor man’s back-yard opens into all out-doors” and many producers, like John McKeown, Captain Jones “The.” Barnsdall and Michael Murphy have been conspicuously successful going it alone. Sometimes a growl is heard about monopoly, centralization and the octave of similar phrases, just as folks grumble at the weather, the heat and cold and think they could run the universe much better than its Creator does it.

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