XV.FROM THE WELL TO THE LAMP.

Transporting Crude-Oil by Wagons and Boats—Unfathomable Mud and Swearing Teamsters—Pond Freshets—Establishment of Pipe-Lines—National-Transit Company and Some of its Officers—Speculation in Certificates—Exchanges at Prominent Points—The Product That Illumines the World at Various Stages of Progress.

“Lamps were gleaming everywhere, gleaming from huge banks of flowers.”—Wilson Barrett.

“Nature must give way to Art.”—Jonathan Swift.

“The flighty purpose never is o’ertook, unless the deed go with it.”—Shakespeare.

“My kingdom for a horse to haul my oil.”—Richard III. Revised.

“We’ll all dip oil, and we’ll all dip oil,We’ll dip, dip, dip, and we’ll all dip oil.”—Pond-Freshet Song.

“We’ll all dip oil, and we’ll all dip oil,

We’ll dip, dip, dip, and we’ll all dip oil.”—Pond-Freshet Song.

“Lines of truth run through the world of thought as pipe-lines to the sea.”—Mrs. C. A. Babcock.

“These be piping times.”—Popular Saw.

“Seneca predicted another hemisphere, but Columbus presented it.”—Collins.

“Nature begets Merit and Fortune brings it into play.”—La Rochefoucauld.

“The wise and active conquer difficulties by daring to attempt them.”—Rowe.

“Perfection is attained by slow degrees.”—Voltaire.

“One little bull on oil was I,Bought a lot when the stuff was high,Sold when low and it pumped me dry,One little bull on oil.”—Oil City Blizzard.

“One little bull on oil was I,

Bought a lot when the stuff was high,

Sold when low and it pumped me dry,

One little bull on oil.”—Oil City Blizzard.

“It is just as dangerous to speculate in kerosene as to kindle the fire with it.”—Boston Herald.

The tribulations of early operators did not cease with drilling and tubing their wells. Oil might flow or be pumped readily, but it could neither transport nor sell itself. Crude in the tank was not always money in the purse without a good deal of engineering. The Irishman’s contrary pig, which he headed for Cork to drive to Dublin, was much less trouble to raise than to get to market. The first wells on Oil Creek were so close to the water that the stuff could be loaded directly into canoes or dug-outs and floated to the mouth of the stream. This arrangement, despite its apparent convenience, had serious drawbacks. The creek was too low in dry weather for navigation, except possibly by the Mississippi craft that slipped along easily on the morning dew. To overcome this difficulty recourse was had to artificial methods when the production increased sufficiently to introduce flat-boats, which dispensed with barrels and freighted the oil in bulk. The system of pond-freshets was adopted. A dam at the saw-mill near the Drake well stored the fluid until the time agreed upon toopen the gates and let the imprisoned waters escape. Rev. A. L. Dubbs was appointed superintendent and shippers were assessed for the use of the water stored in the pond. Usually two-hundred to eight-hundred boats—boats of all shapes and sizes, from square-keeled barges, divided into compartments by cross-partitions, to slim-pointed guipers—were pulled up the stream by horses once or twice a week to be filled at the wells and await the rushing waters. Expert rivermen, accustomed to dodging snags and rocks in inland streams, managed the fleet. These skilled pilots assumed the responsibility of delivering the oil to the larger boats at Oil City, for conveyance to Pittsburg, at one-hundred to two-hundred dollars per trip.

HOW OIL IS TRANSPORTED IN RUSSIA—HAULING EMPTY BARRELS.

At the appointed moment the flood-gates were opened and the water rushed forth, increasing the depth of the creek two or three feet. The boatmen stood by their lines, to cast loose when the current was precisely right. Sound judgment was required. The loaded boat, if let go too soon, ran the risk of grounding in the first shallow-place, to be battered into kindling-wood by those coming after. Such accidents occurred frequently, resulting in a general jam and loss of vessels and cargoes. The scene was more exciting than a three-ringed circus. Property and life were imperiled, boats were ground to fragments, thousands of barrels of oil were spilled and the tangle seemed inextricable. Men, women and children lined the banks of the stream for miles, intently watching the spectacle. Persons of all nationalities, kindreds and conditions vociferated in their diversified jargon, producing a confusion of tongues that outbabeled Babel three to one. Men of wealth and refinement, bespattered and besmeared with crude—their trousers tucked into boots reaching above the knee, and most likely wearing at the same time a nobby necktie—might be seen boarding the boats with the agility of a cat and the courage of warriors, shouting, managing, directing and leading in the perilous work of safe exit. Sunday creeds were forgotten and the third commandment, constantly snapped in twain, gave emphasis to the crashing hulks and barrels. A pillar of the Presbyterian church,seeing his barge unmanned, ran screaming at the top of his voice: “Where in sheol is Parker?” This so amused his good brethren that they used it as a by-word for months.

The cry of “Pond Freshet” would bring the entire population of Oil City to witness the arrival of the boats. Sometimes the tidal wave would force them on a sand-bar in the Allegheny, smashing and crushing them like egg-shells. Oil from overturned or demolished boats belonged to whoever chose to dip it up. More than one solid citizen got his start on fortune’s road by dipping oil in this way. If the voyage ended safely the oil was transferred from the guipers—fifty barrels each—and small boats to larger ones for shipment to Pittsburg. William Phillips, joint-owner of the biggest well on Oil Creek, was the first man to take a cargo of crude in bulk to the Smoky City. The pond-freshet was a great institution in its day, with romantic features that would enrapture an artist and tickle lovers of sensation to the fifth rib. One night the lantern of a careless workman set fire to the oil in one of the boats. Others caught and were cut loose to drift down the river, floating up against a pier and burning the bridge at Franklin. Running the “rapids” on the St. Lawrence river or the “Long Sault” on the Ottawa was not half so thrilling and hair-raising as a fleet of oil-boats in a crush at the mouth of Oil Creek.

The fleet of creek and river-boats engaged in this novel traffic numbered two-thousand craft. The “guiper,” scow-shaped and holding twenty-five to fifty barrels, was the smallest. The “French Creekers” held ten to twelve-hundred barrels and were arranged to carry oil in bulk or barrels. At first the crude was run into open boats, which a slight motion of the water would sometimes capsize and spill the cargo into the stream. When prices ruled low oil was shipped in bulk; when high, shippers used barrels to lessen the danger of loss. Thousands of empty barrels, lashed together like logs in a raft, were floated from Olean. The rate from the more distant wells to Oil City was one-dollar a barrel. From Oil City to Pittsburg it varied from twenty-five cents to three dollars, according to the weather, the stage of water or the activity of the demand. Each pond-freshet cost two or three-hundred dollars, paid to the mill-owners for storing the water and the use of their dams. Twice a week—Wednesday and Saturday—was the average at the busy season. The flood of petroleum from flowing-wells in 1862 exceeded the facilities for storing, transporting, refining and burning the oil, which dropped to ten cents a barrel during the summer. Thousands of barrels ran into Oil Creek. Pittsburg was the chief market for crude, which was transferred at Oil City to the larger boats. The steamer-fleet of tow-boats—it exceeded twenty—brought the empties back to Oil City. The “Echo,” Captain Ezekiel Gordon; the “Allegheny Belle No. 4,” Captain John Hanna; the “Leclaire,” Captain Kelly; the “Ida Rees,” Captain Rees, and the “Venango” were favorite passenger-steamers. The trip from Pittsburg—one-hundred-and-thirty-three miles—generally required thirty to thirty-six hours. Mattresses on the cabin-floor served as beds for thirty or forty male passengers, who did not undress and rose early that the tables might be set for breakfast. The same tables were utilized between meals and in the evening for poker-games. The busiest man on the boat was the bar-tender and the clerk was the most important. He carried letters and money for leading oil-shippers. It was not uncommon for Alfred Russell, of the “Echo,” John Thompson, of the “Belle No. 4,” and Ruse Russ, of the “Venango,” to walk into Hanna’s or Abrams’s warehouse-office with large packages of money for John J. Fisher, William Lecky, John Mawhinney, William Thompson andothers who bought oil. No receipts were given or taken and, notwithstanding the apparent looseness in doing business, no package was ever lost or stolen. The boats usually landed at the lower part of the eddy to put off passengers wishing to stop at the Moran and Parker Hotels. At Hanna & Co.’s and Abrams & Co.’s landing, where the northern approach of the suspension bridge now is, they put off the remaining passengers, freight and empty oil-barrels. Many a Christian-looking man was heard to swear as he left the gang-plank of the boat and struck the mud, tough and greasy and deep. He would soon tumble to the situation, roll up his trousers and “pull for the shore.”

Horses and mules dragged the empty boats up Oil Creek, a terrible task in cold weather. Slush or ice and floating oil shaved the hair off the poor animals as if done with a razor. The treatment of the patient creatures—thousands were literally murdered—was frightful and few survived. For them the plea of inability availed nothing. They were worked until they dropped dead. The finest mule, ears very long, coat shiny, tail vehement, eye mischievous, heels vigorous and bray distinct and melodious, quickly succumbed to the freezing water and harsh usage. As a single trip realized more than would buy another the brutal driver scarcely felt the financial loss. A story is told of a boatman who started in the morning for the wells to bring down a load of oil. Returning in the evening, he learned that he had been drafted into the army. Before retiring to bed he had hired a substitute for one-thousand dollars, the proceeds of his journey of eleven miles and back. William Haldeman hauled a man over the coals for beating his exhausted horse, told him to buy another and handed him five-hundred dollars for eight horses to haul a boat to the gushers at Funkville.

Pond-freshets were holidays in Oil City sufficiently memorable to go gliding down the ages with the biggest kind of chalk-mark. Young and old flocked to see the boats slip into the Allegheny, lodge on the gravel-bar, strike the pier of the bridge or anchor in Moran’s Eddy. Hundreds of boatmen, drillers, pumpers and operators would be on board. Once the river had only a foot of water at Scrubgrass Ripple and large boats could not get to or from Pittsburg. A ship-carpenter came from New York to Titusville and spent his last dollar in lumber for six boxes sixteen feet square and twelve inches deep. He covered them with inch-boards and divided them into small compartments, to prevent the oil from running from one end to the other and swamping the vessel. This principle was applied to oil-boats thereafter and extended to bulk-barges and bulk-steamships. The ingenious carpenter floated his strange arks down to the Blood farm and bargained with Henry Balliott to fill them on credit. He performed the voyage safely, returned in due course, paid Balliott, built more boxes and went home in four months with a snug fortune. His ship had come in. Railroads and pipe-lines have relegated pond-freshets, oil-boats and Allegheny steamers to the rear, but they were interesting features of the petroleum-development in early days and should not be utterly forgotten.

To haul oil from inland wells to shipping-points required thousands of horses. This service originated the wagon-train of the oil-country, which at its best consisted of six-thousand two-horse teams and wagons. No such transport-service was ever before seen outside of an army on a march. General M. H. Avery, a renowned cavalry-commander during the war, organized a regular army-train at Pithole. Travelers in the oil-regions seldom lost sight of these endless trains of wagons bearing their greasy freight to the nearest railroad or shipping-point. Five to seven barrels—a barrel of oil weighed three-hundred-and-sixtypounds—taxed the strength of the stoutest teams. The mud was practically bottomless. Horses sank to their breasts and wagons far above their axles. Oil dripping from innumerable barrels mixed with the dirt to keep the mass a perpetual paste, which destroyed the capillary glands and the hair of the animals. Many horses and mules had not a hair below the eyes. A long caravan of these hairless beasts gave a spectral aspect to the landscape. History records none other such roads. Houses within a quarter-mile of the roadside were plastered with mud to the eaves. Many a horse fell into the batter and was left to smother. If a wagon broke the load was dumped into the mud-canal, or set on the bank to be taken by whoever thought it worth the labor of stealing. Teamsters would pull down fences and drive through fields whenever possible, until the valley of Oil Creek was an unfathomable quagmire. Think of the bone and sinew expended in moving a thousand barrels of oil six or eight miles under such conditions. Two-thirds of the work had to be done in the fall and winter, when the elements spared no effort to increase the discomfort and difficulty of navigation by boat or wagon. To haul oil a half-dozen miles cost three to five dollars a barrel at certain periods of the year. Thousands of barrels were drawn to Shaw’s Landing, near Meadville, and thousands to Garland Station and Union City, on the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad. The hauling of a few hundred barrels not infrequently consumed so much time that the shipper, in the rapid fluctuations of the market, would not realize enough to pay the wagon-freight. A buyer once paid ten-thousand dollars for one-thousand barrels at Clapp farm, above Oil City, and four-thousand for teaming it to Franklin, to be shipped by the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad to New York. Even after a plank-road had been built from Titusville to Pithole, cutting down the teaming one-half or more, the cost of laying down a barrel of crude in New York was excessive. In January of 1866 it figured as follows:

The Oil Creek teamster, rubber-booted to the waist and flannel-shirted to the chin, was a picturesque character. He was skilled in profanity and the savage use of the whip. A week’s earnings—ten, twenty and thirty dollars a day—he would spend in revelry on Saturday night. Careless of the present and heedless of the future, he took life as it came and wasted no time worrying over consequences. If one horse died he bought another. He regulated his charges by the depth and consistency of the mud and the wear and tear of morality and live-stock. Eventually he followed the flat-boat and barge and guiper to oblivion, railroads and pipe-lines supplanting him as a carrier of oil. Some of the best operators in the region adopted teaming temporarily, to get a start. They saved their money for interests in leases or drilling-wells and not a few went to the front as successful producers. The free-and-easy, devil-may-care teamster of yore, brimful of oil and tobacco and not averse to whiskey, is a tradition, remembered only by men whose polls are frosting with silver threads that do not stop at sixteen to one.

Wharves, warehouses and landings crowded Oil City from the mouth of Oil Creek to the Moran House. Barrels filled the warehouse-yards, awaitingtheir turn to be hauled or boated to the wells, filled with crude and returned for shipment. Loaded and empty boats were coming and going continually. Firms and individuals shipped thousands of barrels daily, employing a regiment of men and stacks of cash. William M. Lecky, still a respected citizen of Oil City, hustled for R. D. Cochran & Co., whose “Tiber” was a favorite tow-boat. Parker & Thompson, Fisher Brothers, Mawhinney Brothers and John Munhall & Co. were strong concerns. Their agents scoured the producing farms to buy oil at the wells and arrange for its delivery. Prices fluctuated enormously. Crude bought in September of 1862 at thirty cents a barrel sold in December at eleven dollars. John B. Smithman, Munhall’s buyer, walked up the creek one morning to buy what he could at three dollars. A dispatch at Rouseville told him to pay four, if necessary to secure what the firm desired. At Tarr Farm another message quoted five dollars. By the time he reached Petroleum Centre the price had reached six dollars and his last purchases that afternoon were at seven-fifty. Business was done on honor and every agreement was fulfilled to the letter, whether the price rose or fell. Lecky, Thomas B. Simpson, W. J. Young and Isaac M. Sowers—he was the second mayor of Oil City—clerked in these shipping-offices, which proved admirable training-schools for ambitious youths. William Porterfield and T. Preston Miller tramped over Oil Creek and Cherry Run for the Fishers. Col. A. J. Greenfield, Bradley & Whiting and I. S. Gibson bought at Rouseville and R. Richardson at Tarr Farm. “Pres” Miller, “Hi” Whiting and “Ike” Gibson—square, manly and honorable—are treading the golden-streets. John Mawhinney—big in soul and body, true to the core and upright in every fiber—has voyaged to the haven of rest. William Parker is president of the Oil City Savings Bank and Thompson returned east years ago. John Munhall settled near Philadelphia and William Haldeman removed to Cleveland. The iron-horse and the pipe-line revolutionized the methods of handling crude and retired the shippers, most of whom have shipped across the sea of time into the ocean of eternity.

Fisher Brothers have a long and enviable record as shippers and producers of oil, “staying the distance” and keeping the pole in the hottest race. Men have come and men have retreated in the mad whirl of speculation and wild rush for the bottom of the sand, but they have gone on steadily for a generation and are to-day abreast of the situation. Whether a district etched its name on the Rainbow of Fame or mocked the dreams of the oil-seeker, they did not lose their heads or their credit. John J. Fisher went to Oil City in 1862 and Fisher Brothers began shipping oil by the river to Pittsburg in 1863, succeeding John Burgess & Co. The three brothers divided their forces, to give each department personal supervision, John J. managing the buying and shipping at Oil City and Frederick and Henry receiving and disposing of the cargoes at Pittsburg. Competent men bought crude at the wells and handled it in the yards and on the boats. The firm owned a fleet of bulk-boats and tow-boats and acres of barrels. Each barrel was branded with a huge F on either head. The “Big F”—widely known as Oil Creek or the Drake well—was the trademark of fair play and spot cash. When railroads were built the Fishers discarded boats and used more barrels than before. When wooden-tanks—a car held two—were introduced they adopted them and let the barrels slide. When pipe-lines were laid they purchased certificate-oil and continued to be large shippers until seaboard lines suspended the older systems of freighting crude by water or rail, in barrels or in tanks. From the beginning to the end of the shipping-trade Fisher Brothers were in the van.

Next devoting their attention entirely to the production of oil and gas, with the Grandins and Adnah Neyhart they invested heavily at Fagundas and laid the first pipe-line at Tidioute. They operated below Franklin and were pioneers at Petrolia. Organizing the Fisher Oil-Company, they drilled in all the Butler pools and held large interests at McDonald and Washington. At present they are operating in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, the Fisher ranking with the foremost companies in extent and solidity. The brothers have their headquarters in the Germania Building, Pittsburg, and juicy wells in a dozen counties. Time has dealt kindly with all three, as well as with Daniel Fisher, ex-mayor of Oil City. They have loads of experience and capital and too much energy to think of adjusting their halo for retirement from active work. True men in all the relations of life, Fisher Brothers worthily represent the splendid industry they have had no mean part in making the greatest and grandest of any age or nation. To natural shrewdness and the quick perception that comes from contact with the activities of the world they joined business-ability that would have proved successful in whatever career they undertook to map out.

FREDERICK FISHERJOHN J. FISHER HENRY FISHER

The first suggestion of improvement in transportation was made in 1860, at Parkersburg, W. Va., by General Karns to C. L. Wheeler, now of Bradford. An old salt-well Karns had resurrected at Burning Springs pumped oil freely and he conceived the plan of a six-inch line of pipe to Parkersburg to run the product by gravity. The war interfered and the project was not carried out. At a meeting at Tarr Farm, in November of 1861, Heman Janes broached the idea of laying a line of four-inchwooden-pipesto Oil City, to obviate the risk, expense and uncertainty of transporting oil by boats or wagons. He proposed to bury the pipe in a trench along the bank of the creek and let the oil gravitateto its destination. A contract for the entire work was drawn with James Reed, of Erie. Col. Clark, of Clark & Sumner, grasped the vast possibilities the method might involve and advised applying to the Legislature for a general pipe-line charter. Reed’s contract was not signed and a bill was introduced in 1862 to authorize the construction of a pipe-line from Oil Creek to Kittanning. The opposition of four-thousand teamsters engaged in hauling oil defeated the bill and the first effort to organize a pipe-line company.

J. L. Hutchings, a Jersey genius, came to the oil-country in the spring of 1862 with a rotary-pump he had patented. To show its adaptation to the oil-business he laid a string of tubing from Tarr Farm to the Humboldt Refinery, below Plumer. He set his pump working and sent a stream of crude over the hills to the refinery. The pipe was of poor quality, the joints leaked and a good deal of oil fell by the wayside, yet the experiment showed that the idea was feasible. Although eminent engineers declared friction would be fatal, the result proved that distance and grade were not insurmountable. Eminent engineers had declared the locomotive would not run on smooth rails and that a cow on the track would disrupt George Stephenson’s whole system of travel, hence their dictum regarding pipe-lines had little weight. Dr. Dionysius Lardner nearly burst a flue laughing at the absurdity of a vessel without sails crossing the ocean and wrote a treatise to demonstrate its impossibility, but the saucy Sirius steamed over the herring-pond all the same. The rotary-pump at Tarr Farm confounded the scientists who worshipped theory and believed friction would knock out steam and pipe and American ingenuity and keep oil-operators forever subject to mud and pond-freshets. The two-inch line to the Humboldt Refinery planted the seed that was to become a great tree. Nobody saw this more plainly than the teamsters, who proceeded to tear up the pipe and warn producers to quit monkeying with new-fangled methods of transportation. That settled the first pipe-line and left the rampant teamsters, modern imitators of “Demetrius the silversmith,” the upper dog in the fight.

Hutchings—the boys called him “Hutch”—had pump and pipe-line on the brain and would not be suppressed. He put down a line in 1863 from the big Sherman well to the terminus of the railroad at Miller Farm. The pipes were cast-iron, connected by lead-sockets and laid in a shallow ditch. The jarring of the pump loosened the joints and three-fourths of the oil started at the well failed to reach the tanks, two miles north. The teamsters were not in business solely for their health and they tore up the line to be sure it would not cut off any of their revenue. Hutchings persisted in his endeavors until debts overwhelmed him and he died penniless and disappointed. The ill-starred inventor, who lived a trifle ahead of the times, deserves a bronze statue on a shaft of imperishable granite.

The Legislature granted a pipe-line charter in 1864 to the Western Transportation Company, which laid a line from the Noble &DelamaterDelamaterwell to Shaffer. The cast-iron pipe, five inches in diameter, was laid on a regular grade in the mode of a water-pipe. The lead points leaked like a fifty-cent umbrella, just as the Hutchings line had done, and the attempt to improve transportation was abandoned.

Samuel Van Syckle, a Jerseyite of inventive bent, arrived at Titusville in the fall of 1864. The problem of oil-transportation, rendered especially important by the opening of the Pithole field, soon engrossed his attention. In August of 1865 he completed a two-inch line from Pithole to Miller Farm. Mr. Wood and Henry Ohlen, of New York, held an interest and the First NationalBank of Titusville loaned the money to forward the project. J. N. Wheeler screwed the first joints together. Two pump-stations, a mile west of Pithole and at Cherry Run, at first helped force the oil through the pipe, which was buried two feet under ground “to be out of the way of the farmer’s plow.” Eight-hundred barrels a day could be run and the frantic teamsters talked of resorting to violence to cripple so formidable a rival. The pipeage was one dollar a barrel, at which rate the Pithole and Miller Farm Pipe-Line ought to have been a bonanza. Van Syckle traded heavily in oil and commanded plenty of capital. A. W. Smiley managed the line and bought oil for Van Syckle, who conducted this branch of business in his son’s name. Smiley’s largest transaction was a purchase of one-hundred-thousand barrels, at five dollars a barrel, from the United-States Petroleum Company, in one lot. Young Van Syckle spent money as the whim struck him. If Smiley refused his demand for a hundred or a thousand dollars, the fly youth would refuse to sign drafts and threaten to stop the whole concern. There was nothing to do in such cases but imitate Colonel Scott’s coon and “come down.” The Culver failure in May of 1866 compelled the First National Bank to press its claim against the line, which passed into the hands of Jonathan Watson. J. T. Briggs and George S. Stewart operated it for the bank and Watson until William H. Abbott and Henry Harley purchased the entire equipment.

Reverses beset Van Syckle, who induced George S. and Milton Stewart to erect a big refinery at Titusville to test his pet theory of “continuous distillation.” Failure, tedious litigation and heavy loss resulted. Van Syckle’s mind teemed with new schemes and new devices for refining. He possessed the rare faculty of finding friends willing to listen to his plans and back him with cash. Some of his ideas were valuable and they are in use to-day. Mismanagement swamped the enterprises he created and Van Syckle finally removed to Buffalo, where his checkered life closed peacefully on March second, 1894. While often unsuccessful financially, earnest men like Samuel Van Syckle benefit mankind. The oil-business is much better for the fertile brain and perseverance of the man whose pipe-line was the first to deliver oil to a railroad. His example stimulated other men combining keen perception and executive ability, who could sift the wheat from the chaff and discard the useless and impracticable.

In the fall of 1865 Henry Harley began a pipe-line from Benninghoff Run to Shaffer, the terminus of the Oil-Creek Railroad. Teamsters cut the pipes, burned the tanks and retarded the work seriously. An armed patrol arrested twenty of the ring-leaders, dispersed the mob and quelled the riot. The line—two-inch tubing of extra weight—handled oil expeditiously, a pump at Benninghoff forcing six to eight-hundred barrels a day into the tanks at Shaffer. The system was a public improvement, personal interest had to yield and four-hundred teams left the region the week Harley’s line pumped its first oil. Abbott and Harley owned an interest in the Pithole line and secured control by purchasing Jonathan Watson’s claim, to run it in connection with the Benninghoff line. They organized the firm of Abbott & Harley and operated both lines several months. At Miller Farm they constructed iron-tanks and loading-racks, which enabled two men to load a train of oil-cars in a few hours. Avery & Hedden laid a line from Shamburg to Miller Farm, establishing a station on the highest point of the Tallman farm and running the oil to the railroad by gravity. Abbott & Harley supplemented this with a branch from the Pithole line at the crossing of Cherry Run. Crude was a good price, operators prosperedand Miller Farm became a busy place. Railroads extended to the region and pipe-lines pumped oil directly from the wells to the cars or refineries. In the fall of 1867 Abbott & Harley acquired control of the Western Transportation Company, the only one empowered by the Legislature to pipe oil to railway-stations. Under its charter they combined the Western and their own two lines as the Allegheny Transportation Company. The first board of directors, elected in January of 1869, consisted of Henry Harley, president; W. H. Abbott, secretary; Jay Gould, J. P. Harley and Joshua Douglass. T. W. Larsen was appointed treasurer and William Warmcastle—genial, capable “Billy” Warmcastle—general superintendent. Jay Gould purchased a majority of the stock in 1868 and appointed Mr. Harley general oil-agent of the Atlantic & Great Western and Erie Railroads. In 1871 the Commonwealth Oil and Pipe Company was organized in the interest of the Oil-Creek Railroad. Harley contrived to effect a combination and reorganize the Allegheny and the Commonwealth as the Pennsylvania Transportation Company, with a capital of nearly two-million dollars and five-hundred miles of pipes to Tidioute, Triumph, Irvineton, Oil City, Shamburg, Pleasantville and Titusville, centering at Miller Farm. Among the stock-holders were Jay Gould, Thomas A. Scott, William H. Kemble, Mrs. James Fisk and George K. Anderson. The new enterprise absorbed a swarm of small lines and was considered the acme of pipe-line achievement.

W. H. ABBOTT. PIPE-LINE AT MILLER FARM IN 1866. HENRY HARLEY.

William Hawkins Abbott was a Connecticut boy, an Ohio merchant at twenty-five and a visitor to the Drake well in February of 1860. He remainedtwo days, paid ten-thousand dollars for three one-eighth interests in farms below the town and two days after William Barnsdall struck a fifty-barrel well on one of the properties. He located at Titusville, established a market for crude in New York, shipped extensively and in the fall of 1860, with James Parker and William Barnsdall as partners, began the erection of the first complete refinery in the oil-region. To convey the boilers and stills from Oil City, whither they were shipped from Pittsburg by water, was a task greater than the labors of Hercules. The first car-load of coal ever seen in Titusville Mr. Abbott laid down in the fall of 1862. He opened a coal-yard and superintended the refinery. Oil fluctuated at a rate calculated to make refiners bald-headed. In January of 1861 Abbott paid ten dollars a barrel for crude and one-twenty-five in March. In October of 1862 Howe & Nyce stored five-hundred barrels of crude on the first railroad-platform at Titusville, selling it to Abbott at two-sixty a barrel, packages included. In January of 1863 Abbott sold the oil from the same platform for fourteen dollars and in March the same lot—it had never been moved—brought eight dollars. Thirty days later Abbott bought it again at three dollars a barrel and refined it. He was interested in the Noble well, bought a large share in the Pithole and Miller Farm Pipe-Line and in 1866 formed a partnership with Henry Harley. He contributed largely to the Titusville and Pithole plank-road and all local enterprises likely to benefit the community. His generosity was comprehensive and discerning. He donated a chapel to the Episcopal congregation, projected the Union & Titusville Railroad and was a most exemplary, public-spirited citizen. To give bountifully was his delight. He bore financial disaster heroically and labored incessantly to save others from loss. At seventy-two he is patient and helpful to those about him, his daily life illustrating his real worth and illumining the pathway of his declining years.

Born in Ohio in 1839 and graduated from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as a civil-engineer in 1858, Henry Harley supervised the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel until the war and settled at Pittsburg in 1862 as active partner of Richardson, Harley & Co. The firm had a large petroleum commission-house and Harley removed to Philadelphia in 1863 to manage its principal branch. He purchased large tracts in West Virginia which did not meet his expectations, withdrew from the commission-firm and in the latter part of 1865 built his first pipe-line. He was the confidential friend of Jay Gould and James Fisk, whose support placed him in a position to organize the Pennsylvania Transportation Company. For years Harley swam on the topmost wave and was a high-roller of the loftiest stripe. Henry Villard was not more magnetic. He told good stories, dealt out good cigars, knew champagne from seltzer and had no trace of the miser in his intercourse with the world. He lived at Titusville in regal style and made “the grand tour of Europe” in 1872. He was on intimate terms with railroad magnates, big politicians and Napoleons of finance. The Pipe-Line Company got into deep waters, prosecutions and legal entanglements crippled it and Henry Harley tumbled with the fabric his genius had reared. He drifted to New York, was a familiar figure around Chautauqua several seasons and died in 1892. His widow lives in New York and his brother George, a popular member of the Oil-City Oil-Exchange, died last year.

In November of 1865 the Oil City & Pithole Railroad Company began a railroad between the two towns, pushing the work with such energy that the first train from Pithole to Oil City was run on March tenth, 1866. Vandergrift & Forman equipped the Star Tank-Line to carry oil in tank-cars and laid theStar Pipe-Line from West Pithole to Pithole to connect with the railroad. An unequivocal success from the start, this pipe-line has been regarded as the real beginning of the present system of oil-transportation. The lower oil-country enlarged the field for pipe-line stations. Lines multiplied in Venango, Clarion, Armstrong and Butler. Some of these were controlled by Vandergrift & Forman, who brought the business to a high standard of perfection. Each district had one or more lines running to the nearest railroad. The Pennsylvania Transportation Company secured a charter in 1875 to construct a line to the seaboard. Nothing was done except to build more lines in the oil-region. The number grew continually. Clarion had a half-dozen, the Antwerp heading the list. Parker had a brood of small-fry and Butler was net-worked. It was the fashion to talk of trunk-lines, call public meetings, subscribe for stock and—let the project die. Dr. Hostetter, the Pittsburg millionaire of “Bitters” fame, built the Conduit Line from Millerstown to the city of smoke and soot. The Karns, the Relief and others ran to Harrisville. Every fellow wanted a finger in the pipe-line pot-pie. A war of competition arose, rates were cut, business was done at heavy loss and the weaker concerns went to the wall. The companies issued certificates or receipts, instead of paying cash for crude received by their lines. When the producer ran oil into the storage-tanks of some companies he was not certain the certificates given him in return would have any value next day. He must either use the lines or leave the oil in the ground. The necessity of combining the badly-managed competitive companies into a solid organization was urgent. The Union Pipe-Line Company acquired a number of lines and operated its system in connection with the Empire Line. Under the act of 1874 Vandergrift & Forman organized the United Pipe-Lines, into which numerous local lines were merged. The first grand step had been taken in the direction of settling the question of oil-transportation for all time.

The advantages of the consolidation quickly commended the new order of things to the public. The United Lines erected hundreds of iron-tanks for storage and connected with every producing-well. Needless pipes and pumps and stations were removed to be utilized as required. The best appliances were adopted, improving the service and diminishing its cost. Uniform rates were established and every detail was systematized. Captain Vandergrift, president of the United Lines, was ably assisted in each department. Daniel O’Day, a potent force in pipe-line affairs, developed the system to an exact science. He learned the shipping-business from the very rudiments in the great Empire Line. His thorough knowledge, industry and practical talent were of incalculable value to the United Lines. He possessed in full measure the qualities adapted especially to the expansion and improvement of the giant enterprise. He had the skill to plan wisely and the ability to execute promptly. His sagacity and experience foresaw the magnificent future of the system and he laid the foundations of the United Lines broad and deep. To-day Daniel O’Day is a master-spirit of the pipe-line world, a millionaire and vice-president of the National Transit Company, which transports nine-tenths of the oil produced in the United States. He has risen by personal desert, without favoritism or partiality. His elevation has not subtracted one whit from the manly character that gained him innumerable friends in the oil-region.

DANIEL O’DAYJ R CAMPBELL EDWARD HOPKINS.PUMPING OIL FROM TROUTMAN WELL.

Edward Hopkins, first manager of the United Pipe-Lines, was an efficient officer and died young. John R. Campbell has been treasurer from the incorporation of the lines in 1877. Born in Massachusetts and graduated from Rev. Samuel Aaron’s celebrated school at Norristown, he served his apprenticeshipin the Baldwin Locomotive Works and manufactured printing-inks in Philadelphia, with William L. and Charles H. Lay as partners. In March of 1865 he visited the oil-region and in August removed to Oil City. He acquired oil-interests, published theRegisterand was treasurer for the receiver of the Oil City & Pithole Railroad Company. In 1867 he became book-keeper for Vandergrift & Lay, afterwards for Captain Vandergrift and later for Vandergrift & Forman, who appointed him treasurer of their pipe-lines in 1868. He retained the position in the United Lines and he is still treasurer of that division of the National Transit Company. To Mr. Campbell is largely due the accurate and comprehensive system of pipe-line accounts now universally adopted. He aided in devising negotiable oil-certificates, reliable as government bonds and convertible into cash at any moment. He enjoys to the fullest extent the confidence and esteem of his associates and is treasurer of a dozen large corporations. He was president term after term of the Ivy Club, one of the finest social organizations in Pennsylvania, and a liberal promoter of important enterprises. His abiding faith in Oil City he manifests by investing in manufactures and furthering public improvements. Active, helpful and popular in business, in society and in the church, no eulogy could add to the high estimation in which John R. Campbell is held wherever known.

The enormous production of the Bradford field, the increased distances and the construction of lines to the sea presented new and difficult problems. A natural increase in size led to a demand for pipe of better quality, for heavier fittings and improved machinery. The largest line prior to Bradford’s advent was a four-inch pipe from the Butler field to Pittsburg, in 1875. Excepting thisand three-inch lines to Raymilton and Oil City, none of the main lines exceeded twelve miles in length. Many were gravity-lines and others used small tubing and light pumps. The greater quantities and longer distances in the northern district—the oil also congealed at a higher temperature and was harder to handle than the product of the lower fields—required greater power, larger pipes and increased facilities. The first six-inch line was laid from Tarport to Carrollton in the spring of 1879. Two four-inch lines had preceded it and a four-inch line from Tarport to Kane was completed the same season, five six-inch lines following later. The first long-distance line, a five-inch pipe from Hilliards—near Petrolia—to Cleveland, was completed in the summer of 1879. Trunk-lines to the eastern coast were begun in 1879-80. The trunk-line to Philadelphia starts at Colegrove, McKean county, and extends two-hundred-and-thirty-five miles—six-inch pipe—with a five-inch branch of sixty-six miles from Millway to Baltimore. Starting at Olean, two six-inch lines were paralleled to Saddle River, N.J. They separated there, one connecting with the refineries at Bayonne and the other going under the North and East Rivers to Hunter’s Point, on Long Island. The New-York line is double under the Hudson—one pipe inside another, with tight-fitting sleeve-joints. The ends of the jacket-pipe were separated twelve inches to permit the enclosed pipe to be screwed home. The sleeve was then pushed over the gap and the space between the pipes filled with melted lead. The line is held in place by two sets of heavy chains, parallel with and about twenty feet from the pipe, one on each side. At intervals of three-hundred feet a guide-chain connects the pipe with the lateral chains and beyond each of these connections an anchor, weighing over a ton, keeps the whole in place. The completion of this part of the line was an engineering triumph not much inferior to the laying of Cyrus W. Field’s Atlantic Cable.

The United Pipe-Lines Association moved forward steadily, avoiding the pitfalls that had wrecked other systems. It bought or combined the Oil-City, Antwerp, Union, Karns, Grant, Conduit, Relief, Pennsylvania, Clarion and McKean divisions of the American-Transfer, Prentice, Olean, Union Oil-Company’s at Clarendon, McCalmont at Cherry Grove and smaller lines, covering the oil-region from Allegany to Butler. The United owned three-thousand miles of lines, thirty-five-million barrels of iron-tankage and one-hundred-and-eighteen local pump-stations. Even these extraordinary resources were strained by the overflowing demand. Bradford was the Oliver Twist of the region, continually crying for “More!” Ohio and West Virginia entered the race and required facilities for handling an amazing amount of oil. To meet any contingency and secure the advantages of consolidation in the states producing oil the National-Transit Company increased its capital to thirty-two-million dollars. The company held the original charter granted to the Pennsylvania Company under the act of 1870. In 1880 it absorbed the American-Transfer Company, an extensive concern. On April first, 1884, it acquired the plant and business of the United Lines, thus ranking with the most powerful corporations in the land.

Men entirely familiar with the minutest details of oil-transportation and storage guided the National Transit. Captain Vandergrift was influential in the management until his retirement from active duty in 1892. President C. A. Griscom was succeeded by Benjamin Brewster and he by H. H. Rogers, the present official head of the company. John Bushnell was secretary, Daniel O’Day general manager, and James R. Snow general superintendent. Skillful,practical and keenly alive to the necessities of the oil-region, they were not kid-gloved idlers whose chief aim was to draw fat salaries. Mr. Rogers made his mark on Oil Creek in pioneer times as a forceful, intelligent, progressive business-man. He had brains, earnestness, integrity and industry and rose by positive merit to the presidency of the greatest transportation-company of the age. He is a first-class citizen, a liberal patron of education and an apostle of good roads. He endows schools and colleges, abounds in kindly deeds and does not forget his experiences in Oildom. Daniel O’Day—clever and capable, “whom not to know is to argue one’s self unknown”—who has not heard of the plucky, invincible vice-president of the National Transit Company? Everybody admires the genial, resolute son of Erin whose clear head, willing hands, strong individuality and sterling qualities have raised him to a position Grover Cleveland might covet. James R. Snow invented a pump so perfect that oil would fairly flow up hill for a chance to pass through the machine. From their Broadway offices Rogers, O’Day and Snow direct by telephone and telegraph the movements of regiments of employés in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Indiana. They are in direct communication with every office of the company, every purchasing-agency, every pump-station on the trunk-lines and every oil-producing section of four states. No army Napoleon, Wellington or Grant commanded was better officered, better disciplined, better equipped and better managed than the grand army of National-Transit pipe-men. If “poets are born, not made,” what shall be said of the wide-awake solvers of the problem of rapid transit for oil—the pipe-liners who, combining the maximum of efficiency with the minimum of cost, have placed a great staple within reach of the lowliest dwellers beneath the Stars and Stripes? Candidly, is “the best in the shop” too good for them?

No man has contributed more to the development of the oil-industry, alike as a producer, refiner and transporter, than Captain J. J. Vandergrift. His active connection with petroleum goes back to pioneer operations, widening and expanding constantly. By his energy, perseverance, uprightness and masterly traits of character he attained prominence in all branches of the oil-business. His wonderful success was not due to any caprice of fortune, but to stability of purpose, patient application and honorable methods. Vigor and decision supplemented the keen foresight that discovered the amazing possibilities of petroleum as an article of universal utility. He believed in the future of oil and shaped his course in accordance with the broadest ideas. Allied with George V. Forman, clear-headed, quick to plan and execute, the firm took a leading part in producing and carrying oil. Vandergrift & Forman constructed the Star Pipe-Line and equipped trains of tank-cars to convey crude from Pithole to Oil City. They drilled hosts of wells in Butler county and built the Fairview Pipe-Line, which finally crystallized with numerous others into the United Pipe-Lines Association and the gigantic National-Transit Company. The firm of H. L. Taylor & Co., of which they were members, originated the Union Oil-Company. Vandergrift & Forman, Vandergrift, Pitcairn & Co. and Vandergrift, Young & Co. consolidated as the Forest Oil-Company, which holds the foremost place in the production of oil. Mr. Forman operated in Allegany and McKean, developing large tracts of territory on the Bingham and Barse lands. He resided at Olean and established the finest stock-farm in the Empire State. Removing to Buffalo to engage in banking, he organized the Fidelity Trust-Company and erected for its use a palatial structure in the heart of the city. Under his presidency the Fidelity is a power in the world of finance. Shrewd,prompt and far-seeing, George V. Forman is richly dowered with the qualities of business-leadership. His influence in the oil-country was not limited to one corner or district or locality. He has enjoyed the pleasure of making money and the greater pleasure of giving liberally. He is “a man who thinks it out, then goes and does it.”

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