CHAPTER lI.

Striking out from home when a boy.—My object.—Ho! For the Oil
Regions in Pennsylvania. —My Chum.—Great Excitement.—Oil City
flooded. —‘‘Coal Oil Johnny.”—Tools, ete., used in boring for oil.—
All about finding oil.—And what the oil is.—My experience for about

a year.

IN the winter of 1864-65 I concluded to leave my home in New
York for an indefinite time; not exactly to hunt buffalo and kill
Indians on the plains, for killing was never sport to me, and I
was not ‘wild,’ nor to seek my fortune ; for at that time this did
not appear necessary, though I expected to earn by work my
living and travelling expenses, and more, if I run on to any
great opportunity to do so. My object was to see and know
more of the living, bustling, wild and wide world, than what
transpired in the drowsy orthodox range in which I was
confined.

My parents tried to dissuade and divert me from my pur-
pose, but, as I had set my heart on it, they neither strenuously
opposed me nor did they give any formal consent; but left
the field clear for my return as the prodigal son of old, which
they prophesied I would soon do, for them to say “did I not
tell you so, my boy,” and to lessen the sting of adieu.

Little did I then think I was never to see them any more
in this world, or know the terrible pangs of grief I would sufter
when we really kissed each other good bye, and that the
thought of that sad event would haunt me, and make me sick
at times, for many years to come.

A young friend was to ramble with me, and we started
March 13th, 1865. The oil regions in Pennsylvania was our
first destination, as there were many fabulous stories afloat,
and much excitement about oil at that time, to such an extent,
that poor men at a distance were mortgaging their homes to
buy stock in oil companies (or confidence games) then being
worked and played to catch the unwary; and wages and em-
ployment there were reputed as high and abundant.

At the end of the third day we arrived by rail at the end
of the track—then about a mile from Oil City. We jumped off

(28)

24 Srrizing Out From Home.

into the mud and oil a foot or two deep, and waded through it
in the dark to town and to «4 hotel (could have ridden for two
dollars).

The next day it was raining; teams were stuck in the street,
loaded with but a few hundred pounds.

Teaming (hauling oil, coal, lumber, machinery, ete.,) was
a great business in the oil regions at that time. The price
of single teams and wagon with driver was twenty dollars per
day or more, and they made forty dollars per day in handling
flat boats in and up Oil Creek. Drivers were rated at fifty
dollars per month, and no one envied their pay or position.
The vast amount of dead horses lying about or floating down
the Creek, the number of broken wagons in sight, together
with the high price of stable room, feed, etc., showed that it
was not all profit. Yet there was big money in the business
to those whom such drawbacks were not uscouraging, but
were taken as a matter of course.

A scene on the road :--A team loaded with oil stuck in a
mud hole full of big boulders and blocking the way for twenty
teams behind; the driver asks the nearest “what will you take
to pull me out?” “Nothing for that, but two dollars and fifty
cents for hitching on in the mud.”

In time roads were made, feed, stab’s room, etc., got cheap
and handy, when, as there was nothing frightful in the business,
everybody was willing to engage in it, and nobody made much
in the business any more.

Next came railroads, and then, in time, pipe-lines were
added for conveying oil.

Crowds of disgusted and home-sick men having failed to
find employment, and short of money, told discouraging stories
to us—they were discouraging to us then, to be sure, because
of our inexperience in the world, otherwise we would have
critically gathered useful and encouraging information instead.

However, my chum concluded during the day that he had
rambled far enough from his good old home and that we were
about lost, too, and having now been absent for several whole
days and nights, and remembering that his pet mare was liable
to have a colt with none to caress them, and corn planting time
would soon be on hand with his vacant place to fill, he reluct-

-_ ew an

ugh it
or two

. street,

5) Was
8 price
ars per
andling
at fifty
osition.
¢ down
ogether
| that it
yusiness
ng, but

ck in a
twenty
ou take

nd fifty

bt cheap
usiness,
e much

es were

hiled to
r stories
ecause
ld have
nstead.
he had
ve were
1 whole
s liable
ng time

reluct-

THE Ort Rectons. 25
antly left me to my self-willed fate and returned home to his
mother——and he was about right.

As neither of us had any trade, and common labor appeared
very rugged and abundantly supplied, and not having any
money, letters of acquaintance, or other means by which we
could engage in some one or another of the business opportun-
ities, the outlook, indeed, was not brilliant or strewn with roses.
But I had not expected it would be; I had not counted on
getting a berth as conductor as we travelled along, as clerk ata
hotel wherever we happened to stop for a few days, or as con-
fidential agent for some big concern, on sight and application;
nor yet the gift of a team, flat-boat, brewery or oil-well, as an
inducement to stop a few months when we got there.

Leaving my cumbrous valise at the hotel I struck out
among the oil-wells to see what I could see, learn and discover.
The rain storm continued, resulting in a flood; Oil Creek rose
to ariver and with the Alleghany inundated the town of Oil
City to the extent that those living in the business and lower
portion had to move upstairs in the night, the street was over-
flowed, and the public buildings, churches, etc., were occupied
with those who were entirely drowned out.

Reiurning the following day, I found my valise in five or
six feet of water—all being confusion and havoc, as water was
king, and he was mad.

Millions of dollars in oil, barrels, tanks, flat-boats, rafts of
lumber, buildings, merchandise, etc., ete., were carried away,
destroyed, or damaged.

When the water had subsided, I rolled oil barrels on the
dock for a few days at sixty cents per hour, and then got a
job with a surveyor as chain carrier at three dollars per day,
which I held until I had travelled over much of that region.

I remember seeing old Indian camping grounds and hear-
ing the stories of how they used to gather the “Seneca oil”
with blankets on Oil Creek, and sell it for medical purposes to
the pale-faced :nvaders.

These were days of jubilee for the horny-handed farmers
anywhere around here, as they could now sell their poor and
rugged side-hill farms for five, ten and twenty thousand dollars
to speculators and companies who were now minutely surveying

26 Srrizing Our Frou Home.

them, with their springs and creeks to map and paint in glow-
ing colors, to divide up and sell to strangers as oil lands rich,
in prospects.

Many tricks were invented and used to effect sales of “oil
lands,” such as burying barrels of oil, slightly tapped, near
some spring, so the oil would run in and flow from it, and as
carrying a hollow cane—with a valve in the end—filled with
oil to show an investor, oil “most anywhere arouna here just
by pushing a stick in the ground, you see.”

But it was at a distance, on pasteboard and paper, that
“oil lands” and “town lots” for sale appeared the most enchant-
ing, as bluffs and craggy hills appeared as level land then, and
the streams and springs were often only in the mind and
picture.

However, in time it transpired that surface indications
proved little or nothing anyway, as wells that were sunk in, or
near real oil springs, seldom, if ever, produced in paying
quantities, and the high lands—at first considered worthless—
proved as good as any, except the inconvenience or inaccessi-
bility in working it.

And altogether only one well in perhaps a hundred pro-
duced any oil, and it was more apt to yield but one barrel per
day than two or three hundred ; very few outside investors who
kept their stock or interests got their money back.

Many original owners of the land held on to it and allowed
others to sink wells on it—the owner to receive one-third of
what oil might be produced. This is what the widow McClintoe
did, and which made “Coal Oil Johnny”-—her adopted son—so
rich for a time and notorious as a prodigal son of fortune.

While he was scattering his wealth to the wild winds, he
declared to his friends, who tried to divert him from his down-
ward course, that “he had driven a team on Oil Creek for a
living and could do so again,” and substantially this he after-
wards had to doin other places. Though he spent much of
his fortune in reckless dissipation and sport, he also gave away
a great deal from a most noble impulse and kindly feeling.
But perhaps more than either or both amounts was gotten from
him by “real nice and respected” gentry, by chicanery of the

glow-
is rich ry

of “oil
d, near
and as
d with
re just

sr, that
nchant-
en, and
nd and

ications
k in, or

paying
thless——
1accessi-

ed pro-
rrel per
ors who

allowed
third of
eClintoc
son—so
ne.

nds, he
s down-
bk for a
e after-
much of
ve away
r feeling.
ten from
ly of the

Tue Orn REaions.

most contemptible and villainous type,—such as setting up
banks to “fail” after catching his large deposits.

He knows more of human and inhuman characters now;
what a pity for him and his, that he had not learned it in his
youth, either in his own efforts for a living, or it had been
taught to him by the wider and deeper experience of others,
educated by struggling with the real masked and brazen world.

Much has been said and sung about the prodigality of
“Johnny Coal Oil,’ but somehow we never hear of any great
good flowing from those who got two barrels of oil, whenever
John Steel got one.

It was customary in the oil regions to keep a pail of
petroleum in the house for making fires, and in this way Mrs.
McClintoc was burned to death. I was at and over the place.

Others lost their opportunity to gain a competency by thus
allowing their places to be prospected or tested, instead of sell-
ing on faith and hope, at a time when it was universal and
strong.

When the whole country had been prospected, it then
transpired that the oil lands lay in narrow belts without regard
to creeks, hills, or other surface formation, and in these, oil
had not been always found.

Crude petroleum is as thick or heavy as lard oil ; but the
color is a deep green; it emits an odor like the petroleum axle
grease sold throughout the country. I shipped a barrel of it
home, as a curiosity and for lubricating machinery.

It appears to be a sort of fish oil, the sand-stone in which
it is confined being sometimes the bed of a sea, and by its up-
heaval, turned off the water and gave the whale-like animals
their death in the sand, this sand drifting or otherwise receiv-
ing and holding from evaporation their carcasses and oil, when
the sand hardens into a strata of sand-stone, retaining and
confining the oil with the gases.

My next employment was in running an engine for a pump-
ing oil well at four dollars per day; board being from six to
eight dollars per week, (the Pennsylvania Dutch are exception-
ally good livers); and then I worked as driller in boring other
wells at the same wages; and at one of these employments or
the other—sometimes sharpening and repairing the tools being

o
POE MA AA 88 ANTERIOR nary me acabeenaatins
P : bette ess inesisowee -

28 Srrikina Out From Home.

included—I was engaged during the most of my sojourn in the
Oil Regions, which time was nearly eleven months. I thus
worked at different wells and localities.

At one place (Franklin) I sunk a well, with one helper,
from five hundred to about a thousand feet deep; and as there
was but the two of us (they generally run night and day, re-
quiring four men) we put in as-much time as we desired, which
was sixteen hours per day and eighteen on Saturdays. This
well was sunk four or five hundred feet deeper than others, as
an experiment, but found no oil. A humbug oil “smeller” had
traced several veins of oil to a junction at the very spot we
bored through, he “could (and did) give the depth” also.

The average oil well was five inches in diameter. The
average boring tools consist of a bit, or drill, two and a half
feet long, which is screwed into a round bar, twenty-two feet
long (“anger stem”), which is screwed into one end of a pair
of heavy links (“‘Jars”’) five feet long, the other end of the jars
being screwed into a round bar (“sinker bar’’) eight feet long,
which is screwed into the end of a rope socket, three feet long,
all made of three inch round iron, and weigh eleven or twelve
hundred pounds. The end of a one and a half inch rope is
wrapped and riveted into the rope socket; the other end of the
rope is passed up over a pulley at the top of the derrick and
down to and wound around the shaft of a windlass-like wheel
(“bull wheel”), which is attached by a a rope belt to a ten
horse power engine, and used to lower and raise the tools in
the well whenever the bit is dulled or the sediment (drillings)
needs to be pumped out, which is as often as every two and
a half feet is gone down.

The tools are now suspended just over the hole, which is
about full of water. The rope belt having been thrown from
the bull-wheel, the driller, with a brake on the wheel, lets the
tools run, or nearly drop, to the bottom of the hole (the engine
being used in raising them out). Next the rope at a few feet
above the mouth of the hole is clasped tightly to a screw
arrangement (“temper screw’’), the screw itself being two and
a half feet long, the upper end of which is a swivel and hook,
which is hooked under the end of a walking beam, say thirty feet
long, the other end of it being attached to the engine with a

SSS

rn in the
IT thus

» helper,
as there
1 day, re-
4, which
ys. This
thers, as
Her” had
y Spot we
also.
ter. The
nnd a half
y-two feet
1 of a pair
of the jars
feet long,
» feet long,
or twelve
ch rope is
end of the
lerrick and
like wheel
t to a ten
he tools in
(drillings)
ry two and

ep, which is
rown from
bel, lets the
(the engine
a few feet
o a screw
ng two and

and hook,

thirty feet
gine with a

vi AS Y
ANN va AN
Atal ia)

of
is
S
e
=|
>)

80 Striking Our From Home.

pitmen; then slack is given the rope above by turning the bull-
wheel back, thus causing the tools to hang suspended to the
walking beam; when the engine is started, the tools being
simply raised and dropped two or three feet at every turn of
the walking beam, which is made to go slow or fast according
to the depth of the hole and length of the rope; as can be
imagined, the deeper the hole, the slower the stroke.

The weight of the bit, the twenty-two feet “anger stem”
and the lower link, or half of the “jars,” being the downward
or drilling force, or weight; while the weight in the upper link,
or half of the jars, with the eight feet “sinker bar,” jars the bit
loose as it jerks it up. Little or much “jar” being given, ac-
cording to how much the bit sticks. If the hole be deep and
no “jar” is given, the walking beam will play on the stretch of
the rope, without raising the tools from the bottom. If the
hole be shallow (so that the rope is short) and the jar is allow-
ed to run entirely out, then the bit, sticking much, stops the
engine or breaks something ; while too much jar lessens the fall
of the bit and lower part of the tools, making it drill slow
in proportion.

The driller, sitting on a stool, turns the screw and rope on
the swivel above a little at each downward stroke, and as the
drill works down, so the jar feels slight, indistinct, or, if the bit
sticks, he unscrews the temper-screw, giving more rope and
more jar. When he has thus unscrewed the length of the
screw (two and a half feet), or the bit is sooner dulled, the tools
are hoisted out and another tool (“rimmer”’) is substituted for
the two and a half feet bit, which is to cut or rim the hole one
inch larger than the bit (the cut of the bit being but four
inches) and is «tone to keep the hole round.

This done, the tools are again hoisted out, and a sharpened
bit replaces the rimmer to make another two or two and a half
feet. But before the tools are let down again, the sediment or
drillings must be pumped out with the “sand-pump.” This
tool is simply a zinc pipe, five feet long and three and a half or
four inches in diameter, with a valve in one end and a bail on
the other; to this bail is tied the end of a half-inch rope which
is reeled on a wheel; the purip is dropped into the hole, and
when it reaches thy bottom the driller works it up and down a

ean ee

~

he bull-
d to the
s being
turn of
scording
can be

sy stem”
ywnward
per link,
s the bit
riven, ac-
leep and
tretch of

If the
is allow-
stops the
as the fall
lrill slow

rope on
hd as the
if the bit
rope and
h of the
the tools
tuted for
hole one
but four

harpened
nd a half
iment or
bh.” This
a half or

bail on
pe which
hole, and
down @

Tue Cr Reaions. 31

few times by the rope, thus working the mud or drillings up
through the valve into the pipe or pump, then the engine reels
t up very quickly when it is emptied and the same simple
process repeated three or four times, at the completion of every
two or two and half feet.

Before drilling is commenced on a well, heavy seven-inch
iron pipe—in seven feet sections —is driven with a ram to the
bed rock, or else an ordinary well is dug down to it and a plank
box pipe set up in it, the upper end being at the surface and is
the top of the well. Solid rock is desired and generally had
the rest of the way. The exceptions being in mud veins and
cavities, Which frequently cause trouble by pieces of rock
working out and falling on the tools, to the extent sometimes
that tue tools and hole are abandoned.

Tive or six feet per day—of twelve hours—is ali it the
average work in boring a 600 feet well.

In the Oil Creek section, three stratas of sand-stone are
found and gone through, each thirty or forty feet thick, in
which the oil is. Little or none is found in the first strata (at
about 225 feet), more is apt to be found in the second (at about
425 feet), but never, I believe, in paying quantities, so that little
notice is given to any prospects found here either; but when
the third strata is reached and gone through, which is at a
depth of nearly 600 hundred feet, then the boring is finished ; as
here in the third sand-stone is where oil is expected to be found,
if at all, and worked,

The kind of rock between the stratas of sand-stone is
mostly granite, slate or soap-stone, with thin stratas of a
harder nature, sometimes flint.

Tn one well, in say a thousand, oil is struck which immedi-
ately flows and spurts out; but whether this be the case or not,
the well is next piped to within a few feet of the bottom with a
two and a half inch gas or water pipe, having a pump valve in
the bottom section, and a leather bag the size of the well (five
inches) and two feet long is tied at each end around the pipe
or tubing, so it will be just above the third sand-stone; this
“seed bag” having been filled with flax seed, which, swelling,
shuts off all the water above it to the surface, thus allowing
any pressure of oil and water which may be below it in the

SRE Se perampnate 7 emma aie conmea ye

a FER at HS Be

82 Srrikinc Out From Home.
third sand-stone to flow up the tubing without incumbrance
from the veins of water for 500 feet or more above.

But unless a strong force of gas is tapped, neither oil nor
water is apt to be very pressing to get up. In any such case,
however, it generally flows or spurts out at intervals, spasmod-
ically, with gas enough to run an engine and more.

Usually no oil has yet appeared when “sucker rods,” with
a pump valve at the end of the first section, are let down into
the tubing to the bottom, and the upper end attached to the
walking beam, and pumping commenced and continued—night
and day and Sundays—for about six weeks. When if nothing
but water, or water and gas appears, the well is abandoned,
which, of course, is generally the cuse. The water may be salt
at the start, or get to be such after pumping a few days or
weeks. Salt water is a favorable sign, it frequently being
followed by oil, and oil is not found without it. I believe
petroleum was first struck in boring for salt.

The Indians of the oil regions had gone to their happy
hunting grounds, or had been removed, or fables as to their
supposed knowledge of oil springs, etc., might have been in-
vented and they thus utilized by rings of men —with the aid of
their press—and the oil excitement prolonged, as is done in
other mining regions.

Moreover, it was too accessible to the outside world, by
rail and the Alleghany River, for, with slight expense, time and
inconvenience, those who were furnishing the cash, for the
operators to invest and steal, could see and learn for them-
selves the business and properties in which so many were
wildly investing.

This is the reason the Pacific railroads and Gen. Crook
(who settled the Indians beyond question for a time in
Arizona) were such a curse to the mining and tributary interests
in the far west, causing whole districts to be abandoned, and so
they are yet. Many with money to invest then learned, in ad-
vance of investment, not to expect returns from investments in
ring companies on account of songs sung of a comparative few
lucky strikes; so times in the mining and oil camps became
very hard. And as many of the games were being closed for a
change of base and operations, away from lines of travel, many

iy is tn a

prance

oil nor
1 case,
ismod-

” with
nm into
to the
—night
1othing
.doned,
be salt
lays or
y being
believe

happy

to their
yeen in-
e aid of
done in

Tur Orn REeEcIons. 33

of the common herd of men were swindled out of their wages,
deposits or savings, and with the outside investors were settled
with in stocks of experience, in knowledge they should have
gained in their youth. °

“For such is the temper of men that before they have had the
trial of great afflictions, they do not understand what is for their
advantage: but when they find themselves under such afflictions,
tuey then change their minds, and what it had been better for
them to have done before they had been at all damaged, they
choose to do, but not until after they have suffered such damage.”

—Josephus.

A few morths or years as a news-boy, or spent in sweeping,
or doing errands in offices or dens of lawyers, ring companies
or other gangs, so he hears the talk that goes on there, with
practical moral lessons at home, is for a boy the best bequest,
the best endowment, the most wise foundation, stock in trade
and security for fortune and favor, and to keep one “unspotted
in the world”—though he may spot others.

I was present at the dying scenes of those plays, so skill-
fully painted in oil, and years afterwards at others, galvanized
in silver and gold.

T left the oil regions on February 11th, 1866, having earned
nearly one thousand dollars; had many enjoyable times and
others not so pleasant; had been at all the towns and sections
from Franklin and below to Titusville, and from Oil Creek to
Pit-hole. Had lost various sums in loaning and in simple con-
fidence and folly, had disposed of other sums in friendship and
favor and pleasure, and got away with about five hundred
dollars ; had I remained a little longer, « bank would have got
away with most of that, as it was near the time set to close
their deals, done in the name and guise of security (?) and by
the protection of the couris.

Courts grind the poor, and rings rule the courts.