JAMES S. TARR
Owner of the “Tarr Farm,” one of the richest oil territories on Oil Creek.

WILLIAM BARNSDALL
The second oil well on Oil Creek was put down by Mr. Barnsdall.

JAMES S. MCCRAY
Owner of the McCray Farm near Petroleum Centre.

WILLIAM A. ABBOTT
One of the most prominent of the early oil producers, refiners and pipe-line operators.

On December 12 the proposed treaty was laid before the producers at Oil City. It aroused a debate so acrimonious that even the Derrick suppressed it. Captain Hasson led the opposition. In his judgment there was but one course for the producers—to keep themselves free from all entanglements and give themselves time to build up solidly the structure they had planned. If they had followed his advice the whole history of the Oil Regions would have been different. But they did not follow it. The treaty was ratified by a vote of twenty-seven to seven. The excitement and the personalities the association indulged in at their meeting augured ill for its future, but when a week later a committee sent to see the refiners came back from New York with a contract signed by Mr. Rockefeller,[[31]] the president, and bearing with them an order for 200,000 barrels of oil at $3.25, there was a general feeling that, after all, an alliance might not be so bad a thing. 200,000 barrels was a big order and would do much to relieve their distress. Their formal sense was quieted, too, by the assurance that the producers before signing the contract had insisted that the Refiners’ Combination enter into an agreement to take no rebates as long as the alliance lasted. The main points of the agreement decided upon were that the Refiners’ Association should admit all existing refiners to its society, and the Producers’ Association all producers present and to come—that the former company should buy only of the latter, the latter sell only to the former, and that the agency should bind all producers enjoying its privileges to handle their oil through it. The refiners were to buy such daily quantities as the markets of the world would take and at a price governed by the price of refined, five dollars per barrel when refined was selling at twenty-six cents a gallon. Either association could discontinue the agreement on ten days’ notice. The producers, before signing the contract, insisted that the Refiners’ Combination sign an agreement to take no rebates as long as the alliance lasted. This agreement in regard to rebates read as follows:

“Whereas, it is deemed desirable to execute a contract of even date herewith between the Petroleum Producers’ Association and the Petroleum Refiners’ Association for the purpose of securing a co-operation for mutual protection, it is agreed by the Refiners’ Association that sections one and three of a contract made the 25th of March, 1872, between certain trunk lines of railroads and a committee of producers and refiners shall be and remain in full force.

“Petroleum Refiners’ Association,

“John D. Rockefeller, President.”