“The north breathes steadily beneath the stars.”—Shelley.
M’KEAN COUNTY, PA.
Oil Creek and its varied branches, Pithole and its suburbs, Forest and Warren had figured creditably in oil-developments, but the Mastodon of the North was yet to come. “The goal of yesterday shall be the starting point of to-morrow” is especially true of oil-operations. At times men have supposed the limits of juicy territory had been reached, only to be startled by the unexpected opening of a larger, grander field than any that preceded it. Guessing the weather a month ahead is child’s play in comparison with guessing where oil may be found in paying quantity. Geology is liable to shoot wide of the mark, so that the drill is the one indisputable test, from which there is no appeal for an injunction or a reversal of the verdict. Years of waiting[waiting] sharpened the appetite of the polar bear for the feast to be spread in McKean county and across the New-York border. Tempting tidbits prepared the hungry animal to digest the rich courses that were to follow in close succession, until the whole world was cloyed and gorged, and surfeited with petroleum. It could not hold another mouthful, and the surplus had to be stored in huge tanks ready for the demand certain to come some day and empty the vast receptacles of their last drop.
“Still linger, in our northern clime,
Some remnants of the good old time.”
The United States Land-Company, holding a quarter-million acres in McKean and adjoining counties, in 1837 sent Col. Levitt C. Little from New Hampshire to look after its interests. He located on Tuna Creek, eight miles from the southern border of New-York state. The Websters arrived in 1838, journeying by canoe from Olean. Other families settled in the valley, founding the hamlet of Littleton, which in 1858 adopted the name of Bradford and became a borough in 1872, with Peter T. Kennedy as burgess. The vast forests were divided into huge blocks, such as the Bingham, Borden, Clark & Babcock, Kingsbury and Quintuple tracts. Lumber was rafted to distant points and thousands of hardy woodmen “shantied” in rough huts each winter. They beguiled the long evenings singing coarse songs, playing cards, imbibing the vintage of Kentucky or New England from a black jug and telling stories so bald the mules drooped their ears to hide their blushes. But they were open-hearted, sternly honest, sticklers for fair-play, hard-working and admirable forerunners of the approaching civilization. To the sturdy blows of the rugged chopper and raftsman all classes are indebted for fuel, shelter and innumerable comforts. Like the rafts they steered to Pittsburg and the wild beasts they hunted, most of these brave fellows have drifted away never to return.
FREDERICK CROCKER.