-THEO BARNSDALL-
-LEWIS EMERY-
DAVID KIRK CAPT. J. T. JONES
Theodore Barnsdall has never lagged behind since he entered the arena in 1860. He operated on Oil Creek and has been a factor in every important district. Marcus Hulings, reasoning that a paying belt intersected it diagonally, secured the Clark & Babcock tract of six-thousand acres on Foster Brook, north-east of Bradford. Hundreds of fine wells verified his theory and added a half-million to his bank-account. Sitting beside me on a train one day in 1878, Mr. Hulings refused three-hundred-thousand dollars, offered by Marcus Brownson, for his interest in the property. He projected the narrow-gauge railroad from Bradford to Olean and a bevy of oil-towns—Gillmor, Derrick City, Red Rock and Bell’s Camp—budded and bloomed along the route. Frederic Prentice built pipe-lines and tanks, leased a half-township, started thirty wells in a week on the Melvin farm and organized the Producers’ Consolidated Land-and-Petroleum-Company, big in name, in quality and in capital. The American Oil-Company’s big operations wafted the late W. A. Pullman a million and the presidency of the Seaboard Bank in New York, filled Joseph Seep’s stocking and saddled a hundred-thousand dollars on James Amm. The Hazlewood Oil-Company, guided by Bateman Goe’s prudent hand, drilled five-hundred wells and counted its gains in columns of six figures. Robert Leckey, a first-class man from head to foot, was a royal winner. Frederick Boden—true-blue, clear-grit, sixteen ounces to the pound—forsook Corry to extract a stream of wealth from the Borden lands, six miles east of Tarport. Prompt, square and manly, he merited the good luck that rewarded him in Pennsylvania and followed him to Ohio, where for four years he has been operating extensively. Boden’s wells boosted the territory east and north. From its junction with the Tuna at Tarport—Kendall is the post-office—to its source off in the hills, Kendall Creek steamed and smoked. Tarport expanded to the proportions of a borough. Two narrow-gauge[narrow-gauge] roads linked Bradford and Eldred, Sawyer City, Rew City, Coleville, Rixford and Duke Centre—oil-towns in all the term implies—keeping the rails from rusting. Other narrow-gauges[narrow-gauges] diverged to Warren, Mt. Jewett and Smethport. The Erie extended its branch south and the Rochester & Pittsburg crossed the Kinzua gorge over the highest railway viaduct—three-hundred feet—in this nation of tall projects and tall achievements.
BATEMAN GOE.
FREDERICK BODEN.
ROBERT LECKEY.
Twenty-nine years ago a stout-hearted, strong-limbed, wiry youth, fresh from the Emerald Isle, asked a man at Petroleum Centre for a job. Given a pick and shovel, he graded a tank-bottom deftly and swiftly. He dug, pulled tubing, drove team and earned money doing all sorts of chores. Reared in poverty, he knew the value of a dollar and saved his pennies. To him Oildom, with its “oil-princes”—George K. Anderson, Jonathan Watson, Dr. M. C. Egbert, David Yanney, Sam Woods, Joel Sherman and the Phillips Brothers were in their glory—was a golden dream. He learned to “run engine,” dress tools, twist the temper-screw and handle drilling and pumping-wells expertly. Although neither a prohibitionist nor a prude, he never permitted mountain-dew, giddy divinities in petticoats or the prevailing follies to get the better of him in his inordinate desire for riches. Drop by drop for three years his frugal store increased and he migrated to Parker early in the seventies. Such was the young man who “struck his gait” in the northern end of Armstrong county, who was to outshine the men he may have envied on Oil Creek, to scoop the biggest prize in the petroleum-lottery and weave a halo of glittering romance around the name of John McKeown.