Working an interest in an oil-well, he hit a paying streak and joined the pioneers who had sinister designs on Butler county, proverbial for “buckwheat-batter” and “soap-mines.” At Lawrenceburg, a suburb of Parker, he boarded with a comely widow, the mother of two bouncing kids and owner of a little cash. He married the landlady and five boys blessed the union of loyal hearts. His wife’s money aided him to develop the Widow Nolan farm, east of the coal-bank near Millerstown. Regardless of Weller’s advice to “beware of vidders,” he wedded one and from another obtained the lease of a farm on which his first well produced one-hundred-and-fifty barrels a day for a year, a fortune in itself. This was the beginning of McKeown’s giant strides. In partnership with William Morrisey, a stalwart fellow-countryman—dead for years—he drilled at Greece City, Modoc and on the Cross-Belt. He held interests with Parker & Thompson and James Goldsboro, played a lone hand at Martinsburg, invested in the Karns Pipe-Line and avoided speculation. He agreed with Thomas Hayes, of Fairview, in 1876, to operate in the Bradford field. Hayes went ahead to grab a few tracts at Rixford, McKeown remaining to dispose of his Butler properties. He sold every well and every inch of land at top figures. No slave ever worked harder or longer hours than he had done to gain a firm footing. No task was too difficult, no fatigue too severe, no undertaking too hazardous to be met and overcome. Avarice steeled his heart and hardened his muscles. Wrapped in a rubber-coat and wearing the slouch-hat everybody recognized, he would ride his powerful bay-horse knee-deep in mud or snow at all hours of the night. It was his ambition to be the leading oil-operator of the world. While putting money into Baltimore blocks, bank-stocks and western ranches, he always retained enough to gobble a slice of seductive oil-territory. Plunging into the northern field “horse, foot and dragoons,” he bought out Hayes, who returned to Fairview with a snug nest-egg, and captured a huge chunk of the Bingham lands. Robert Simpson, agent of the Bingham estate, fancied the bold, resolute son of Erin and let him pick what he wished from the fifty-thousand acres under his care. McKeown selected many juicy tracts, on which he drilled up a large production, sold portions at excessive prices and cleared at least a million dollars in two or three years! As Bradford declined he turned his gaze towards the Washington district, bought a thousand acres of land and at the height of the excitement had ten-thousand barrels of oil a day! His object had been attained and John McKeown was the largest oil-producer in the universe.
Down in Washington, as in Butler and McKean, he attended personally to his wells, hired the workmen, negotiated for all materials and managed the smallest details. He removed his family to the county-seat and lived in a plain, matter-of-fact way. It had been his intention to erect a forty-thousand-dollar house and reside at Jamestown, N. Y. Ground was purchased and the foundation laid. The local papers spoke of the acquisition he would be to the town, one suggesting to haul him into politics and municipal improvements, and McKeown resented the notoriety by pulling up stakes and locating at Washington. It often amused me to hear him denounce the papers for calling him rich. He was more at home in a derrick than in a drawing-room. The din of the tools boring for petroleum was sweeter to his ears than “Lohengrin” or “The Blue Danube.” Watching oil streaming from his wells delighted his eye more than a Corot or a Meissonier in a gilt frame. For claw-hammer coats, tooth-pick shoes and vulgar show he had no earthly use. Democratic in his habits and speech, he heard the poor man as patiently as the banker or the schemer with a “soft snap.” Clothes counted for nothing in his judgment of people. He enjoyed the hunt for riches more than the possession. In no sense a liberal man, sometimes he thawed out to friends who got on the sunny side of his frosty nature and wrote checks for church or charity. Hard work was his diversion, his chief happiness. His wells and lands and income grew to dimensions it would have strained the nerves and brains of a half-dozen men to supervise. He had mortgaged his robust constitution by constant exposure and the foreclosure could not always be postponed. Repeated warnings were unheeded and the strong man broke down just when he most needed the vitality his lavish drafts exhausted. Eminent physicians hurried from Pittsburg and Philadelphia to his relief, but the paper had gone to protest and on Sunday forenoon, February eighth, 1891, at the age of fifty-three, John McKeown passed into eternity. Father Hendrich administered the last rites to the dying man. He sank into a comatose state and his death was painless. The remains were interred in the Catholic cemetery at Lawrenceville, in presence of a great multitude that assembled to witness the curtain fall on the most eventful life in the oil-regions.
One touching little tale about McKeown, which might adorn the pages of a Sunday-school library, has drifted out of Bradford. Landing on the platform of the dilapidated Erie-Railroad station, upon his first visit to the metropolis of mud and oil, John McKeown, wearing his greasiest suit, asked a group of boys to direct him to the Parker House. “I’ll tell you for a quarter,” said one. “I’ll show you where it is for ten cents,” chimed in another. “Say, I’ll do it for five cents,” remarked a third. “Mister,” said bright-eyed Jimmie Duffy, “I will show you the place for nothing.” So the stranger went with Jimmie. He took the lad to a clothing-store, arrayed him sumptuously in the best hand-me-downs that Bradford could afford and sent the boy away with a five-dollar gold-piece. Jimmie bought a shoeblack-outfit and began to “shine ’em up” at ten cents a clip. His good work, cheerfulness and ready wit brought him many a quarter. Soon he hired a number of assistants, built a “parlor,” controlled every stand in town and at nineteen went west with seven-thousand dollars in his pockets. Jimmie Duffie’s luck set all the Bradford urchins to lying in wait for strangers in greasy garments lined with gold-pieces.
JOHN McKEOWN.
Estimates of McKeown’s wealth ranged from three-millions to ten. A guess midway would probably be near the mark. When asked by Dun or Bradstreet how he should be rated, his invariable answer was: “I pay cash for all I get.” O. D. Bleakley, of Franklin, was appointed guardian of the sons and Hon. J. W. Lee is Mrs. McKeown’s legal adviser. The oldest boy has married, has received his share of the estate and is spending it freely. A younger son was drowned in a pond at the school to which his mother sent the bright lad. Once McKeown, desiring to have Dr. Agnew’s candid opinion at the lowest cost, put on his poorest garb and secured a rigid examination upon his promise to pay the great Philadelphia practitioner ten dollars “as soon as he could earn the money.” He thanked the doctor, returned in a business-suit, told of the ruse he had adopted and cemented the acquaintance with a check for one-hundred dollars. In Baltimore he posed as a hayseed at a forced sale of property the mortgagors calculated to bid in at a fraction of its value. He deposited a million dollars in a city-bank and appeared at the sale in the old suit and slouched hat he had packed in his satchel for the occasion. Stylish bidders at first ignored the seedy fellow whose winks to the auctioneer elevated the price ten-thousand dollars a wink. One of them hinted to the stranger that he might be bidding beyond his limit. “I guess not,” replied John, “I pay cash for what I get.” The property was knocked down to him for about six-hundred-thousand dollars. He requested the attorney to telephone to the bank whether his check would be honored. “Good for a million!” was the response. Now his triumphs and his spoils have shrunk to the little measure of the grave!
“Through the weary night on his couch he lay
With the life-tide ebbing fast away.
When the tide goes out from the sea-girt lands
It bears strange freight from the gleaming sands: