Marcus Hulings, a leader in the world of petroleum, was born near Philipsburg, Clarion county, and began his career as a producer in 1860. For some years he had been a contractor and builder and he turned his practical knowledge of mechanics to good account. His earliest oil-venture was a well on the Allegheny River above Oil City, for which he refused sixty-thousand dollars. To be nearer the producing-fields, he removed to Emlenton and resided there a number of years. The Hulings family had been identified with Venango county from the first settlement, one of them establishing a ferry at Franklin a century ago. Prior to that date the family owned and lived on what is now Duncan’s Island, at the junction of the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, fifteen miles north-west of Harrisburg. Marcus was a pathfinder in Forest county and opened the Clarion region. He leased Clark & Babcock’s six-thousand acres in McKean county and drilled hundreds of paying wells. Deciding to locate at Oil City, he built an elegant home on the South Side and bought a delightful place in Crawford county for a summer residence. His liberality, enterprise and energy seemed inexhaustible. He donated a magnificent hall to Allegheny College, Meadville, aided churches and schools, relieved the poor and was active in political affairs. Besides his vast oil-interests he had mines in Arizona and California, mills on the Pacific coast and huge lumber-tracts in West Virginia. Self-poised and self-reliant, daring yet prudent, brave and trustworthy, he was one of the grandest representatives of the petroleum-industry. Neither puffed up by prosperity nor unduly cast down by adversity, he met obstacles resolutely and accepted results manfully. My last talk with him was at Pittsburg, where he told of his endeavor to organize a company to develop silver-claims in Mexico. He had grown older and weaker, but the earnestness of youth was still his possession. His eyes sparkled and his face lightened as he shook my hand at parting and said: “You will hear from me soon. If this company can be organized I would not exchange my Mexican properties for the wealth of the Astors!”
Frederick Plumer
Marcus Hulings John Lee
He died in a few weeks, his dream unfulfilled. Losses in the west had reduced his fortune without impairing his splendid courage, hope and patience. He united the endurance of a soldier with the skill of a commander. Marcus Hulings deserved to enjoy a winter of old age as green as spring, as full of blossoms as summer, as generous as autumn. His son, Hon. Willis J. Hulings, served in the Legislature three terms. He introduced the bills prohibiting railroad-discriminations and was a strong debater on the floor. Senator Quay favored him for State Treasurer and attempted to stampede the convention which nominated William Livsey. This was the beginning of the differences between Quay and the combine which culminated in the rout of the latter and the triumph of the Beaver statesman in 1895-6. Mr. Hulings lives at Oil City, has a beautiful home and is colonel of the Sixteenth Regiment of the National Guards. He practiced law in 1877-81, then devoted his attention to oil-operations, to mining and lumbering, in which he is at present actively engaged.
John Lee drilled his first well on the Hoover farm, near Franklin, in 1860, and he is operating to-day in Clinton and Rockland townships. He has had his share of storm and sunshine, from dusters at Nickelville to a slice of the Big Injun at Bullion, in the shifting panorama of oil-developments for thirty-six years, but his fortitude and manliness never flinched. He is no sour dyspeptic, whose conduct depends upon what he eats for breakfast and who cannot believe the world is O. K. if he drills a dry-hole occasionally.
Frederick C. Plumer and John Lee, partners in the Clarion and Butler fields, were successful operators. Their wells on the Hummell farm netted handsome returns. By a piece of clever strategy they secured the Diviner tract, drilled a well that extended the territory two miles south of Millerstown and sold out for ninety-thousand dollars. Plumer quit with a competence, purchased his former hardware-store at Newcastle, took a flyer in the Bullion district and died at Franklin, his birthplace and boyhood home, in 1879. “Fred” was a thorough man of affairs, prompt, courteous, affable and popular. His long sickness was borne cheerfully and he faced the end—he died at thirty-one—without repining. His wife and daughter have joined him in the land of deathless reunions.
“Over the river!
Sailing on waters where lotuses smile,
Passing by many a tropical isle,
Sighting savannas there mile upon mile,