“I falter where I firmly trod.”
Edenburg, in its prime the liveliest inland town the Clarion district could boast, is in Beaver township, ten miles from Foxburg and Emlenton. It was named by. J. G. Mendenhall, who located on a big farm and opened the Eden Inn fifty years ago. Two farms, one two miles north and the other a mile south-west of his home-farm, he dubbed Jerusalem and Egypt respectively. Mendenhall lived to see all three tracts productive oil-territory, with a busy town occupying part of the central tract. J. I. Best, who died in 1880, was his early neighbor and P. F. Kribbs started a country-store opposite the Mendenhall homestead. In the spring of 1872 Balliet & Co. drilled a duster on the Best farm. Hahn & Co. had similar ill-luck on the Kiser farm, a mile south, following in the wake of W. J. Brundred’s dry-hole on the Eischelman tract a month previous. The St. Lawrence strike changed the aspect of affairs and brought the territory into notice. Wooden buildings were hurried up, wells were rushed through the sand, crowds thronged the streets and Edenburg became the centre of attraction. Page Maplestone had the first hotel, to which Robert Orr quickly succeeded. The Winebrennerians had the first church, chased closely by the Methodists. Two banks, countless stores and shops, plenty of saloons, hundreds of houses and hosts of operators were soon in evidence. Knox, Elk City, Slam Bang, Wentling, Jefferson, Beaver and other suburban oil-towns put in an appearance. Ross Haney, D. J. Wyncoop, Charles Lavens, A. J. Urquhart, Gray Brothers, G. M. Cushing, Clark Hayes, B. F. Painter, J. D. Wolff, G. W. Moltz, Joseph E. Zuver, James Travis, M. E. Hess, Charles Shaw and dozens of others were familiar figures. J. M. Gifford launched the Herald, J. Edd Leslie exploited the Spirit, Campbell Brothers loaded the Oil-Times and Tom Whittaker fired off the malodorous Gattling Gun. Col. J. S. Brown dealt in real-estate and wrote breezily for the Oil-City Derrick. Sam Magee, M. M. Meredith and William Wirt Johnson practised law. Major J. B. Maitland managed the United Pipe-Lines and Goss Brothers owned the best well in the diggings. Narrow-gauge[Narrow-gauge] railroads were built from Emlenton and Foxburg, a borough charter was obtained and 1877 saw the town at its highest point. Severe fires scourged it frightfully, the Butler field lured many of the operators and Edenburg relapsed into a tidy village.
Thomas McConnell, Smith K. Campbell, W. D. Robinson and Col. J. B. Finlay, of Kittanning, in 1860 purchased two acres of land on the west bank of the Allegheny, ninety rods above Tom’s Run, from Elisha Robinson. Organizing the Foxburg Oil-Company of sixteen shares, they drilled a well four-hundred-and-sixty feet. An obstruction delayed work a few days, the war broke out and the well was abandoned. The same parties paid Robinson five-thousand dollars in 1865 for one-hundred acres and sold thirty to Philadelphia capitalists. The latter formed the Clarion and Allegheny-River Oil-Company and sunk a well which struck oil on October tenth, the first produced in the upper end of Armstrong county and the beginning of the Parker development. Venango was drooping and operators sought the southern trail. The Robinson farm was not perforated as quickly as “you could say Jack Robinson,” the owners choosing not to cut it into small leases, but other tracts were seized eagerly. Drilled deeper, the original Robinson well was utterly dry! Had it been finished in 1860-1 the territory might have been condemned and the Parker field never heard of!
John Galey’s hundred-barrel well, drilled in 1869 on the island above Parker, relieved the monotony of commonplace strikes—twenty to fifty barrels—on the Robinson and adjacent farms and elevated the district to the top rung of the ladder. Parker’s Landing—a ferry and a dozen houses—named from a pioneer settler, ambled merrily to the head of the procession. The center of operations that stretched into Butler county and demonstrated the existence of three greasy streaks, Parker speedily became a red-hot town of three-thousand inhabitants. Hotels, stores, offices, banks and houses crowded the strip of land at the base of the steep cliff, surged over the hill, absorbed the suburbs of Lawrenceburg and Farrentown and proudly wore the title of “Parker City.” Hosts of capital fellows made life a perpetual whirl of business and jollity. Operators of every class and condition, men of eminent ability, indomitable hustlers, speculators, gamblers and adventurers thronged the streets. It was the vim and spice and vigor of Oil City, Rouseville, Petroleum Centre and Pithole done up in a single package. A hundred of the liveliest laddies that ever capered about a “bull-ring” traded jokes and stories and oil-certificates at the Oil-Exchange. Two fires obliterated nine-tenths of the town, which was never wholly rebuilt. Developments tended southward for years and the sun of Parker set finally when Bradford’s rose in the northern sky. The bridge and a few buildings have held on, but the banks have wound up their accounts, the multitudes have dispersed, the residence-section of the cliff is a waste and the glory of Parker a tradition. As the ghost of Hamlet’s father observed concerning the bicycle academy, where beginners on wheels were plentiful: “What a falling off was there!”
Galey leased lands, sunk wells and sold to Phillips Brothers for a million dollars. He played a strong hand in Butler and Allegheny and removed to Pittsburg, his present headquarters. He possessed nerve, energy and endurance and, like the country-boy applying for a job, “wuz jam’d full ov day’s work.” He would lend a hand to tube his wells, lay pipes, move a boiler or twist the tools. There wasn’t a lazy bone in his anatomy. Rain, mud, storm or darkness had no terrors for the bold rider, who bestrode a raw-boned horse and “took Time by the forelock.” A young lady from New York, whose father was interested with Galey in a tract of oil-land, accompanied him on one of his visits to Millerstown. She had heard a great deal about her father’s partner and the producers, whom she imagined to be clothed in broadcloth and diamonds. When the stage from Brady drew up at the Central Hotel a gorgeous chap was standing on the platform. He sported a stunning suit, a huge gold-chain, a diamond-pin and polished boots, the whole outfit got up regardless of expense. “Oh, papa, I see a producer! That must be Mr. Galey,” exclaimed the girl as this prototype of the dude met her gaze. The father glanced at the object, recognized him as a neighboring bar-tender and spoiled his daughter’s fanciful notion by the curt rejoinder: “That blamed fool is a gin-slinger!” Butler had long been a sort of by-word for poverty and meanness, the settlers going by the nickname of “Buckwheats.” This was an unjust imputation, as the simple people were kind, honest and industrious, in these respects presenting a decided contrast to some of the new elements in the wake of the petroleum-development. The New-York visitor drove out in the afternoon to meet his business-associate. A mile below the Diviner farm a man on horseback was seen approaching. Mud covered the panting steed and his rider. The young lady, anxious to show how much she knew about the country, hazarded another guess. “Oh! papa,” she said earnestly, “I’m sure that’s a Buckwheat!” The father chuckled, next moment greeted the rider warmly and introduced him to his astonished daughter as “My partner, Mr. Galey!” A hearty laugh followed the father’s version of the day’s incidents.
JOHN H. GALEY.
JAMES M. LAMBING.
John H. Galey has been engaged in oil-operations for a generation. Coming from Clarion county to Oil Creek in the sixties, he participated in the Pithole excitement, drilled a test-well that broadened the Pleasantville field and started the Parker furore with his island-strike. He is every inch a petroleum-pioneer. To him belongs the honor of ushering in various new districts in Pennsylvania and the oil-developments in Kansas and Texas. Well-earned success has rewarded his persistent, indomitable energy. He owns a fat slice of the finest silver-mine in Idaho and holds a large stake in California, Colorado and Nova-Scotia gold-mines. Mr. Galey is thoroughly practical and companionable, has traveled much and observed closely, nor can any excel him in narrating reminiscences and experiences of life in the oil-regions.