RICHARD JENNINGS
GEO NESBIT S. D. KARNS.
GEORGE DIMICK
George H. Dimick, the son of a Wisconsin farmer and sire of Petrolia, is liberally stocked with the never-say-die qualities of the breezy Westerner. At nineteen he taught a Milwaukee school, landed on Oil Creek in 1860 and was appointed superintendent of the two Buchanan farms by Rouse & Mitchell. He drilled on his own account in the spring of 1861, aided in settling the Rouse estate, enrolled as a private in “Scott’s Nine-Hundred” and came out a captain at the close of the war. In May of 1865 he bent his footsteps towards Pithole, sold lands for the United States Petroleum-Company and drilled eleven dry-holes on the McKinney farm! Interests in the Poole, Grant, Eureka and Burchill spouters offset these losses and added thousands of dollars a week to his wealth. Staying at Pithole too long, values had shrunk to such a degree that he was virtually penniless at his departure from the “Magic City” in 1867. A whaling voyage of fifteen months in the Arctic seas and a sojourn at his boyhood home improved his health and he returned in time to share in the Pleasantville excitement. He located at Parker’s Landing in 1871 as partner of McKinney & Nesbit in the sale of oil-well supplies. He operated in the Parker field, at St. Petersburg, Petrolia, Greece City and Slippery Rock. Disposing of his properties in these localities, he and Captain Peter Grace drilled the wildcat-well that opened Cherry Grove and paralyzed the market in 1882. He had been active at Bradford and the middle field felt the influence of his shrewd movements. He has kept abreast of developments in the southern districts, sometimes getting several lengths ahead. He is now interested in West Virginia and Kentucky. Those who know his quick perception, his executive ability and his intense love for opening new fields would not wonder to hear of his striking a gusher at Oshkosh or Kamtschatka. Mr. Dimick is a man of active temperament, high character and sturdy industry, a genuine pathfinder and tireless explorer.
An Erie boy of fifteen when he left his father’s house for the oil-region in 1862, George H. Nesbit first fired a still in a Titusville refinery and in 1863 engaged with Dinsmore Brothers at Tarr Farm. He built a small refinery at Shaffer, sold it in 1864 and in the spring of 1865 drilled wells for himself on Benninghoff and Cherry-Tree Runs. He spent two years at Pithole, gaining a fortune and remaining until the collapse swallowed the bulk of his profits. He operated at Pioneer in 1867 and a year later at Pleasantville. He and George H. Dimick prospected in 1869 for oil-belts and fresh territory, located rich leases on Hickory Creek and established the line of the Venture well at Fagundas. In 1870 Nesbit moved to Parker and, in company with John L. McKinney, sold oil-well machinery and oil-lands. McKinney & Nesbit drilled along Bear Creek, especially on the Black and Dutchess farms, prospering greatly. The firm ranked with the most enterprising and realized large returns from wells at St. Petersburg and Parker. Dimick & Nesbit, with Mr. McKinney as their associate, opened the Petrolia field in 1872. William Lardin, the contractor of the Fanny Jane, bought McKinney’s interest in the well and leases. The three partners were right in the swim, their first six wells at Petrolia yielding them a thousand barrels a day. Nesbit bought the Patton farm, below town, in 1872 for twenty-thousand dollars, selling five-eighths. Five third-sand wells ranged from thirty to one-hundred barrels and oil ruled at three to five dollars. The fourth-sand was found in 1873, and in January of 1874 Nesbit & Lardin struck a thousand-barrel gusher on the Patton. The farm paid enormously and Nesbit became an “oil-prince.” He developed hundreds of acres and displayed masterly tact. His check was good for a half-million any day and his luck was so remarkable that, had he fallen into the river, probably he would not have been wet. He paid the highest wages and met his bills at sight. He entered the oil-exchange at Parker, for a time was a high-roller and ended a bankrupt! The desk on which he wrote his bold, round signature on checks aggregating many hundred-thousand dollars was stored away among shocks of corn and sheaves of oats in the weather-stained barn on the Patton farm. J. N. Ireland bought the tract for seven-thousand dollars. Nesbit drifted about aimlessly, heard from occasionally at Macksburg and fetching up at last in Cincinnati. His prestige was gone, his star had waned and he never “caught on” again. He was no sluggard in business, no dullard in society, no niggard with money, no laggard in the petroleum-column. Surely the oil-region has furnished its full allotment of sad romances from real life. Nesbit died July eighth, 1897.
“Time, with a face like a mystery,
And hands as busy as hands can be,
Sits at the loom with its warp outspread,
To catch in its meshes each glancing thread.
Click, click! there’s a thread of love wove in!
Click, click! and another of wrong and sin!
What a checkered thing this web will be