Our own little darling Thomas;
We can’t have things here to please us—
He has gone to dwell with Jesus.”
Branching off a mile south of Karns City, on January thirty-first, 1873, the first well—one-hundred and fifty barrels—was finished on the Moore & Hepler farm of three-hundred acres. Another in February strengthened “the belt theory,” belief in which induced C. D. Angell, John L. McKinney, Phillips Brothers and O. K. Warren to form a company and test the tract. Their faith was recompensed “an hundred fold” by an array of dandy wells and the unfolding of Angelica. Operators[Operators] were feeling their way steadfastly. Two miles south-east of Angelica, on the Simon Barnhart farm, Messimer & Backus’s wild-cat—also a February plant—pumped eight barrels a day. Shreve & Kingsley’s, on the Stewart farm, a mile north-east, found good sand and flowed one-hundred-and-forty barrels, in April, 1873. The fickle tide turned in that direction and Millerstown, a dingy, pokey hamlet on a side-elevation in Donegal township, a half-mile south-east of the Shreve-spouter, was on everybody’s lips. Some persons and some communities have greatness thrust upon them and Millerstown was of this brood. The natives awakened one April morning to find their settlement invaded by the irrepressible oilmen.
For sixty years the quiet hamlet of Barnhart’s Mills—a colony of Barnharts settled in Donegal when the nineteenth century was in its teens—stuck contentedly in the old rut, “the world unknowing, by the world unknown.” It consisted chiefly of log-houses, looking sufficiently antiquated to have been imported in William Penn’s good ship Welcome. A church, a school, a blacksmith-shop, a grocery, a general store and a tavern had existed from time immemorial. A grist-mill ground wheat and the name of Barnhart’s Mills was adopted by the post-office authorities. It yielded to Millerstown and finally to Chicora. The two-hundred villagers went to bed at dark and breakfasted by candle-light in winter. A birth, a marriage or a funeral aroused profound interest. At last news of oil “from Parker down” was heard occasionally. Petrolia arose and the Millerites shivered with apprehension. Was the petroleum-wave to submerge their peaceful homes? The Shreve well answered the query affirmatively and the invasion was not delayed. Crowds came, properties changed hands, old houses were razed and by July the ancient borough was disguised as a modern oil-town. Dr. Book built a grand hotel, Taylor & Satterfield established a bank, the United and Relief Pipe-Lines opened offices, the best firms were represented and “on to Millerstown” was the shibboleth of the hour. McFarland & Co.’s seventy-barrel well on the Thorn farm, a mile north-east of town, the third in the district, fed the oily flame. Dr. James, on R. Barnhart’s lands, finished the fourth, an eighty-barreler, in June, a half-mile west of the Shreve & Kingsley, which Clark & Timblin bought for twenty-thousand dollars. Wyatt, Fertig & Hammond’s mammoth flowed one-thousand barrels a day! Col. Wyatt was a real Virginian, chivalric, educated and high-strung. Hon. John Fertig was a pioneer on Oil Creek and had operated at Foxburg with John W. Hammond. The Wyatt spouted for months.
McKeown & Morissey drilled rib-ticklers on the Nolan farm. Warden & Frew, F. Prentice, Taylor & Satterfield, Captain Grace, John Preston, Cook & Goldsboro, Samuel P. Boyer, C. D. Angell and multitudes more scored big hits. McKinney Brothers & Galey secured the Hemphill and Frederick farms, on which they drilled scores of splendid wells. James M. Lambing had a chunk near the Wyatt, with Col. Brady next door. Lee & Plumer, fresh from their triumphs in Clarion, leased the Diviner farm, two miles south-west of Millerstown, for two-hundred dollars an acre bonus and one-eighth royalty. Their first well flowed fifteen-hundred barrels and they sold to Taylor & Satterfield for ninety-thousand dollars after its production paid the bonus and the drilling. Henry Greene drilled on the Johnson farm, two miles straight south of the village, and P. M. Shannon’s, on the Boyle, was the lion of the eastern belt. A dry strip divided the field into two productive lines. P. H. Burchfield opened the Gillespie farm and Joseph Overy touched the Mead, four miles south of Millerstown, for a two-hundred-barreler that installed St. Joe. Dr. Hunter, of Pittsburg, monkeyed a well on the Gillespie for many weeks, inaugurating the odious “mystery” racket. Millerstown was a peach of the most approved pattern, holding its own bravely until Bradford overwhelmed the southern region. A narrow-gauge railroad connected it with Parker in 1876. Fire in 1875 swept away the central portion of the town and blotted out seven lives. Oil has receded, the operators have departed and the town is once more a placid country village.
The Barnhart and Hemphill farms yielded McKinney Brothers a lavish return, the wells averaging fifty to three-hundred barrels month after month. The two brothers, John L. and J. C., were not amateurs in oil-matters. Sons of a well-to-do lumberman and farmer in Warren county, they learned business-methods in boyhood and were fitted by habit and education to manage important enterprises. Their connection with petroleum dated back to the sixties, in the oldest districts. The knowledge stored up on Oil Creek and around Franklin and at Pleasantville was of immense benefit in the lower fields. Organizing the firm of McKinney Brothers in 1890, to operate at Parker, they kept pace with the trend of developments southward. Millerstown impressed them favorably and they paid seventy-thousand dollars for the Barnhart and two Hemphill farms, two-hundred-and-seventy acres in the heart of the richest territory. John Galey purchased an interest in the properties, which the partners developed judiciously. J. C. McKinney and Galey resided at Millerstown to oversee the numerous details of their extensive operations. In 1877, H. L. Taylor, John Satterfield, John Pitcairn and the brothers formed the partnership known as John L. McKinney & Co. It was controlled and managed by the McKinneys, until the sale of its interests to the Standard Oil-Company. John L. and J. C. McKinney sold their Ohio lands and wells in 1889 and their Pennsylvania oil-properties in 1890, since which period they have been associated with the Standard in one of its great producing branches, the South Penn Oil-Company. Noah S. Clark is president of the South Penn, with headquarters at Oil City and Pittsburg. This company has thousands of wells in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. The wise policy that has made the Standard the world’s foremost corporation has nowhere been manifested more effectively than in the formation of such companies as the Forest and the South Penn. Letting sellers of production share in the ownership and management of properties united in one grand system secures the advantages of concerted action, unlimited capital, identity of interest and combined experience. Thus men of the highest skill join hands for the good of all, using the latest appliances, buying at wholesale for cash, producing oil at the smallest cost and giving the public the fruits of systematic coöperation. In this free country “the poor man’s back-yard opens into all out-doors” and many producers, like John McKeown, Captain Jones “The.” Barnsdall and Michael Murphy have been conspicuously successful going it alone. Sometimes a growl is heard about monopoly, centralization and the octave of similar phrases, just as folks grumble at the weather, the heat and cold and think they could run the universe much better than its Creator does it.
“Oh, many a wicked smile they smole,
And many a wink they wunk;
And, oh, it is an awful thing