“My friend found in the late election a decided majority against him. Evidently he is going down, down, down until, in the language of an oil-explorer, he comes to ‘Oil, Hell or China!’”
Garfield left Oil Diggings when the bubble burst, served term after term in Congress, went to the White House and perished by the bullet of a vile assassin. Cox left Ohio for New York, secured the good-will of Tammany, went back to Congress repeatedly, died years ago and was honored with a statue in Astor Place. Both were political leaders on opposing sides and warm personal friends, both gained world-wide celebrity, both were Ohioans and oil-producers, and both retained to the last that “chastity of honor which felt a stain like a wound.”
MICHAEL EDIC HESS.
M. E. Hess, for thirty years a respected citizen of Pennsylvania, began his oil-career at Mecca. He came to Oil Creek in the sixties, formed a partnership with Franklin S. Tarbell and operated largely in various sections. He was prominent in the Clarion field and took up his abode at Edenburg. There, as wherever he lived, he has been active in church-work, in building up a religious sentiment and in furthering the best interests of the community. He has served acceptably in the borough-council and is now justice of the peace. Upright in his life and character, sincere in his friendships, kind to the poor and trustworthy everywhere, M. E. Hess deserves the high place he has always held in popular regard. The passing years have touched him lightly, his heart is young, he is “not slothful in business” and he trains with the “men who can hear the Decalogue and feel no self-reproach.”
“An honest man’s the noblest work of God.”
The south-east border of Ohio next experienced the petroleum-revival. The region about Marietta, where surface-signs of greasiness were noted a century ago, for years enjoyed its full share of satisfactory developments. Three or four counties have been covered satisfactorily, producing from the Big Injun sand. The Benwood pool, in Monroe county, introduced by a big well on the Price farm in August of 1896, has yielded liberally and is still the object of respectful attention. Macksburg, sufficiently important in 1881 to hold the entire oil-trade in mortal suspense for weeks, is on hand with a small output. John Denman, of Bradford, and Thomas Mills were pioneers in the field and did a turn in working the “mystery racket.” Hundreds assembled to watch the torpedoing of their frontier-well, four miles east of Macksburg, kept in abeyance a month for speculative purposes. Natives, with their wives and families, lined the hillside to behold the novel sight. Col. John J. Carter had arranged a system of flag-signals and stationed men to wave the news to Dexter City, five miles away. The swiftest horse in the county was at my service, to bear my message to the nearest telegraph-office for transmission to the New-York Oil-Exchange. George H. Nesbit, L. E. Mallory, Denman and a dozen other Pennsylvania operators stood by. Hours were frittered away, until the exchanges had closed, before the shell was lowered into the hole. The reaction following the explosion came at last. A column of water rose mildly a few feet in the air and—that was all! The much-vaunted well, which throttled the great petroleum-industry three or four weeks, was practically a failure and never rose above the five-barrel grade!
“The mountain labored and brought forth a mouse.”
A thousand barrels a day was the average yield of the south-eastern division in 1896. George Rice’s refinery at Marietta treated the bulk of the production at the primitive stage of developments. It was a rice-pudding for Rice, who is a thoroughbred hustler and wastes no love upon anyone who may encroach upon his particular preserve. He has loads of pluck and enterprise and the staying quality that is desirable alike in oilmen and oil-territory, to say nothing of bull-dogs and prize-fighters.
“‘Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just,’