The fleet of creek and river-boats engaged in this novel traffic numbered two-thousand craft. The “guiper,” scow-shaped and holding twenty-five to fifty barrels, was the smallest. The “French Creekers” held ten to twelve-hundred barrels and were arranged to carry oil in bulk or barrels. At first the crude was run into open boats, which a slight motion of the water would sometimes capsize and spill the cargo into the stream. When prices ruled low oil was shipped in bulk; when high, shippers used barrels to lessen the danger of loss. Thousands of empty barrels, lashed together like logs in a raft, were floated from Olean. The rate from the more distant wells to Oil City was one-dollar a barrel. From Oil City to Pittsburg it varied from twenty-five cents to three dollars, according to the weather, the stage of water or the activity of the demand. Each pond-freshet cost two or three-hundred dollars, paid to the mill-owners for storing the water and the use of their dams. Twice a week—Wednesday and Saturday—was the average at the busy season. The flood of petroleum from flowing-wells in 1862 exceeded the facilities for storing, transporting, refining and burning the oil, which dropped to ten cents a barrel during the summer. Thousands of barrels ran into Oil Creek. Pittsburg was the chief market for crude, which was transferred at Oil City to the larger boats. The steamer-fleet of tow-boats—it exceeded twenty—brought the empties back to Oil City. The “Echo,” Captain Ezekiel Gordon; the “Allegheny Belle No. 4,” Captain John Hanna; the “Leclaire,” Captain Kelly; the “Ida Rees,” Captain Rees, and the “Venango” were favorite passenger-steamers. The trip from Pittsburg—one-hundred-and-thirty-three miles—generally required thirty to thirty-six hours. Mattresses on the cabin-floor served as beds for thirty or forty male passengers, who did not undress and rose early that the tables might be set for breakfast. The same tables were utilized between meals and in the evening for poker-games. The busiest man on the boat was the bar-tender and the clerk was the most important. He carried letters and money for leading oil-shippers. It was not uncommon for Alfred Russell, of the “Echo,” John Thompson, of the “Belle No. 4,” and Ruse Russ, of the “Venango,” to walk into Hanna’s or Abrams’s warehouse-office with large packages of money for John J. Fisher, William Lecky, John Mawhinney, William Thompson and others who bought oil. No receipts were given or taken and, notwithstanding the apparent looseness in doing business, no package was ever lost or stolen. The boats usually landed at the lower part of the eddy to put off passengers wishing to stop at the Moran and Parker Hotels. At Hanna & Co.’s and Abrams & Co.’s landing, where the northern approach of the suspension bridge now is, they put off the remaining passengers, freight and empty oil-barrels. Many a Christian-looking man was heard to swear as he left the gang-plank of the boat and struck the mud, tough and greasy and deep. He would soon tumble to the situation, roll up his trousers and “pull for the shore.”
Horses and mules dragged the empty boats up Oil Creek, a terrible task in cold weather. Slush or ice and floating oil shaved the hair off the poor animals as if done with a razor. The treatment of the patient creatures—thousands were literally murdered—was frightful and few survived. For them the plea of inability availed nothing. They were worked until they dropped dead. The finest mule, ears very long, coat shiny, tail vehement, eye mischievous, heels vigorous and bray distinct and melodious, quickly succumbed to the freezing water and harsh usage. As a single trip realized more than would buy another the brutal driver scarcely felt the financial loss. A story is told of a boatman who started in the morning for the wells to bring down a load of oil. Returning in the evening, he learned that he had been drafted into the army. Before retiring to bed he had hired a substitute for one-thousand dollars, the proceeds of his journey of eleven miles and back. William Haldeman hauled a man over the coals for beating his exhausted horse, told him to buy another and handed him five-hundred dollars for eight horses to haul a boat to the gushers at Funkville.
Pond-freshets were holidays in Oil City sufficiently memorable to go gliding down the ages with the biggest kind of chalk-mark. Young and old flocked to see the boats slip into the Allegheny, lodge on the gravel-bar, strike the pier of the bridge or anchor in Moran’s Eddy. Hundreds of boatmen, drillers, pumpers and operators would be on board. Once the river had only a foot of water at Scrubgrass Ripple and large boats could not get to or from Pittsburg. A ship-carpenter came from New York to Titusville and spent his last dollar in lumber for six boxes sixteen feet square and twelve inches deep. He covered them with inch-boards and divided them into small compartments, to prevent the oil from running from one end to the other and swamping the vessel. This principle was applied to oil-boats thereafter and extended to bulk-barges and bulk-steamships. The ingenious carpenter floated his strange arks down to the Blood farm and bargained with Henry Balliott to fill them on credit. He performed the voyage safely, returned in due course, paid Balliott, built more boxes and went home in four months with a snug fortune. His ship had come in. Railroads and pipe-lines have relegated pond-freshets, oil-boats and Allegheny steamers to the rear, but they were interesting features of the petroleum-development in early days and should not be utterly forgotten.
To haul oil from inland wells to shipping-points required thousands of horses. This service originated the wagon-train of the oil-country, which at its best consisted of six-thousand two-horse teams and wagons. No such transport-service was ever before seen outside of an army on a march. General M. H. Avery, a renowned cavalry-commander during the war, organized a regular army-train at Pithole. Travelers in the oil-regions seldom lost sight of these endless trains of wagons bearing their greasy freight to the nearest railroad or shipping-point. Five to seven barrels—a barrel of oil weighed three-hundred-and-sixty pounds—taxed the strength of the stoutest teams. The mud was practically bottomless. Horses sank to their breasts and wagons far above their axles. Oil dripping from innumerable barrels mixed with the dirt to keep the mass a perpetual paste, which destroyed the capillary glands and the hair of the animals. Many horses and mules had not a hair below the eyes. A long caravan of these hairless beasts gave a spectral aspect to the landscape. History records none other such roads. Houses within a quarter-mile of the roadside were plastered with mud to the eaves. Many a horse fell into the batter and was left to smother. If a wagon broke the load was dumped into the mud-canal, or set on the bank to be taken by whoever thought it worth the labor of stealing. Teamsters would pull down fences and drive through fields whenever possible, until the valley of Oil Creek was an unfathomable quagmire. Think of the bone and sinew expended in moving a thousand barrels of oil six or eight miles under such conditions. Two-thirds of the work had to be done in the fall and winter, when the elements spared no effort to increase the discomfort and difficulty of navigation by boat or wagon. To haul oil a half-dozen miles cost three to five dollars a barrel at certain periods of the year. Thousands of barrels were drawn to Shaw’s Landing, near Meadville, and thousands to Garland Station and Union City, on the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad. The hauling of a few hundred barrels not infrequently consumed so much time that the shipper, in the rapid fluctuations of the market, would not realize enough to pay the wagon-freight. A buyer once paid ten-thousand dollars for one-thousand barrels at Clapp farm, above Oil City, and four-thousand for teaming it to Franklin, to be shipped by the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad to New York. Even after a plank-road had been built from Titusville to Pithole, cutting down the teaming one-half or more, the cost of laying down a barrel of crude in New York was excessive. In January of 1866 it figured as follows:
| Government tax | $1 00 |
| Barrel | 3 25 |
| Teaming from Pithole to Titusville | 1 25 |
| Freight from Titusville to New York | 3 65 |
| Cooperage and platform expenses | 1 00 |
| Leakage | 25 |
| Total | ~$10 40~ |
The Oil Creek teamster, rubber-booted to the waist and flannel-shirted to the chin, was a picturesque character. He was skilled in profanity and the savage use of the whip. A week’s earnings—ten, twenty and thirty dollars a day—he would spend in revelry on Saturday night. Careless of the present and heedless of the future, he took life as it came and wasted no time worrying over consequences. If one horse died he bought another. He regulated his charges by the depth and consistency of the mud and the wear and tear of morality and live-stock. Eventually he followed the flat-boat and barge and guiper to oblivion, railroads and pipe-lines supplanting him as a carrier of oil. Some of the best operators in the region adopted teaming temporarily, to get a start. They saved their money for interests in leases or drilling-wells and not a few went to the front as successful producers. The free-and-easy, devil-may-care teamster of yore, brimful of oil and tobacco and not averse to whiskey, is a tradition, remembered only by men whose polls are frosting with silver threads that do not stop at sixteen to one.
Wharves, warehouses and landings crowded Oil City from the mouth of Oil Creek to the Moran House. Barrels filled the warehouse-yards, awaiting their turn to be hauled or boated to the wells, filled with crude and returned for shipment. Loaded and empty boats were coming and going continually. Firms and individuals shipped thousands of barrels daily, employing a regiment of men and stacks of cash. William M. Lecky, still a respected citizen of Oil City, hustled for R. D. Cochran & Co., whose “Tiber” was a favorite tow-boat. Parker & Thompson, Fisher Brothers, Mawhinney Brothers and John Munhall & Co. were strong concerns. Their agents scoured the producing farms to buy oil at the wells and arrange for its delivery. Prices fluctuated enormously. Crude bought in September of 1862 at thirty cents a barrel sold in December at eleven dollars. John B. Smithman, Munhall’s buyer, walked up the creek one morning to buy what he could at three dollars. A dispatch at Rouseville told him to pay four, if necessary to secure what the firm desired. At Tarr Farm another message quoted five dollars. By the time he reached Petroleum Centre the price had reached six dollars and his last purchases that afternoon were at seven-fifty. Business was done on honor and every agreement was fulfilled to the letter, whether the price rose or fell. Lecky, Thomas B. Simpson, W. J. Young and Isaac M. Sowers—he was the second mayor of Oil City—clerked in these shipping-offices, which proved admirable training-schools for ambitious youths. William Porterfield and T. Preston Miller tramped over Oil Creek and Cherry Run for the Fishers. Col. A. J. Greenfield, Bradley & Whiting and I. S. Gibson bought at Rouseville and R. Richardson at Tarr Farm. “Pres” Miller, “Hi” Whiting and “Ike” Gibson—square, manly and honorable—are treading the golden-streets. John Mawhinney—big in soul and body, true to the core and upright in every fiber—has voyaged to the haven of rest. William Parker is president of the Oil City Savings Bank and Thompson returned east years ago. John Munhall settled near Philadelphia and William Haldeman removed to Cleveland. The iron-horse and the pipe-line revolutionized the methods of handling crude and retired the shippers, most of whom have shipped across the sea of time into the ocean of eternity.
Fisher Brothers have a long and enviable record as shippers and producers of oil, “staying the distance” and keeping the pole in the hottest race. Men have come and men have retreated in the mad whirl of speculation and wild rush for the bottom of the sand, but they have gone on steadily for a generation and are to-day abreast of the situation. Whether a district etched its name on the Rainbow of Fame or mocked the dreams of the oil-seeker, they did not lose their heads or their credit. John J. Fisher went to Oil City in 1862 and Fisher Brothers began shipping oil by the river to Pittsburg in 1863, succeeding John Burgess & Co. The three brothers divided their forces, to give each department personal supervision, John J. managing the buying and shipping at Oil City and Frederick and Henry receiving and disposing of the cargoes at Pittsburg. Competent men bought crude at the wells and handled it in the yards and on the boats. The firm owned a fleet of bulk-boats and tow-boats and acres of barrels. Each barrel was branded with a huge F on either head. The “Big F”—widely known as Oil Creek or the Drake well—was the trademark of fair play and spot cash. When railroads were built the Fishers discarded boats and used more barrels than before. When wooden-tanks—a car held two—were introduced they adopted them and let the barrels slide. When pipe-lines were laid they purchased certificate-oil and continued to be large shippers until seaboard lines suspended the older systems of freighting crude by water or rail, in barrels or in tanks. From the beginning to the end of the shipping-trade Fisher Brothers were in the van.
Next devoting their attention entirely to the production of oil and gas, with the Grandins and Adnah Neyhart they invested heavily at Fagundas and laid the first pipe-line at Tidioute. They operated below Franklin and were pioneers at Petrolia. Organizing the Fisher Oil-Company, they drilled in all the Butler pools and held large interests at McDonald and Washington. At present they are operating in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, the Fisher ranking with the foremost companies in extent and solidity. The brothers have their headquarters in the Germania Building, Pittsburg, and juicy wells in a dozen counties. Time has dealt kindly with all three, as well as with Daniel Fisher, ex-mayor of Oil City. They have loads of experience and capital and too much energy to think of adjusting their halo for retirement from active work. True men in all the relations of life, Fisher Brothers worthily represent the splendid industry they have had no mean part in making the greatest and grandest of any age or nation. To natural shrewdness and the quick perception that comes from contact with the activities of the world they joined business-ability that would have proved successful in whatever career they undertook to map out.
