No man has contributed more to the development of the oil-industry, alike as a producer, refiner and transporter, than Captain J. J. Vandergrift. His active connection with petroleum goes back to pioneer operations, widening and expanding constantly. By his energy, perseverance, uprightness and masterly traits of character he attained prominence in all branches of the oil-business. His wonderful success was not due to any caprice of fortune, but to stability of purpose, patient application and honorable methods. Vigor and decision supplemented the keen foresight that discovered the amazing possibilities of petroleum as an article of universal utility. He believed in the future of oil and shaped his course in accordance with the broadest ideas. Allied with George V. Forman, clear-headed, quick to plan and execute, the firm took a leading part in producing and carrying oil. Vandergrift & Forman constructed the Star Pipe-Line and equipped trains of tank-cars to convey crude from Pithole to Oil City. They drilled hosts of wells in Butler county and built the Fairview Pipe-Line, which finally crystallized with numerous others into the United Pipe-Lines Association and the gigantic National-Transit Company. The firm of H. L. Taylor & Co., of which they were members, originated the Union Oil-Company. Vandergrift & Forman, Vandergrift, Pitcairn & Co. and Vandergrift, Young & Co. consolidated as the Forest Oil-Company, which holds the foremost place in the production of oil. Mr. Forman operated in Allegany and McKean, developing large tracts of territory on the Bingham and Barse lands. He resided at Olean and established the finest stock-farm in the Empire State. Removing to Buffalo to engage in banking, he organized the Fidelity Trust-Company and erected for its use a palatial structure in the heart of the city. Under his presidency the Fidelity is a power in the world of finance. Shrewd, prompt and far-seeing, George V. Forman is richly dowered with the qualities of business-leadership. His influence in the oil-country was not limited to one corner or district or locality. He has enjoyed the pleasure of making money and the greater pleasure of giving liberally. He is “a man who thinks it out, then goes and does it.”
PIPE LINE STATION.
CAPT. J. J. VANDERGRIFT.
OIL TANK CARS.
GEO. V. FORMAN.
Born at Pittsburg in 1827, at fifteen Jacob Jay Vandergrift chose the pathway that naturally opened before him and entered the steamboat-service, then the chief medium of intercommunication between his native city and the west. In ten years he rose from cabin-boy to captain. He introduced the method of towing coal-barges that has since been employed in the river-traffic. The innovation attracted wide attention and gave a great impetus to mining in the Pittsburg coal-fields. Captain Vandergrift was steamboating on the Ohio when the war broke out and owned the staunch Red Fox, which the government chartered and lost near Cairo. He transported oil down the Allegheny, was concerned in West-Virginia wells—the Confederates destroyed them—and removed to Oil City in 1863 to oversee his shipping-business, with Daniel Bushnell as his first partner in producing oil. He organized the firms out of which grew the Union, the Forest, the Washington Oil-Company and the United Oil and Gas Trust. He was president of the Forest and the Washington and a leading promoter of the Anchor Oil-Company. The success of these great companies was owing largely to his peculiar ability as an organizer and manager of important enterprises. Other individuals and corporations produced oil profitably, but to Vandergrift & Forman the marvelous advance in modes of transportation is mainly attributable. They piped and railroaded oil from Pithole, extended their lines through the different fields, devised many improvements, perfected the methods of handling the product and developed the system that has eliminated jaded horses, wooden-barrels, mud-scows, slow freights and the thousand inconveniences of early transportation. Captain Vandergrift’s sturdy integrity and wise forethought planned the open, clear-cut manner in which his pipe-lines conducted business. Throughout their entire existence he was president of the United Pipe-Lines and of the United Division of the National-Transit after the consolidation in 1884. Their splendid record is an unqualified tribute to his business-skill and rare sagacity. He found the region hampered by an expensive, tedious method of moving oil and left it a transportation-system that serves the industry as no other on earth is served. He substituted the steam-pump for the wearied mule, the iron-artery for the roads of bottomless mire and the huge cistern of boiler-plate for the portable tank of wooden staves that leaked at every pore. To Oil City he was a munificent benefactor. He projected the Imperial Refinery, with a capacity of fifteen-thousand barrels a week, by the sale of which he became a stockholder and officer of the Standard Oil-Company. He aided in establishing the Boiler-Works, the Barrel-Works, river-bridges, manufactories, churches and public improvements. He paid his workmen the highest wages, befriended the humble toiler and assisted every worthy object. The poor blessed his beneficent hand and all classes revered the modest citizen whose unostentatious deeds of kindness no party, race, color or creed could for one moment restrict.
Very naturally, one thus interested in a special product and its industries must be identified with its finance. Captain Vandergrift founded the Oil-City Trust-Company, one of the leading banking institutions of the state, and was prominent in organizing the Oil-Exchange, the Seaboard-National Bank of New York and the Argyle Savings-Bank at Petrolia. Removing to Pittsburg in 1881, he founded the Keystone Bank and the Pittsburg Trust-Company—nine-hundred-thousand dollars paid-up capital and four-millions deposits—and was unanimously elected president of both. He provided spacious quarters for the Oil-Exchange and established it on a sound basis. He erected the massive Vandergrift Building on Fourth avenue, in which the National-Transit Company, the Forest, the South-Penn, the Pennsylvania, the Woodland and other oil-companies are commodiously housed. The owner occupies a suite of offices on the second floor and the Pittsburg Trust-Company has its bank on the ground floor of the granite structure. He also erected the Conestoga Building, which has seven-hundred elegant offices, and the Imperial Power-Building, with factory-construction and the latest electric-motors throughout. In 1882 he organized the Pennsylvania Tube-Works—eight-hundred-thousand dollars capital—to manufacture all kinds of wrought-iron pipe. The output was so excellent that the capital was increased to two-millions and the plant doubled. The works turn out pipe from one-eighth inch to twenty-eight inches, the smallest and largest sizes in the world. The Apollo Steel-Company, which he also capitalized in 1885 at three-hundred-thousand dollars, has likewise trebled its plant and enlarged its capital to two-millions. The Penn Fuel-Company, the Bridgewater Gas Company, the Natural-Gas Company of West Virginia, the Chartiers Natural-Gas Company, the United Oil and Gas Trust, the Toledo Natural-Gas Company, the Fort-Pitt Natural-Gas Company and a number more were incorporated by Captain Vandergrift. They represent many millions of capital and have performed inestimable service in developing the fuel that proved a veritable philosopher’s stone to the iron-industries of Western-Pennsylvania. As in petroleum, from the days of spring-poles and bulk-barges and pond-freshets down through all the changes of the most remarkable industrial development the world has ever seen, so Captain Vandergrift has been a pioneer, a guide and a leader in natural-gas. His hand has never been off the helm, nor has he ever grudged an atom of the energy bestowed upon the cherished pursuits of his busy life.
Forty miles north-east of Pittsburg, on a beautiful bend of the Kiskiminetas River, the new town of Vandergrift has been laid out, under the direction of Frederick Law Olmsted. It is located on a plot one mile square, two miles below Apollo, the gentle slope overlooking the valley and the river for leagues. Its residents will have within easy reach of simple thrift what luxurious people enjoy in large cities at great expense. They will have clean air and water and breathing-room, green leaves and flowers and grass, paved streets and sewers and electricity, parks and walks and drives, shade-trees and lawns and pleasant homes, for Vandergrift will be the model town of Pennsylvania. The company is paying sixty-thousand dollars a month at Apollo in wages and the big works at Vandergrift will employ thrice as many men. At first the bulk of the town will be the habitations of those employed by and associated with the company. After a little others will note its advantages and desire to share them. Provision will be made this year for an immediate population of several thousand, with the means of living comfortably, families owning their homes and controlling their own pursuits. The town is not to be a fad, a hobby, or a visionary Utopia, but a good place for men to live in, for the founder to use his money, for the world to look at and learn from. These banks and business-blocks, pipe-lines and refineries, mills and factories and the town that bears his name are enduring monuments to the enterprise and wisdom of a man who recognizes the responsibilities of wealth in his investments, in his works of philanthropy and in his gifts to the children of misfortune.
Captain Vandergrift’s home in Allegheny City is a center of good cheer and genial hospitality. The host is the same kindly, companionable gentleman by his own hearth, in his office or on the street. He casts the lead of memory into the stream of the past and talks entertainingly of the old days on the Ohio, the Allegheny and Oil Creek. He is never too much engaged to welcome a comrade of his early years. He has not lost touch with men or the spirit of sympathy with the struggling and unsuccessful. His trials and vicissitudes, equally with his triumphs and successes, have strengthened his moral fiber, his manly courage and his nobility of character. Doubtful plans and purposes have had no place in his policy. Strict honesty and fairness have governed his conduct and respected the rights and privileges of his fellows. He has been quick to discover and reward talent, to grasp the details and possibilities of business and to mature plans for any emergency. Money has not shriveled his soul and narrowed him to the prayer of selfishness: “Give me this day my daily bread.” He prefers straightforwardness to a pedigree running back to the Mayflower. He realizes that golden opportunities for good are not traveling by a time-table and that men will not journey this way again to repair omissions and rectify mistakes. He knows that he who does right will be right and feel right. He does not lay aside his sense of justice, his love of fair-play, his earnest convictions and his desire to benefit mankind with his Sunday clothes. He believes that principle which is not exercised every day will not keep sweet a week. The story of J. J. Vandergrift’s life and labor is told wherever the flame of natural-gas glows in the white heat of a furnace or the gleam of an oil-lamp brightens a happy home.
Somehow we all feel sure, boys, that when the game is o’er—
When the last inning’s play’d, boys, this side the other shore—
We’ll hear the Umpire say, boys: “The Captain’s made a score.”