Our sainted mother’s bowers;
My grateful heart beats high to you,
My own wild valley-flowers!
The collapse of the syndicate Times terminated experimental dailies in Oil City. Mr. Gilfillan, F. W. Mitchell, P. R. Gray and other stockholders sold the good-will and smoking ruins to Sheriff H. H. Herpst, who revived the weekly with Dr. Davis at the bellows. It was rather weakly, notwithstanding the doctor’s excellent doses of leaded pellets. Advertisers seemed a trifle shy and columns of blank space, by no means nutritious pabulum, were not infrequent. Everybody favored a newer, grander, bolder stride forward. The borough and suburbs had attained the dignity of a city, an oil-exchange had been organized, railroads were coming in and a paper of metropolitan scope was urgently demanded. Usually men adapted to a particular niche turn up and the traditional “long-felt want” is not likely to remain unfilled.
Coleman E. Bishop and W. H. Longwell landed in Oil City one summer afternoon to “view the landscape o’er,” as good Dr. Watts phrased it. They had heard the Macedonian cry and decided to size up the situation. Bishop achieved greatness at Jamestown, N. Y., where he edited the Journal, by attacking Commander Cushing, the naval officer who sank the Confederate ram Merrimac, and kicking him down stairs when the indignant marine invaded the sanctum to “horsewhip the editor and pitch him out of the window.” Longwell, a brave soldier and sharp man of affairs, had learned the ropes at Pithole and Petroleum Centre. A deal was soon closed, material ordered and a building on Seneca street rented, Herpst keeping an interest as silent partner.
The Oil-City Derrick, ordained to become “the organ of oil,” was born on the thirteenth of September, 1871. The name was an inspiration, sprung by Bishop as a surprise, instead of the hackneyed Times, which had been agreed upon by the three proprietors. To embody its most conspicuous emblem in the head of a newspaper designed to represent the oil-trade suggested itself to the alert editor. He consulted only his foreman, Charles E. White, long the brilliant editor of the Tidioute News, who had come with him from Jamestown and approved of the drawing from which the famous design of a derrick spouting newspapers was engraved. It was a go from the start. People were roused from their slumber by strong-lunged newsboys shouting, “Derrick, ere’s yer Derrick, Derrick!” Their first impulse was to wonder if they had left any derricks out all night, exposed to thieves and marauders, and somebody was bringing them home. The new sheet was scanned eagerly. It had departments of “Spray,” “Lying Around Loose” and “Pick-ups,” teeming with catchy, piquant, invigorating items. Its advocacy of the producers’ cause boomed the paper tremendously. A bitter fight with the Allegheny Valley Railroad increased its circulation and prestige. Bishop’s individuality permeated every page and column. He had the sand to continue the railroad war, but a threat to remove the shops from Oil City weakened his partners and they bought him out in 1873. From the “Hub of Oildom” he went to Buffalo to edit the Express. Thence he went to Bradford, embarked in oil-operations on Kendall Creek and enlivened the Chautauqua Herald, Rev. Theodore Flood’s bonanza, one summer. Invited to New York in 1880, he managed the Merchants’ Review and edited Judge until it changed owners in 1885. Leaving the metropolis, he wandered to Dakota and freshened the Rapid-City Republican. Returning east, he furnished Washington correspondence to various papers. Locomotor-ataxia disabled him and he died in 1896. Mrs. Bishop is a popular teacher of the Delsarte system and has published a book on the subject. Miss Bishop is a talented lecturer. It is not disparaging the galaxy of oil-region journalists to say that C. E. Bishop, the gamest, keenest, raciest member of the fraternity, might be termed a bishop in the congregation of men who have shaped public opinion in the domain of grease. No matter how difficult or delicate the theme, from pre-natal influence to monopoly, from heredity to fishing, from biology to pumpkins, he treated it tersely and charmingly. A thoroughbred from top to toe, his was a Damascus blade and “none but himself can be his parallel.”
Captain Longwell—the title was awarded for gallantry in many a hard battle—attended to the business-end with decided success. Buying Herpst’s claim, he conducted the whole concern four years and sold out at a steep figure in 1877. He raked in wealth producing and speculating, quitting well-heeled financially. A native of Adams county, he was educated at Gettysburg and learned printing in the office of the Chambersburg Repository and Whig, then published by Col. Alexander K. McClure, now the world-famed editor of the Philadelphia Times. His mother was a descendant of James Wilson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Herpst opened a wall-paper store, removed later to Jamestown and died there in 1884. Square, honest and “straight as a string,” he merited the regard of his fellows. Charles H. Morse, the first city-editor, had the snap to corral news at sight and present it toothsomely. Who that knew him in his beardless youth imagined Charley would “get religion” and adorn the pulpit? He entered the ministry and for over twenty years has been pastor of a Baptist church at Mercer. Were he to serve up to his hearers some of the funny experiences he encountered as a reporter, he would discount Talmage’s recitals of the slums and Dr. Parkhurst’s leap-frog exploits in the Tenderloin! Archie Frazer wrote the market-report, ten or twelve lines at first and a plump column or more ultimately. In November of 1872 it was my luck to engage with the Derrick and inaugurate the role of traveling correspondent. Venango and Warren, with Clarion, Armstrong and Butler budding into prominence, covered the oil-fields. Bradford loomed up in the autumn of 1875, extending my mission from the northern line of McKean county to the southern boundary of Butler before the close of the term of five years. These breezy days were crowded with bustle and excitement, adventure and incident. Over the signature of “J. J. M.”—possibly remembered by old-timers—fate appointed me to chronicle a multitude of events that played an important part in petroleum-annals. The system of “monthly reports” was arranged methodically, the producing sections were visited regularly and my acquaintance embraced every oil-farm and nearly every oil-operator in the rushing, hustling, get-up-and-get world of petroleum.
Orion Clemens, a brother of “Mark Twain,” worked on the Derrick a few weeks in 1873. The exact opposite of “Mark,” his forte was the pathetic. He could write up the death of an insect or a reptile so feelingly that sensitive folks would shed gallons of tears in the wood-shed over the harrowing details. He fairly reveled in the gloomy, somber, tragic element of life. Daily contributions taxed him too severely, as he composed slowly, and his resignation caused no surprise. Frank H. Taylor, a young graduate from the Tidioute Journal, succeeded Bishop, vacating the chair to undertake the field-work. Frank can afford to “point with pride” to his career as editor and compiler of statistics. His “Handbook” is an unquestioned authority on petroleum. Once he resigned to float the Call, a sprightly Sunday folio, which glistened from the spring of 1877 to October of 1878. “Puts and Calls,” the humorous column, had to answer for bursting off tons of vest-buttons. Taylor acquired money and fame as a journalist, was president of select-council, called the turn as a producer and saved a snug competence. During a term of Congress he was Hon. J. C. Sibley’s secretary, a position demanding remarkable tact and industry. Now he is leasing lands, drilling wells and looking after the oil-properties of Sibley & Co. in Indiana. Oil City is his home and he is as busy as a boy clubbing chestnuts or a Brooklynite dodging the trolley-cars at thirty miles an hour.
CHAS. E. WHITE.
HOMER McCLINTOCK. FRANK H. TAYLOR.
P. C. BOYLE.
EDWARD STUCK. WM. H. SIVITER.
W. J. McCULLAGH.