JOHN PONTON.
JAMES TYSON.
CHARLES C. LEONARD.
Titusville enjoys the honor of harboring the first petroleum-daily that weathered the storm and stayed in the ring. June, 1865, heralded the Morning Herald of W. W. and Henry C. Bloss, which possessed the entire field and prospered accordingly. Col. J. H. Cogswell joined the partnership in 1866. Major W. W. Bloss, the elder of the two brothers, was a fluent writer, and made his mark in journalism. Mastering the details of “the art preservative” at Rochester, N. Y., in 1857 he started a short-lived journal in Kansas, retraced his footsteps to his native heath in 1859, was badly wounded at Antietam, beamed upon Titusville in the spring of 1865 and bought the Petroleum Reporter, a moribund weekly. Quitting the Herald, in 1873, he unfurled the banner of the Evening Press, which did not live to cut its eye-teeth. His next attempt, a tasteful weekly, traveled the road to oblivion. The Major once more headed for Kansas, served in the Legislature and wended his way to Chicago, whence he crossed “to the other side” in the prime of matured manhood. Harry C. Bloss stuck to the Herald “through evil and through good report,” steadfastly upholding Titusville and dipping his eagle feather in vitriol when necessary to squelch “a foeman worthy of his steel.” He died—the ranks are thinning out sadly—four years ago and his son, upon whom the mantle of his father has descended, is keeping the paper in the van. Col. Cogswell, who dropped out to accept the postmastership, enacting the role of “Nasby” a couple of terms, for years has been in the office of the Tidewater Pipe-Line. Among the Herald force were C. C. Leonard, John Ponton and A. E. Fay. Ponton turned his peculiar talent for invention to electrical pursuits and the giddy telephone. He narrowly missed heading off Prof. Bell in stumbling upon the “hello” machine. Fay forsook the Herald for the Oil-City Times, did a turn on the Titusville Courier and hied him to Arizona. He ran a mining-paper, sat in the Legislature, incubated a chicken-nursery that would have dumbfounded Rutherford B. Hayes, farmed a bit and harvested a crop of shekels.
The Titusville Courier, sprung in 1870 to oppose the Herald, was edited by Col. J. T. Henry, an accomplished journalist from Olean, N. Y. In 1871 he bought the Sunday News, formerly A. L. Chapman’s Long-Roll, transferring it in 1872 to W. W. Bloss, who changed it to the Evening Press. Col. Henry in 1873 published “Early and Later History of Petroleum,” a large volume, replete with information, biographies and portraits. The author speculated profitably in oil, lived at Olean, wrote as the impulse prompted and died at Jamestown in May, 1878. A tear is due the memory of a kingly, chivalrous man, who reflected luster upon his profession and was not fully appreciated until he had reached the haven of eternal rest. To him Littleton’s tribute applies:
“He wrote not a line which dying he would blot.”
Warren C. Plumer guided the Courier after Col. Henry’s retirement. He was no tyro in slinging his quill. Born in Maine in 1835, at fourteen he entered a printing-office, ten years later edited a paper, served three years in the war, set type on the Reno Times in 1865 and was editor-journeyman of the Pithole Record in the fall of 1866. His “Dedbete” contributions were a striking feature of the Record, of which he became joint-owner with Longwell and Wicker in 1867, when Burgess of Pithole, and editor-in-chief upon its removal to Petroleum Centre in 1868. Selling out in 1869, Wicker and Plumer lighted a Weekly Star at Titusville that quickly set to rise no more. Plumer was foreman of the Oil City Times in 1870-1 and connected with the Tidioute Journal in 1872, when offered the editorship of the Courier. Elected to the Legislature on the Democratic ticket in 1874, he was defeated for a second term and for Congress as the Greenbackers’ candidate in 1878. For a time his political notions were as facile as his Faber and he trained with whatever party chanced to have a vacancy. From 1879 to 1881 he controlled the Meadville Vindicator, a soft-money weekly, winding up the latter year on the Richburg Echo. In Dakota, his next stamping-ground, he edited Republican papers at Fargo, Bismarck, Aberdeen and Casselton. He stumped several states for Blaine with an eye to an appointment that would have swelled his bank-account to the dimensions of a plumber’s. “The Plumed Knight” failed to connect and the plum did not fall into the lap of his eloquent supporter. President Harrison in 1891 appointed him Receiver of the Minot District Land-office, North Dakota, which he resigned last year. As an orator Col. W. C. Plumer—they call him “Colonel” in the Dakotas—trots in the class with Robert G. Ingersoll, Thomas B. Reed and William McKinley and is denominated the “Silver Tongue of the North-west.” At the Republican National Conventions in 1884-8 he was unanimously pronounced the finest off-hand speaker in the crowd. He is a finished lecturer and unrivaled story-teller, loves the choicest books, reads the Bible diligently, sticks to his friends and delights to recount his experiences in the Pennsylvania oil-regions.
M. N. Allen, an original stockholder and its last guardian, purchased the Courier in 1874. Even his acknowledged skill could not put it on a paying basis and the paper, unsurpassed in quality and appearance, succumbed to the inevitable. Mr. Allen followed Col. Cogswell as postmaster, a proper tribute to his rugged Democracy. Hale and hearty, although “over the summit of life,” time has dealt kindly with him and his deft pen has lost none of its vigor. He is editing the Advance Guard, the outgrowth of Roger Sherman’s departed American Citizen, as an intellectual pastime. F. A. Tozer, the champion “fat take,” five-feet-four-inches high and four-feet-five-inches around, graduated from the Courier, wafted the St. Petersburg Crude-Local up the flume and was chief-cook of the East-Brady Times. His reports were newsy and palatable. He travels for a Pittsburg house and would pay extra fare if passengers were carried by weight. The East-Brady Review “sees” the Times and “goes it one better.”