EDWIN C. BELL.
Warren has been blessed with two weeklies, the Ledger and the Mail, for two generations. Ephraim Cowan founded the Mail in 1848 and owned it until his death in 1894. Three dailies vigilantly watch each other and guard the pretty town. At Tidioute the Journal, inaugurated by J. B. Close in 1867, jogged along seven years. George A. Needle and Frank H. Taylor were the owners. Needle, whose sharp lance could prick the fiends of the opposition like a needle, followed the tide to Parker and boosted the Daily, which shortly plunged into perpetual night. Its chief contributor was Stephen W. Harley, who furnished rich budgets of Petrolia odds and ends over the name of “Keno.” “Steve” was kindly, obliging, congenial and well-liked. Six summers have come and gone since he was laid beneath the sod. Clark Wilson removed the Oilman’s Journal to Smethport and the Phœnix is in undisputed possession of the Parker territory, with the youngest editor—son of G. A. Needle—in the State guiding it capably. In October of 1874 the Warren-County News was moved from Youngsville to Tidioute. C. E. White, who took charge in December, bought the plant in 1875 and he has been in the harness continuously since. Mr. White is among the best all-round newspaper-men in the country. He was born at Newburg in 1842, boyhooded at Binghampton, learned his trade at Elmira, served the Jamestown Journal six years, spent a year with the Oil-City Derrick and went to Tidioute in 1872 to manage the Journal’s job-department. His record as a citizen, soldier, printer and editor is solid nonpareil.
Clarion county did not escape the frantic rush to stick a paper in every mushroom-town. F. H. Barclay inflicted the Record on the long-suffering St. Petersburgers, mooring his bark in California when the paper turned up its toes. Tozer’s Crude-Local, which never sported a crude-local or editorial, the Fern-City Illuminator, brighter in name than in real substance, the Clarion Banner, a species of rag on the bush, the Edenburg National Record and several more slid off the perch with a dull thud, fatal as Humpty Dumpty’s irretrievable tumble.
P. A. RATTIGAN.
JOHN H. NEGLEY.
Frank A. Herr’s Record has long kept up a good record at Petrolia. Colonel Young and the three papers he propagated in Butler county, with a half-dozen elsewhere, have mouldered into dust. He was intensely earnest and industrious, able to maintain his end of a discussion and seldom unwilling to dare opponents knock the chip off his stout shoulder. Rev. W. A. Thorne attempted to reform the race with his Greece-City Review, hauling the traps to Millerstown upon the depletion of the frontier-town. His path was strewn with thorns, mankind resenting his review of everybody and everything. Ex-Postmaster Rattigan braces up the unterrified with his sturdy Chicora Herald, which he has conducted successfully for twenty years. St. Joe’s bantam, never distinguished for its strength, crowed mildly and dropped from the roost. The county-seat is fully stocked with political organs, the Citizen, the Eagle and the Herald coaching their respective parties. J. H. Negley & Son are not negligent in their conduct of the Citizen. The Eagle is the proud bird of Thomas H. Robertson, a trained writer and journalist, now Superintendent of Public-Printing in Harrisburg. The Herald was for many years the pet of Jacob Zeigler, to whom all Butlerites took off their hats. “Uncle Jake” was the soul of the social circle, a treasury of wit and wisdom, an exhaustless reservoir of pat stories, a mine of practical knowledge and a welcome guest in every corner of Pennsylvania. His soubriquet of “Uncle” fastened upon him in a curious way. At the funeral of a youthful acquaintance the distracted mother, as her boy was consigned to the grave, in a frenzy of grief laid her head upon young Zeigler’s breast and exclaimed: “Oh, were you ever a stricken mother?” “No, madam,” was the cool reply, “but I expect to be an uncle before sundown to-morrow.” Bystanders noted the strange incident and thenceforth the “Uncle” stuck like a fly-blister. His parents are buried in the Harrisburg cemetery, near Joseph Jefferson’s father, and whenever he visited the capital he strewed their resting-place with flowers. Who can doubt that the filial son, in whom mingled the strength of a man and the tenderness of a woman, found his loved ones not far away when he entered the pearly gates? Truly “this was the noblest Roman of them all.”
Another honored resident of Butler was Samuel P. Irvin, author of “The Oil-Bubble,” a pamphlet abounding with delicious satire and bits of personal experience. It was printed in 1868 and produced a sensation. Enjoying very few advantages in his boyhood, Mr. Irvin was emphatically a self-made man. Born in a backwoods-township seventy years ago, his schooling was limited and he toiled “down on the farm.” Like Lincoln, Garfield, Simon Cameron and many other country-boys, he rose to distinction by his own exertions. He read assiduously, studied law and stood well at the bar. His literary bent found expression in newspaper-articles of very high grade. He lived some years at Franklin in the earlier stages of petroleum-developments, drilling wells and handling oil-properties on commission. He met death with fortitude, “like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams.”