George Koch, a native of Venango county and relative of the celebrated Dr. Koch of Germany, is a well-known inventor and writer. He began oil-operations in 1865, in 1873 formed a partnership with his brother and Dr. Knight, in 1880 organized the firm of Koch Brothers—William A., J. H. and George Koch—and was nominated three times for the legislature. He took an active part in the Producers’ Council, edited the Fern-City Illuminator and published a book of “Stray Thoughts.” He invented a torpedo for oil-wells, improved drilling-tools and well-appliances, patented a system of “Sectional Iron Tanks,” a “Rubber-Packing,” “Movable Store-Shelving” and other useful devices. Mr. Koch has just rounded the half-century mark, he lives in East Sandy and no man has done more to simplify the methods of sinking and operating wells.
Col. L. H. Fassett is one of the honored veterans of the late war and a veteran operator in heavy oil. For nearly thirty years he has been a leader in the Franklin district, operating successfully and enjoying the esteem of all classes. He has a delightful home, is active in furthering good objects and doesn’t worry a particle when oil happens to drop a peg.
COL. L. H. FASSETT.
Twelve miles south-east of Pittsburg, on the Bedell farm, near West Elizabeth, the Forest Oil-Company is drilling the deepest well on the continent. It is down fifty-five-hundred feet, considerably more than a mile, and will be put to six-thousand at least. Geologists and scientists are much interested in[in] the strata and the temperatures at different depths. This is the deepest well ever attempted to be sunk with a cable, the one near Reibuck, Eastern Silesia, having been bored about seven-thousand feet with rotating diamond core-drills. T. S. Kinsey and his two sons, of Wellsburg, drilled a dry-hole forty-five-hundred feet in 1891, on Boggs’ Run, West Virginia, near Wheeling, for a local company. Think how progress has been marching on since Drake’s seventy-foot gopher-hole to render the Forest’s achievement possible! Surely petroleum-life is as full of promise as a bill-collector’s.
Hon. Thomas W. Phillips, the wealthy oil-producer, who declined to serve a third term in Congress, labored zealously to secure legislation that would settle differences between employers and employés by arbitration. He offered to pay a quarter-million dollars to meet the expense of a thorough Congressional inquiry into the condition of labor, with a view to the presentation of an authoritative report and the adoption of measures calculated to prevent strikes and promote friendly relations. When the suspension of drilling in the oil-region deprived thousands of work for some months, Mr. Phillips was especially active in effecting arrangements by which they received the profits upon two-million barrels of crude set apart for their benefit. The Standard Oil-Company, always considerate to labor, heartily furthered the plan, which the rise in oil rendered a signal success. This was the first time in the history of any business that liberal provision was made for workmen thrown out of employment by the stoppage of operations. What a contrast to the grinding and squeezing and shooting of miners and coke-workers by “coal-barons” and “iron-kings!” When you come to size them up the oil-men don’t have to shrink into a hole to avoid close scrutiny. They pay their bills, are just to honest toil, generous to the poor and manly from top to toe. They may not relish rheumatism, but this doesn’t compel them to hate the poor fellow it afflicts. As Tiny Tim observed: “God bless us every one!”
“Ivry gintleman will soon go horseback on his own taykittle” was the inspired exclamation of an Irish baronet upon beholding the initial trip of the first locomotive. Vast improvements in the application of power have been effected since Stephenson’s grand triumph, nowhere more satisfactorily than in the oil-regions. Producers who remember the primitive methods in vogue along Oil Creek can best appreciate the wonderful progress made during three decades. The tedious process of drilling wet-holes with light tools has gone where the woodbine twineth. Casing has retired the seed-bag permanently, and from the polish-rod to the working-barrel not the smallest detail remains unimproved. Having a portable engine and boiler at each well has given place to the cheaper plan of coupling a host of wells together, two men thus doing the work that once required twenty or thirty. Pipe-lines have superseded greasy barrels and swearing teamsters, and even tank-cars are following the flat-boats of pioneer times to oblivion. In short, labor-saving systems have revolutionized the business so completely that the fathers of the early styles would utterly fail to recognize their offspring in the petroleum-development as conducted now-a-days.
ROUSTABOUTS PREPARING TO CLEAN OUT A RUSSIAN OIL-WELL.
C. L. Wheeler, one of the earliest buyers of crude on Oil Creek in 1860 and first President of the Bradford Oil-Exchange, recently went to his eternal reward. Orion Clemens, brother of Mark Twain and once a writer for the Oil-City Derrick, died lately. Truly, the boys are “crossing the divide” at a rate it grieves the survivors to note.