MAIN STREET, TITUSVILLE, IN 1861.
DANIEL CADY.
Matches are supposed to be made in Heaven and the inspiration that led to the choice of such a site for the future city must have been derived from the same source. Healthfulness and beauty of location attest the wisdom of the selection. Folks don’t have to climb precipitous hills or risk life and limb crossing railway-tracks whenever they wish to exercise their fast nags. Driving is a favorite pastime in fine weather, the leading thoroughfares often reminding strangers of Central Park on a coaching-day. Main, Walnut and Perry streets are lined with trees and residences worthy of Philadelphia or Baltimore. Comfortable homes are the crowning glory of a community and in this respect Titusville does not require to take a back-seat. Near the lower end of Main street is Ex-Mayor Caldwell’s elegant mansion, built by Jonathan Watson in the days of his prosperity. Farther up are John Fertig’s, the late Marcus Brownson’s, Mrs. David Emery’s and Mrs. A. N. Perrin’s. Franklin S. Tarbell, a former resident of Rouseville, occupies an attractive house. Joseph Seep, who has not changed an iota since the halcyon period of Parker and Foxburg, shows his faith in the town by building a home that would adorn Cleveland’s aristocratic Euclid Avenue. The host is the cordial Seep of yore, quick to make a point and not a bit backward in helping a friend. David McKelvy, whom everybody knew in the lower oil-fields, remodeled the Chase homestead, a symphony in red brick. Close by is W. T. Scheide’s natty dwelling, finished in a style befitting the ex-superintendent of the National-Transit Pipe-Lines. Byron D. Benson—he died in 1889—nine times elected president of the Tidewater Pipe-Line-Company, lived on the corner of Oak and Perry streets. Opposite is John L. McKinney’s luxurious residence, a credit to the liberal owner and the city. J. C. McKinney’s is “one of the finest.” James Parshall, W. B. Sterrett, O. D. Harrington, J. P. Thomas, W. W. Thompson, Charles Archbold and hundreds more erected dwellings that belong to the palatial tribe. Dr. Roberts—he’s in the cemetery—had a spacious place on Washington street, with the costliest stable in seventeen counties. E. O. Emerson’s house and grounds are the admiration of visitors. The grand fountain, velvet lawns, smooth walks, tropical plants, profusion of flowers, mammoth conservatory and Marechal-Niel rose-bushes bewilder the novice whose knowledge of floral affairs stops at button-hole bouquets. George K. Anderson—dead, too—constructed this delightful retreat. Col. J. J. Carter, whose record as a military officer, merchant, railroad-president and oil-operator will stand inspection, has an ideal home, purchased from John D. Archbold and refitted throughout. It was built and furnished extravagantly by Daniel Cady, once a leading spirit in the business and social life of Titusville. He was a man of imposing presence and indomitable pluck, the confidant of Jay Gould and “Jim” Fisk, dashing, speculative and popular. For years whatever he touched seemed to turn into gold and he computed his dollars by hundreds of thousands. Days of adversity overtook him, the splendid home was sacrificed and he died poor. To men of the stamp of Watson, Anderson, Abbott, Emery, Fertig and Cady Titusville owes its real start in the direction of greatness. Much of the froth and fume of former days is missing, but the baser elements have been eliminated, trade is on a solid basis and important manufactures have been established. There are big refineries, Holly water-works, a race-track, ball-grounds, top-notch hotels, live newspapers, inviting churches and a lovely cemetery in which to plant good citizens when they pass in their checks. Pilgrims who expect to find Titusville dead or dying will be as badly fooled as the lover whose girl eloped with the other fellow.
Unluckily for himself, Colonel Drake took a narrow view of affairs. Complacently assuming that he had “tapped the mine”—to quote his own phrase—and that paying territory would not be found outside the company’s lease, he pumped the well serenely, told funny stories and secured not one foot of ground! Had he possessed a particle of the prophetic instinct, had he grasped the magnitude of the issues at stake, had he appreciated the importance of petroleum as a commercial product, had he been able to “see an inch beyond his nose,” he would have gone forth that August morning and become “Master of the Oil Country!” “The world was all before him where to choose,” he was literally “monarch of all he surveyed,” but he didn’t move a peg! Money was not needed, the promise of one-eighth or one-quarter royalty satisfying the easy-going farmers, consequently he might have gathered in any quantity of land. Friends urged him to “get into the game;” he rejected their counsel and never realized his mistake until other wells sent prices skyward and it was everlastingly too late for his short pole to knock the persimmons. Yet this is the man whom numerous writers have proclaimed “the discoverer of petroleum!” Times without number it has been said and written and printed that he was “the first man to advise boring for oil,” that “his was the first mind to conceive the idea of penetrating the rock in search of a larger deposit of oil than was dreamed of by any one,” that “he alone unlocked one of nature’s vast storehouses” and “had visions of a revolution in light and lubrication.” Considering what Kier, Peterson, Bissell and Watson had done years before Drake ever saw—perhaps ever heard of—a drop of petroleum, the absurdity of these claims is “so plain that he who runs may read.” Couple with this his incredible failure to secure lands after the well was drilled—wholly inexcusable if he supposed oil-operations would ever be important—and the man who thinks Colonel Drake was “the first man with a clear conception of the future of petroleum” could swallow the fish that swallowed Jonah!
Above all else history should be truthful and “hew to the line, let chips fall where they may.” Mindful that “the agent is but the instrument of the principal,” why should Colonel Drake wear the laurels in this instance? Paid a salary to carry out Bissell’s plan of boring an artesian-well, he spent sixteen months getting the hole down seventy feet. For a man who “had visions” and “a clear conception” his movements were inexplicably slow. He encountered obstacles, but salt-wells had been drilled hundreds of feet without either a steam-engine or professional “borer.” The credit of suggesting the driving-pipe to overcome the quicksand is justly his due. Quite as justly the credit of suggesting the boring of the well belongs to George H. Bissell. The company hired Drake, Drake hired Smith, Smith did the work. Back of the man who possessed the skill to fashion the tools and sink the hole, back of the man who acted for the company and disbursed its money, back of the company itself is the originator of the idea these were the means employed to put into effect. Was George Stephenson, or the foreman of the shop where the “Rocket” was built, the inventor of the locomotive? Was Columbus, or the man whose name it bears, the discoverer of America? In a conversation on the subject Mr. Bissell remarked: “Let Colonel Drake enjoy the pleasure of giving the well his name; history will set us all right.” So it will and this is a step in that direction. If the long-talked-of monument to commemorate the advent of the petroleum-era ever be erected, it should bear in boldest capitals the names of Samuel M. Kier and George H. Bissell.
Edwin L. Drake, who is linked inseparably with the first oil-well in Pennsylvania, was born on March eleventh, 1819, at Greenville, Greene county, New York. His father, a farmer, moved to Vermont in 1825. At eighteen Edwin left home to begin the struggle with the world. He was night-clerk of a boat running between Buffalo and Detroit, worked one year on a farm in the Wolverine state, clerked two years in a Michigan hotel, returned east and clerked in a dry-goods store at New Haven, clerked and married in New York, removed to Massachusetts, was express-agent on the Boston & Albany railroad and resigned in 1849 to become conductor on the New-York & New-Haven. His younger brother died in the west and his wife at New Haven, in 1854, leaving one child. While boarding at a hotel in New Haven he met James M. Townsend, who persuaded him to draw his savings of two-hundred dollars from the bank and buy stock of the Pennsylvania Rock-Oil-Company, his first connection with the business that was to make him famous. Early in 1857 he married Miss Laura Dow, sickness in the summer compelled him to cease punching tickets and his memorable visit to Titusville followed in December. In 1860 he was elected justice-of-the-peace, an office worth twenty-five-hundred dollars that year, because of the enormous number of property-transfers to prepare and acknowledge. Buying oil on commission for Shefflin Brothers, New York, swelled his income to five-thousand dollars for a year or two. He also bought twenty-five acres of land from Jonathan Watson, east of Martin street and through the center of which Drake street now runs, for two-thousand dollars. Unable to meet the mortgage given for part of the payment, he sold the block in 1863 to Dr. A. D. Atkinson for twelve-thousand dollars. Forty times this sum would not have bought it in 1867! With the profits of this transaction and his savings for five years, in all about sixteen-thousand dollars, in the summer of 1863 Colonel Drake left the oil-regions forever.
Entering into partnership with a Wall-street broker, he wrecked his small fortune speculating in oil-stocks, his health broke down and he removed to Vermont. Physicians ordered him to the seaside as the only remedy for his disease, neuralgic affection of the spine, which threatened paralysis of the limbs and caused intense suffering. Near Long Branch, in a cottage offered by a friend, Mr. and Mrs. Drake drank the bitter cup to the dregs. Their funds were exhausted, the patient needed constant attention and helpless children cried for bread. The devoted wife and mother attempted to earn a pittance with her needle, but could not keep the wolf of hunger from the door. Medicine for the sick man was out of the question. All this time men in the region the Drake well had opened to the world were piling up millions of dollars! One day in 1869, with eighty cents to pay his fare, Colonel Drake struggled into New York to seek a place for his twelve-year-old boy. The errand was fruitless. The distressed father was walking painfully on the street to the railway-station, to board the train for home, when he met “Zeb” Martin of Titusville, afterwards proprietor of the Hotel Brunswick. Mr. Martin noted his forlorn condition, inquired as to his circumstances, learned the sad story of actual privation, procured dinner, gave the poor fellow twenty dollars and cheered him with the assurance that he would raise a fund for his relief. The promise was redeemed.
At a meeting in Titusville the case was stated and forty-two hundred dollars were subscribed. The money was forwarded to Mrs. Drake, who husbanded it carefully. The terrible recital aroused such a feeling that the Legislature, in 1873, granted Colonel Drake an annuity of fifteen-hundred dollars during his life and his heroic wife’s. California had set a good example by giving Colonel Sutter, the discoverer of gold in the mill-race, thirty-five-hundred dollars a year. The late Thaddeus Stevens, “the Great Commoner,” hearing that Drake was actually in want, prepared a bill, found among his papers after his death, intending to present it before Congress for an appropriation of two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars for Colonel Drake. In 1870 the family removed to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Years of suffering, borne with sublime resignation, closed on the evening of November ninth, 1881, with the release of Edwin L. Drake from this vale of tears. A faithful wife and four children survived the petroleum-pioneer. They lived at Bethlehem until the spring of 1895 and then moved to New England. Colonel Drake was a man of pronounced individuality, affable, genial and kindly. He had few superiors as a story-teller, neither caroused nor swore, and was of unblemished character. He wore a full beard, dressed well, liked a good horse, looked every man straight in the face and his dark eyes sparkled when he talked. Gladly he laid down the heavy burden of a checkered life, with its afflictions and vicissitudes, for the peaceful rest of the grave.
“Since every man who lives is born to die * * *