Down to Sandy Creek many wells were drilled from 1860 to 1865, producing fairly at an average depth of four-hundred-and-fifty to five-hundred feet. These operations included the Miller, Smith and Pope farms, on the west side of the river, and the Rice, Nicklin, Martin and Harmon, on the east side, all second-sand territory. North of the Cochran and the Hoover work was pushed actively. George H. Bissell and Vance Stewart bored twelve or fifteen medium wells on the Stewart farm of two-hundred acres, which the Cameron Petroleum Company purchased in 1865 and Joseph Dale operated for some years. It lies below the lower bridge, opposite the Bleakley tract, from which a light production is still derived. Above the Stewart are the Fuller and the Chambers farms, the latter extending to the Allegheny-Valley depot. Scores of eager operators thronged the streets of Franklin and drilled along the Allegheny. Joseph Powley and Charles Cowgill entered the lists in the Cranberry district. Henry M. Wilson and George Piagett veered into the township and sank a bevy of dry-holes to vary the monotony. That was a horse on Wilson, but he got ahead of the game by a deal that won him the nicest territory on Horse Creek. Stirling Bonsall and Colonel Lewis—they’re dead now—were in the thickest of the fray, with Captain Goddard, Philip Montgomery, Boyd, Roberts, Foster, Brown, Murphy and many more whom old-timers remember pleasantly. Thomas King, whole-souled, genial “Tom”—no squarer man e’er owned a well or handled oil-certificates—and Captain Griffith were “a good pair to draw to.” King has “crossed over,” as have most of the kindred spirits that dispelled the gloom in the sixties. Colonel W. T. Pelton, nephew of Samuel J. Tilden, participated in the scenes of that exciting period. He lived at Franklin and drilled wells on French Creek. He was a royal entertainer, shrewd in business, finely educated and polished in manner and address. He and his wife—a lovely and accomplished woman—were fond of society and gained hosts of friends. They boarded at the United-States Hotel, where Mrs. Pelton died suddenly. This affliction led Colonel Pelton to sell his oil-properties and abandon the oil-regions. Returning to New York, when next he came into view as the active agent of his uncle in the secret negotiations that grew out of the election of 1876, it was with a national fame. His death in 1880 closed a busy, promising career.