A native of New-York, born in 1822, Charles Hyde was fifteen when the family settled on a farm two miles south of Titusville, now occupied by the Octave Oil-Company. At twenty he engaged with his father and two brothers, W. C. and E. B. Hyde, in merchandising, lumbering and the manufacture of salts from ashes. In 1846 he assumed charge of the lumber-mills John Titus sold the firm, originating the thrifty village of Hydetown, four miles above Titusville. The Hydes frequently procured oil from the “springs” on Oil Creek, selling it for medicine as early as 1840-1. From their Hydetown store Colonel Drake obtained some tools and supplies Titusville could not furnish. Samuel Grandin, of Tidioute, in the spring of 1860 induced Charles Hyde to buy a tenth-interest in the Tidioute and Warren Oil-Company for one-thousand dollars. The company’s first well, of which he heard on his way to Pittsburg with a raft, laid the foundation of Hyde’s great fortune in petroleum. He organized the Hydetown Oil-Company, which leased the McClintock farm, below Rouseville, from Jonathan Watson and drilled a two-hundred-barrel well in the summer of 1860. Mr. Hyde operated on the Clapp farm, south of McClintock, and at different points on Oil Creek and the Allegheny River. His gains from the Hyde & Egbert farm approximated two-millions. Starting the Second National Bank of Titusville in 1865, he has always been its president and chief stockholder. In 1869 he removed to Plainfield, New Jersey, cultivating four-hundred acres of suburban land and maintaining an elegant home. Dr. Albert G. Egbert, born in Mercer county in 1828, belonged to a family of eminent physicians, his grandfather, father, two uncles, three brothers and one son practicing medicine. Predicating a future for oil upon the Drake well, his good judgment displayed itself promptly. Agreeing to purchase the Davison farm, which his modest income at Cherrytree would not enable him to pay for, his sale of a half-interest to Charles Hyde provided the money to meet the entire claim. After the wonderful success of that investment the doctor located at Franklin. He carried on oil-operations, farming and coal-mining and was always active in advancing the general welfare. Elected to Congress against immense odds, he served his district most capably, attending sedulously to his official duties and doing admirable work on committees. In public and private life he was enterprising and liberal, zealous for the right and a helpful citizen. True to his convictions and professions, he never turned his back to friend or foe. To the steady, masterful purpose of men like Dr. Egbert the oil-industry owes its rapid strides and commanding position as a commercial staple. His demise on March twenty-eighth, 1896, severs another of the links that bind the eventful past and the important present of petroleum. Early operators on Oil Creek are reduced to a handful of men whose heads are white with the snows no July sun can melt.