Sketches in Crude-oil: Some accidents and incidents of the petroleum development in all parts of the globeMcLaurin, John J. (John James)
History
Sketches in Crude-oil: Some accidents and incidents of the petroleum development in all parts of the globe
McLaurin, John J. (John James)
Petroleum -- History; Petroleum industry and trade -- North America -- History
The first oil sold after this agreement was at three dollars a
barrel, taken from the first twelve-hundred-barrel tank ever seen in the
region. A wooden tank of that size excited more curiosity in those days
than a hundred iron-ones of forty-thousand barrels in this year of
grace. Janes sold back half the farm to Tarr for forty-thousand dollars
and two-thirds of the remaining half to Clark & Sumner for
twenty-thousand, leaving him one-sixth clear of cost, the same month he
bought the tract. He first suggested casing wells to exclude the water,
built the first bulk-boat decked over—six-hundred barrels—to transport
oil and was identified with the first practicable pipe-line. Paying
seventy-five-thousand dollars for the Blackmar farm, at Pithole, he
drilled three dry holes and then got rid of the land at a snug advance.
Since 1878 Mr. Janes has been interested in the Bradford field and
living at Erie. A man of forceful character and executive ability,
hearty, vigorous and companionable, he deserves the large measure of
success that rewarded him as an important factor in petroleum-affairs.
In the words of the good Scottish mother to her son: “May your lot be
wi’ the rich in this warld and wi’ the puir in the warld to come.”
The amazing output of the Phillips and Woodford wells stimulated the
demand for territory to the boiling point. Men were infinitely less
eager to “read their title clear to mansions in the skies” than to
secure a title to a fragment of the Tarr farm. Rigs huddled on the bank
and in the water, for nobody thought oil existed back in the hilly
sections. Sixty yards below the Phillips spouter J. F. Crane sank a well
that responded as pleasantly as “the swinging of the crane.” Densmore
Brothers, at the lower end of the farm, drilled a seven-hundred-barreler
late in 1861. A zoological freak introduced the animal-fad, which named
the Elephant, Young Elephant, Tigress, Tiger, Lioness, Scared Cat,
Anaconda and Weasel wells. Reckless speculation held the fort unchecked.
The third sand was sixty feet thick, the territory was durable and
three-hundred walking-beams exhibited “the poetry of motion” to the
music of three-four-five-six-eight-ten-dollar oil. Mr. Janes built a
commodious hotel and a town of two-thousand population flourished. James
Tarr sold his entire interest in 1865, for gold equivalent to
two-millions in currency, and removed to Crawford county. Another
million would hardly cover his royalties. Three-million dollars ahead of
the game in four years, he could afford to smile at the jibes of
small-souled retailers of witless ridicule. If “money talks,”
three-millions ought to be pretty eloquent. The churches, stores,
houses, offices, wells and tanks have “gone glimmering.” Tarr-Farm
station appears no more on railroad time-tables. Modern maps do not
reveal it. Few know and fewer care who owns the place once the apple of
the oilman’s eye, now a shadowy relic not worth carting off in a
wheelbarrow!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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