The expectation of an extension of the belt northward was not fulfilled immediately. Wells at Irvineton, on the Brokenstraw and tributary runs, failed to find the coveted fluid. Captain Dingley drilled two wells on Sell’s Run, three miles east of Irvineton, in 1873, without slitting the jugular. A test well at Warren, near the mouth of Conewango Creek, bored in 1864 and burned as pumping was about to begin, had fair sand and a mite of oil. John Bell’s operations in 1875 opened an amber pool up the creek that for a season crowded the hotels three deep with visitors. They bored dozens of wells, yet the production never reached one-thousand barrels and in four months the patch was cordoned by dry holes and as quiet as a cemetery. The crowds exhaled like morning dew. Warren is a pretty town of four-thousand population, its location and natural advantages offering rare inducements to people of refinement and enterprise. Its site was surveyed in 1795 and the first shipment of lumber to Pittsburg was made in 1801. Incorporated as a borough in 1832, railroad communication with Erie was secured in 1859, with Oil City in 1867 and with Bradford in 1881. Many of the private residences are models of good taste. Massive brick-blocks, solvent banks, churches, stores, high-grade schools, shaded streets and modern conveniences evidence its substantial prosperity. Hon. Thomas Struthers—he built sections of the Philadelphia & Erie and the Oil-Creek railroads and established big iron-works—donated a splendid brick building for a library, opera-house and post-office. His grandson, who inherited his millions and died in February, 1896, was a mild edition of “Coal-Oil Johnnie” in scattering money. Lumbering, the principal industry for three generations, enriched the community. Col. Lewis F. Watson represented the district twice in Congress and left an estate of four-millions, amassed in lumber and oil. He owned most of the township bearing his name. Hon. Charles W. Stone, his successor, ranks with the foremost members of the House in ability and influence. A Massachusetts boy, he set out in life as a teacher, came to Warren to take charge of the academy, was county-superintendent, studied law and rose to eminence at the bar. He was elected Lieutenant-Governor of the State, served as Secretary of the Commonwealth and would be Governor of Pennsylvania to-day had “the foresight of the Republicans been as good as their hindsight.” He has profitable oil-interests, is serving his fourth term in Congress and may be nominated the fifth time. Alike fortunate in his political and professional career, his social relations, his business connections and his personal friendships, Charles W. Stone holds a place in public esteem few men are privileged to attain. [Illustration: CHARLES W. STONE.]