All “Old-Timers” remember the “Gentlemen’s Furnishing-House of John J. Carter,” the finest establishment of the kind west of New York. Young Carter, with a splendid military record, located at Titusville in the summer of 1865, immediately after being mustered out of the service, and engaged in mercantile pursuits ten years. Like other progressive men, he took interests in the wild-cat ventures that made Pithole, Shamburg, Petroleum Centre and Pleasantville famous. From large holdings in Venango, Clarion and Forest he reaped a rich harvest. One tract of four-thousand acres in Forest, purchased in 1886 and two-thirds of it yet undrilled, he expects to hand down to his children as a proof of their father’s business-foresight. He scanned the petroleum-horizon around Pittsburg carefully and retained his investments in the middle and upper fields. Taylorstown and McDonald, with their rivers of oil, burst forth with the fury of a flood and disappeared. Sistersville, in West Virginia, had given the trade a taste of its hidden treasures from a few scattered wells. Much salt-water, little oil and deep drilling discouraged operators. How to produce oil at a profit, with such quantities of water to be pumped out, was the problem. Col. Carter visited the scene, comprehended the situation, devised his plans and bought huge blocks of the choicest territory before the oil-trade thought Sistersville worth noticing. This bold stroke added to the value of every well and lease in West Virginia, inspired the faltering with courage and rewarded him magnificently. Advancing prices rendered the princely yield of his scores of wells immensely profitable. Purchases based on fifty-cent oil—the trade had small faith in the outcome—he sold on the basis of dollar-fifty oil. Col. Carter is in the prime of vigorous manhood, ready to explore new fields and surmount new obstacles. He occupies a beautiful home, has a superb library, is a thorough scholar and a convincing speaker. His recent argument before the Ohio Legislature, in opposition to the proposed iniquitous tax on crude-petroleum, was a masterpiece of effective, pungent, unanswerable logic. None who admire a brave, manly, generous character will say that his success is undeserved. [Illustration: O. P. TAYLOR.]