Judge Thompson’s literary co-worker was the Rev. Cyrus Dickson, D. D., who resigned his first charge in 1848, settled in the east and gained distinction in the pulpit and as a forcible writer. How thoroughly these kindred spirits, now happily reunited “beyond the smiling and the weeping,” must have enjoyed the overwhelming success of their ingenious plot and laughed at the easy credulity which accepted every line of their contributions as gospel-truth! They could not fail to relish the efforts, prompted mainly by their fanciful scene on Oil Creek, to identify as Children of the Sun the savage braves in buckskin and moccasins whose noblest conception of heaven was an eternal surfeit of dog-sausage! The Indian may be superstitious, His tastes may be wholly pernicious; But he bitterly spurns—can we blame him?— The cranks who are ready to claim him And with a white pedigree shame him. Signs of petroleum in the Keystone State were not confined to Oil-Creek. Ten miles westward, in water-wells and in the bed and near the mouth of French Creek, the indications were numerous and unmistakable. The first white man to turn them to account was Marcus Hulings, of Franklin, the original Charon of Venango county. Each summer he would skim a quart or two of “earth-oil” from a tiny pond, formed by damming a bit of the creek, the fluid serving as a liniment and medicine. This was the small beginning of one whose relative and namesake, two generations later, was to rank as a leading oil-millionaire. Hulings “ferried” passengers across the unbridged stream in a bark-canoe and plied a keel-boat to Pittsburg, the round-trip frequently requiring four weeks. Passengers were “few and far between,” consequently a book-keeper and a treasurer were not engaged to take care of the receipts. The proprietor of the canoe-ferry cleared a number of acres, raised corn and potatoes and lived in a log-cabin, not far from the site of the brush-factory, which stood for fifty years after his death. Probably he was buried in the north-west corner of the old graveyard, beside his wife and son, of whom two sunken headstones record: In memory of Michael Hulings who departed this life: the 9th of August, 1797. Aged 27 years, 1 month & 14 days. [Illustration] Massar, wife of Marcus Hulings Died Feb. 9. 1813. Aged 67 yrs, 2 ms and 22 ds.