A Glance at a Pretty Settlement—Evans and His Wonderful Well—Heavy Oil at Franklin to Grease all the Wheels in Creation—Origin of a Popular Phrase—Operations on French Creek—Excitement at Fever Heat—Galena and Signal Oil-Works—Rise and Progress of a Great Industry—Crumbs Swept Up.

“The race was on, the souls of the racers were in it.”—Gen. Lew Wallace.

“Wild rumors are afloat in Jericho.”—J. L. Barlow.

“Carthage has crossed the Alps; Rome, the sea.”—Victor Hugo.

“There shall be no Alps.”—Napoleon.

“Gained the lead, and kept it, and steered his journey free.”—Will Carleton.

“A cargo of petroleum may cross the ocean in a vessel propelled by steam it has generated, acting upon an engine it lubricates and directed by an engineer who may grease his hair, limber his joints, and freshen his liver with the same article.”—Petrolia, A.D. 1870.

“Friction, not motion, is the great destroyer of machinery.”—Engineering Journal.

“Here was * * * a battle of Marengo to be gained.”—Balzac.

Cheap and abundant light the island-well on Oil Creek assured the nations sitting in darkness. If there are “tongues in trees” and “sermons in stones” the trickling stream of greenish liquid murmured: “Bring on your lamps—we can fill them!” The second oil-well in Pennsylvania, eighteen miles from Col. Drake’s, changed the strain to: “Bring on your wheels—we can grease them!” America was to be the world’s illuminator and lubricator—not merely to dispel gloom and chase hobgoblins, but to increase the power of machinery by decreasing the impediments to easy motion. Friction has cost enough for extra wear and stoppages and breakages “to buy every darkey forty acres and a mule.” The first coal-oil for sale in this country was manufactured at Waltham, Mass., in 1852, by Luther Atwood, who called it “Coup Oil,” from the recent coup of Louis Napoleon. Although highly esteemed as a lubricator, its offensive odor and poor quality would render it unmerchantable to-day. Samuel Downer’s hydro-carbon oils in 1856 were marked improvements, yet they would cut a sorry figure beside the unrivaled lubricant produced from the wells at Franklin, the county-seat of Venango. It is a coincidence that the petroleum era should have introduced light and lubrication almost simultaneously, one on Oil Creek, the other on French Creek, and both in a region comparatively isolated. “Misfortunes never come singly,” said the astounded father of twins, in a paroxysm of bewilderment; but happily blessings often come treading closely on each other’s heels.

Pleasantly situated on French Creek and the Allegheny River, Franklin is an interesting town, with a history dating from the middle of the eighteenth century. John Frazer, a gunsmith, occupied a hut and traded with the Indians in 1747. Four forts, one French, one British and two American, were erected in 1754, 1760, 1787 and 1796. Captain Joncaire commanded the French forces. George Washington, a British lieutenant, with no premonition of fathering a great country, visited the spot in 1753. The north-west was a wilderness and Pittsburg had not been laid out. Franklin was surveyed in 1795, created a borough in 1829 and a city in 1869, deriving its chief importance from petroleum. Lofty hills and winding streams are conspicuous. Spring-water is abundant, the air is invigorating and healthfulness is proverbial. James Johnston, a negro-farmer of Frenchcreek township, stuck it out for one-hundred-and-nine summers, lamenting that death got around six months too soon for him to attend the Philadelphia Centennial. Angus McKenzie, of Sugarcreek, whose strong-box served as a bank in early days, reached one-hundred-and-eight. Mrs. McDowell, a pioneer, was bright and nimble three years beyond the century-mark. Galbraith McMullen, of Waterloo, touched par. John Morrison, the first court-crier, rounded out ninety-eight. A successor, Robert Lytle, was summoned at eighty-seven, his widow living to celebrate her ninety-fourth birthday. David Smith succumbed at ninety-nine and WilliamWilliam Raymond at ninety-three. Mr. Raymond was straight as an arrow, walked smartly and in youth was the close friend of John J. Pearson, who began to practice law at Franklin and was President Judge of Dauphin county thirty-three years. J. B. Nicklin, fifty years a respected citizen, died in 1890 at eighty-nine. To the end he retained his mental and physical strength, kept the accounts of the Baptist church, was at his desk regularly and could hit the bullseye with the crack shots of the military company. William Hilands, county-surveyor, was a familiar figure on the streets at eighty-seven. Rev. Dr. Crane preached, lectured, visited the sick and continued to do good at eighty-six. Grandma Snyder is eighty-eight and Benjamin May, a few miles up the Allegheny, is hardy and hearty at ninety-one. At eighty-five “Uncle Billy” Grove, of Canal, would hunt deer in Forest county and walk farther and faster than any man in the township. The people who have rubbed fourscore would fill a ten-acre patch. Of course, some get sick and die young, or the doctors would starve, heaven would be short of youthful tenants and the theories of Malthus might have to be tried on.

Franklin boasts the finest stone side-walks in the State. There are imposing churches, shady parks, broad streets, cosy homes, spacious stores, first-class schools, fine hotels and inviting drives. For years the Baptist quartette has not been surpassed in New York or Philadelphia. The opera-house is a gem. Three railroads—a fourth is coming that will lop off sixty-five miles between New York and Chicago—and electric street-cars supply rapid transit. Five substantial banks, a half-dozen millionaires, two-dozen hundred-thousand-dollar-citizens and multitudes of well-to-do property-holders give the place financial backbone. Manufactures flourish, wages are liberal and many workmen own their snug houses. Probably no town in the United States, of seven-thousand population, has greater wealth, better society and a kindlier feeling clear through the community.

On the south bank of French Creek, at Twelfth and Otter streets, James Evans, blacksmith, had lived twenty years. A baby when his parents settled farther up in 1802, he removed to Franklin in 1839. His house stood near the “spring” from which Hulings and Whitman wrung out the viscid scum. In dry weather the well he dug seventeen feet for water smelled and tasted of petroleum. Tidings of Drake’s success set the blacksmith thinking. Drake had bored into the well close to the “spring” and found oil. Why not try the experiment at Franklin? Evans was not flush of cash, but the hardware-dealer trusted him for the iron and he hammered out rough drilling-tools. He and his son Henry rigged a spring-pole and bounced the drill in the water-well. At seventy-two feet a crevice was encountered. The tools dropped, breaking off a fragment of iron, which obstinately refused to be fished out. Pumping by hand would determine whether a prize or a blank was to be drawn in the greasian lottery. Two men plied the pump vigorously. A stream of dark-green fluid gushed forth at the rate of twenty-five barrels a day. It was heavy oil, about thirty degrees gravity, free from grit and smooth as silk. The greatest lubricant on earth had been unearthed!

Picture the pandemonium that followed. Franklin had no such convulsion since the William B. Duncan, the first steamboat, landed one Sunday evening in January, 1828. The villagers speeded to the well as though all the imps of sheol were in pursuit. November court adjourned in half the number of seconds Sut Lovingood’s nest of hornets broke up the African camp-meeting. Judge John S. McCalmont, whose able opinions the Supreme Court liked to adopt, decided there was ample cause for action. A doctor rushed to the scene hatless, coatless and shoeless. Women deserted their households without fixing their back-hair or getting inside their dress-parade toggery. Babies cried, children screamed, dogs barked, bells rang and two horses ran away. At prayer-meeting a ruling elder, whom the events of the day had wrought to fever-heat, raised a hilarious snicker by imploring God to “send a shower of blessings—yea, Lord, twenty-five barrels of blessings!” Altogether it was a red-letter forenoon, for twenty-five barrels a day of thirty-dollar oil none felt inclined to sneeze at.

That night a limb of the law, “dressed in his best suit of clothes,” called at the Evans domicile. Miss Anna, one of the fair daughters of the house, greeted him at the door and said jokingly: “Dad’s struck ile!” The expression caught the town, making a bigger hit than the well itself. It spread far and wide, was printed everywhere and enshrined permanently in the petroleum-vernacular. The young lady married Miles Smith, the eminent furniture-dealer, still trading on Thirteenth street. In 1875 Mr. Smith revisited his native England, after many years’ absence. Meeting a party of gentlemen at a friend’s house, the conversation turned upon Pennsylvania. “May I awsk, Mr. Smith,” a Londoner inquired, “if you hever ’eard in your ’ome about ‘dad’s stwuck ile’? I wead it in the papahs, doncherknow, but I fawncied it nevah weally ’appened.” Mr. Smith had “’eard” it and the delight of the company, when he recited the circumstances and told of marrying the girl, may be conceived. The phrase is billed for immortality.

Sufficient oil to pay for an engine was soon pumped. Steam-power increased the yield to seventy barrels! Franklin became the Mecca of speculators, traders, dealers and monied men. Frederic Prentice, a leader in aggressive enterprises, offered forty-thousand dollars for the well and lot. Evans rejected the bid and kept the well, which declined to ten or twelve barrels within six months. The price of oil shrank like a flannel-shirt, but the lucky disciple of Vulcan realized a nice competence. He enjoyed his good fortune some years before journeying to “that bourne from which no traveler e’er returns.” Mrs. Evans long survived, dying at eighty-six. The son removed to Kansas, three daughters died and one resides at Franklin. The old well experienced its complement of fluctuations. Mosely & Co., of Philadelphia, leased it. It stood idle, the engine was taken away, the rig tumbled and the hole filled up partially with dirt and wreckage. Prices spurted and the well was hitched to a pumping-rig operating others around it. Captain S. A. Hull ran a group of the wells on the flats and a dozen three miles down the Allegheny. He was a man of generous impulses, finely educated and exceedingly companionable. His death, in 1893, resulted in dismantling most of these wells, hardly a vestige remaining to tell that the Evans and its neighbors ever existed.

James Evans was not “left blooming alone” in the search for oily worlds to conquer. Companies were organized while he was yanking the tools in the well that “set ’em crazy.” The first of these—The Franklin Oil-and-Mining-Company—started work on October fifth, twenty rods below Evans, finding oil at two-hundred-and-forty-one feet on January twelfth, 1860. The well pumped about one-half as much as the Evans for several months, but did not die of old age. The forty-two shares of stock advanced ten-fold in one week, selling at a thousand dollars each. Three or four wells were put down, the company dissolving and members operating on their own hook. It was strongly officered, with Arnold Plumer as president; J. P. Hoover, vice-president; Aaron W. Raymond, secretary; James Bleakley, Robert Lamberton, R. A. Brashear, J. L. Hanna and Thomas Hoge, executive committee. Mr. Plumer was a dominant factor in Democratic politics, largely instrumental in the nomination of James Buchanan for President, twice a member of Congress, twice State-Treasurer, Canal-Commissioner and founder of the First-National Bank. At his death, in 1869, he devised his family an estate that appraised several million dollars, making it the largest in Venango county. Judge Lamberton opened the first bank in the oil-regions, owned hundreds of houses and in 1885 bequeathed each of his eight children a handsome fortune. Colonel Bleakley rose by his own exertions, keen foresight and skillful management. He invested in productive realty, drilled scores of wells around Franklin, built iron-tanks and brick-blocks, established a bank, held thousands of acres of lands and in 1884 left a very large inheritance to his sons and daughters. Mr. Raymond developed the Raymilton district—it was named from him—in which hundreds of fair wells have rewarded Franklin operators, and at eighty-nine was exceedingly quick in his movements. Mr. Brashear, a civil engineer and exemplary citizen, has been in the grave twenty years. Mr. Hanna operated heavily in oil, acquired numerous farms and erected the biggest block—it contained the first opera-house—in the city. He is handling real-estate, but his former partner, John Duffield, slumbers in the cemetery. Mr. Hoge, an influential politician, elected to the Legislature two terms and Mayor one term, has also joined the silent majority.

In February, 1860, Caldwell & Co., a block southeast of Evans, finished a paying well at two-hundred feet. The Farmers and Mechanics’ Company, Levi Dodd, president, drilled a medium producer at the foot of High street, on the bank of the creek. Mr. Dodd was an old settler, originator of the first Sabbath-school in Franklin and a ruling-elder for over fifty years. Numerous companies and individuals pushed work in the spring. Holes were sunk in front yards, gardens and water-wells. Derricks dotted the landscape thickly. Franklin was the objective point of immense crowds of people. The earliest wells were shallow, seldom exceeding two-hundred feet. The Mammoth, near a huge walnut tree back of the Evans lot, began flowing on May fifteenth to the tune of a hundred barrels. This was the first “spouter” in the district and it quadrupled the big excitement. Four-hundred barrels of oil were shipped to Pittsburg, by the steamboat Venango, on April twenty-seventh. Twenty-two wells were drilling and twenty producing on July first. Farms for miles up French Creek had been bought at high prices and the noise of the drill permeated the summer ozone. Four miles west of Franklin, zig-zag Sugar Creek shared in the activity. Then the prices “came down like a thousand of brick.” Pumping was expensive, lands were scarce and dear, hauling the oil to a railroad cost half its value and hosts of small wells were abandoned. On November first, within the borough limits, fifteen were yielding one-hundred-and-forty barrels. Curtz & Strain had bored five-hundred feet in October, the deepest well in the neighborhood, without finding additional oil-bearing rock. The Presidential election foreboded trouble, war-clouds loomed up and the year closed gloomily.

The advantages of Franklin heavy-oil as a lubricant were quickly recognized. It possessed a “body” that artificial oils could not rival. In the crude state it withstood a cold-test twenty degrees below zero. Here is where it “had the bulge” on alleged lubricants which solidify into a sort of liver with every twitch of frost. The producing-area of heavy-oil is restricted to a limited section, where the first sand is thirty to sixty feet thick and the lower sands were entirely omitted in the original distribution of strata. For years operators hugged the banks of the streams and the low grounds, keeping off the hills more willingly than General Coxey kept off the Washington grass. The famous “Point Hill,” across French Creek from the Evans well, went begging for a purchaser. At its southern base Mason & Lane, Cook & Co., Welsby & Smith, Shuster, Andrews, Green and others had profitable wells, but nobody dreamed of boring through the steep “Point” for oil. J. Lowry Dewoody offered the lordly hill, with its forty acres of dense evergreen-brush, to Charles Miller for fifteen-hundred dollars. He wanted the money to drill on the flats and the hill was an elephant on his hands.

During the Columbian Exposition an aged man alighted from a western train at the union-depot in Chicago. His rifle and his buckskin-suit indicated the Kit-Carson brand of hunter. He gazed about him in amazement and a crowd assembled. “Wal,” ejaculated the white-haired Nimrod, “this be Chicago, eh? Sixty years ago I killed lots ov game right whar we stan’ an’ old man Kinzey fell all over hisse’f to trade me a hunnerd acre ov land fur a pair ov cowhide boots! I might hev took him up, but, consarn it, I didn’t hev the boots!”

Something of this kind would apply to Mr. Miller and the Dewoody proposition. He had embarked in the business that was to bring him wealth and honor, but just at that time “didn’t hev” the fifteen-hundred to spare from his working-capital for the fun of owning a hill presumed to be worthless except for scenery. Colonel Bleakley and Dr. A. G. Egbert bought it later at a low figure. Operators scaled the slopes and hills and the first well on the “Point” was of the kind to whet the appetite for more. Bleakley & Egbert pocketed a keg of cold-cash from their wells and the royalty paid by lessees. Daniel Grimm’s production put him in the van of Franklin oilmen. He came to the town in 1861, had a dry-goods store in partnership with the late William A. Horton and in 1869 drilled his first well. W. J. Mattem and Edward Rial & Son had a rich slice. The foundation of a dozen fortunes was laid on the “Point,” which yields a few barrels daily, although only a shadow of its former self. From the western end of the hill thousands of tons of a peculiar shale have been manufactured into paving-brick, the hardest and toughest in America. A million dollars would not pay for the oil taken from the hill that found no takers at fifteen-hundred!

Dewoody, over whose grave the storms of a dozen winters have blown, was a singular character. He cared not a continental for style and was independent in speech and behavior. Bagging a term in the Legislature as a Democratic-Greenbacker, his rugged honesty was proof against the allurements of the lobbyists, jobbers and heelers who disgrace common decency. His most remarkable act was a violent assault on the Tramp-Bill, a measure cruel as the laws of Draco, which Rhoads of Carlisle contrived to pass. He paced the central aisle, spoke in the loudest key and gesticulated fiercely. Tossing his long auburn hair like a lion’s mane, he wound up his torrent of denunciation with terrible emphasis: “If Jesus Christ were on earth this monstrous bill would jerk him as a vagrant and dump him into the lock-up!”

Gradually developments crept north and east. The Galloway—its Dolly Varden well was a daisy—Lamberton and McCalmont farms were riddled with holes that repaid the outlay lavishly. Henry F. James drilled scores of paying wells on these tracts. In his youth he circled the globe on whaling voyages and learned coopering. Spending a few months at Pithole in 1865, he returned to Venango county in 1871, superintended the Franklin Pipe-Line five years and operated judiciously. He was active in agriculture and served three terms in the Legislature with distinguished fidelity. He defeated measures inimical to the oil-industry and promoted the passage of the Marshall Bill, by which pipe-lines were permitted to buy, sell or consolidate. This sensible law relieves pipe-lines in the older districts, where the production is very light, from the necessity of maintaining separate equipments at a loss or ruining hundreds of well-owners by tearing up the pipes for junk and depriving operators of transportation. The late Casper Frank, William Painter—he was killed at his wells—Dr. Fee, the Harpers, E. D. Yates and others extended the field into Sugarcreek township. Elliott, Nesbett & Bell’s first well on the Snyder farm, starting at thirty barrels and settling down to regular work at fifteen, elongated the Galloway pool and brought adjoining lands into play. Kunkel & Newhouse, Stock & Co., Mitchell & Parker, Crawford & Dickey, Dr. Galbraith and M. O’Connor kept many sets of tools from rusting. The extension to the Carter and frontier-farms developed oil of lighter gravity, but a prime lubricator. Mrs. Harold, a Chicago lady, dreamed a certain plot, which she beheld distinctly, would yield heavy-oil in abundance. She visited Franklin, traversed the district a mile in advance of developed territory, saw the land of her dream, bargained for it, drilled wells and obtained “lashin’s of oil!” Still there are bipeds in bifurcated garments who declare woman’s “sphere” is the kitchen, with dish-washing, sock-darning and meal-getting as her highest “rights!”

Jacob Sheasley, who came from Dauphin county in 1860 and branched into oil in 1864, is the largest operator in the bailiwick. He drilled at Pithole, Parker, Bradford, on all sides of Franklin and put down a hundred wells the last two years. He enlarged the boundaries of the lubricating section by leasing lands previously condemned and sinking test-wells in 1893-4, with gratifying results. Rarely missing his guess on territory, he has been almost invariably fortunate. His son, George R., has operated in Venango and Butler counties and owns a bunch of desirable wells on Bully Hill, with his brother Charles as partner. The father and two sons are “three of a kind” hard to beat.

A mile north of Franklin, in February of 1870, the Surprise well on Patchel Run, a streamlet bearing the name of the earliest hat-maker, surprised everybody by its output. It foamed and gassed and frothed excessively, filling the pipe with oil and water. Throngs tramped the turnpike over the toilsome hill to look at the boiling, fuming tank into which the well belched its contents. “Good for four-hundred barrels” was the verdict. A party of us hurried from Oil Creek to judge for ourselves. Although the estimate was six times too great, a lease of adjacent lands would not be bad to take. Rev. Mr. Johns, retired pastor of the Presbyterian church at Spartansburg, Crawford county, had charge of the property. My acquaintance with Mr. Johns devolved upon me the duty of negotiating for the tract. He received me graciously and would be pleased to lease twenty acres for one-half the oil and one-thousand dollars an acre bonus! Br’er John’s exalted notions soared far too high to be entertained seriously. The Surprise fizzled down to four or five barrels in a week and the good minister—for twenty years he has been enjoying his treasure in heaven—never fingered a penny from his land save the royalty of two or three small wells.

Major W. T. Baum has operated in the heavy-oil field thirty-two years, beginning in 1864. He passed through the Pithole excitement and drilled largely at Foster, Pleasantville, Scrubgrass, Bullion, Gas City, Clarion, Butler and Tarkiln. His faith in Scrubgrass territory has been recompensed richly. In 1894 he sank a well on the west bank of the Allegheny, opposite Kennerdell Station, in hope of a ten-barrel strike. It pumped one-hundred-and-fifty barrels a day for months and it is doing fifty barrels to-day, with three more of similar caliber to keep it company! The Major’s persevering enterprise deserves the reward Dame Fortune is bestowing. He owns the wells and lands on Patchel Run, which yield a pleasant revenue. Colonel J. H. Cain, Colonel L. H. Fassett and J. W. Grant, all successful operators, have their wells in the vicinity. Modern devices connect wells far apart, by coupling them with rods two to ten feet above ground, so that a single engine can pump thirty or forty in shallow territory. The downward stroke of one helps the upward stroke of the other, each pair nearly balancing. This enables the owners of small wells to pump them at the least expense. Heavy-oil has sold for years at three-sixty to four dollars a barrel, consequently a quarter-barrel apiece from forty wells, handled by one man and engine, would exceed the income from a quarter-million dollars salted down in government bonds. It is worth traveling a long distance to stand on the hill and watch the pumping of Baum’s, Grimm’s, Cain’s, Grant’s, Sheasley’s and James’s wells, some of them a mile from the power that sets the strings of connecting-rods in motion.

On Two-Mile Run, up the Allegheny two miles, W. S. McMullan drilled several wells in 1871-2. The product was the blackest of black oils, indicating a deposit separated from the main reservoir of the lubricating region. Subsequent operations demonstrated that a dry streak intervened. Captain L. L. Ray put down fair wells near the river in 1894. Mr. McMullan resided at Rouseville and had valuable interests on Oil Creek. He served a term in the State Senate, reflecting honor upon himself and his constituents. A man of integrity and capacity, he could be trusted implicitly. Fifteen years ago he removed to Missouri to engage in lumbering. Senator McMullan, Captain WilliamWilliam Hasson, member of Assembly, and Judge Trunkey, who presided over the court and later graced the Supreme Bench, were three Venango-county men in public life whom railroad-passes never swerved from the path of duty. They refused all such favors and paid their way like gentlemen. If lawgivers and judges of their noble impress were the rule rather than the exception—“a consummation devoutly to be wished”—grasping corporations would not own legislatures and “drive a coach and four” through any enactment with impunity.

George P. Smith’s tract of land between Franklin and Two-Mile Run netted him a competence in oil and then sold for one-hundred-thousand dollars. Mr. Smith dispenses liberally to charitable objects, assists his friends and uses his wealth properly. He owns his money, instead of letting it own him. He has traveled much, observed closely and profited by what he has seen and read. He is verging on fourscore, his home is in Philadelphia and “the world will be the better for his having lived in it.”

The production of heavy-oil in 1875 aggregated one-hundred-and-thirty-thousand barrels. In 1877 it dropped to eighty-eight-thousand barrels and in 1878 to seventy thousand. Thirteen-hundred wells produced sixty-thousand barrels in 1883. Taft & Payn’s pipe-line was laid in 1870 from the Egbert and Dewoody tracts to the river, extended to Galloway in 1872 and combined with the Franklin line in 1878. The Producers’ Pipe-Line Company began to transport oil in 1883. J. A. Harris, who died in 1894, had the first refinery in the oil-regions in 1860. His plant was extremely primitive. Colonel J. P. Hoover built the first refinery of note, which burned in the autumn of 1861. Sims & Whitney had one in 1861 and the Norfolk Oil-Works were established the same year, below the Allegheny bridge. Samuel Spencer, of Scranton, expended thirty-thousand dollars on the Keystone Oil-Works, near the cemetery, in 1864. Nine refineries, most of them running the lighter oils, were operated in 1854-5, after which the business collapsed for years. Dr. Tweddle, a Pittsburg refiner who had suffered by fire, organized a company in 1872 to start the Eclipse Works. At different periods many of the local operators have been interested in refining, now the leading Franklin industry.

For some time heavy-oil was used principally in its natural state. At length improvements of great value were devised, out of which have grown the oil-works devoted solely to the manufacture of lubricants. Among these the most important and successful was that adopted in 1869 by Charles Miller, of Franklin, protected by letters-patent of the United States and since by patents covering the complete method. Besides improvements in the method of manufacturing, he recognized the value of lead-oxide as an ingredient in lubricating oils and a patent was secured for the combination of whale-oil, oxide of lead and petroleum. The Great-Northern Oil-Company, once a big organization, had built a refinery in 1865 on the north bank of French Creek, below the Evans Well, and leased it in 1868 to Colonel Street. In May of 1869 Mr. Miller and John Coon purchased the Point Lookout Oil-Works, as the refinery was called, Street retiring. The total tankage was one-thousand barrels and the daily manufacturing capacity scarcely one-hundred. The new firm, of which R. L. Cochran became a member in July, pushed the business with characteristic energy, doubling the plant and extending the trade in all directions. Mr. Cochran withdrew in January of 1870, R. H. Austin buying his interest. The following August fire destroyed the works, entailing severe loss. A calamity that would have disheartened most men seemed only to imbue the partners with fresh vigor. Colonel Henry B. Plumer, a wealthy citizen of Franklin, entered the firm and the Dale light-oil refinery, a half-mile up the creek, was bought and remodeled throughout. Reorganized on a solid basis as the “Galena Oil-Works,” a name destined to gain world-wide reputation, within one month from the fire the new establishment, its buildings and entire equipment changed and adapted to the treatment of heavy-oil, was running to its full capacity night and day! Such enterprise and pluck augured happily for the future and they have been rewarded abundantly.

Orders poured in more rapidly than ever. The local demand spread to the adjoining districts. Customers once secured were sure to stay. In addition to the excellence of the product, there was a vim about the business and its management that inspired confidence and won patronage. Messrs. Coon, Austin and Plumer disposed of their interest, at a handsome figure, to the Standard Oil Company in 1878. The Galena Oil-Works, Limited, was chartered and continued the business, with Mr. Miller as president. Increasing demands necessitated frequent enlargements of the works, which now occupy five acres of ground. Every appliance that ingenuity and experience can suggest has been provided, securing uniform grades of oil with unfailing precision.

The machinery and appurtenances are the best money and skill can supply. The same sterling traits that distinguished the smaller firm have all along marked the progress of the newer and larger enterprise. The standard of its products is always strictly first-class, hence patrons are never disappointed in the quality of any of the celebrated Galena brands of “Engine,” “Coach,” “Car,” “Machinery,” or “Lubricating” oils. Steadfast adherence to this cardinal principle has borne its legitimate fruit. Railway-oils are manufactured exclusively. The daily capacity is three-thousand barrels. “Galena Oils” are used on over ninety per cent. of the railway-mileage of the United States, Canada and Mexico. Such patronage has never before been gained by any one establishment and it is the result of positive merit. The Franklin district furnishes more and better lubricating oil than all the rest of the continent and the Galena treatment brings it to the highest measure of perfection. Reflect for a moment upon the enormous expansion of the Galena Works and see what earnest, faithful, intelligent effort and straightforward dealing may accomplish.

The first three railroads that tried the “Galena Oils” in 1869 have used none other since. Could stronger proof of their excellence be desired? It was a pleasing novelty for railway-managers to find a lubricant that would neither freeze in winter nor dissipate in summer and they made haste to profit by the experience. The severest tests served but to place it far beyond all competition. At twenty degrees below zero it would not congeal, while the fiercest heat of the tropical sun affected it hardly a particle. As the natural consequence it speedily superseded all others on the principal railroads of the country. The axles of the magnificent Pullman and Wagner coaches on the leading lines have their friction reduced to the minimum by “Galena Oil.” It adds immeasurably to the smoothness and speed of railway-travel between the Atlantic and the Pacific, from Maine to the Isthmus, from British Columbia to Florida. Passengers detained by a “hot box” and annoyed by the fumes of rancid grease frying in the trucks beneath their feet may be certain that the offending railways do not use “Galena Oil.” The “Galena” is not constructed on that plan, but stands alone and unapproachable as the finest lubricator of the nineteenth century.

This is a record-breaking age. The world’s record for fast time on a railroad was again captured from the English on September eleventh, 1895. The New-York-Central train, which left New York that morning, accomplished the trip to Buffalo at the greatest speed for a continuous journey of any train over any railroad in the world. The distance—four-hundred-and-thirty-six miles—was covered in four-hundred-and-seven minutes, a rate of sixty-four-and-one-third miles per hour. Until that feat the English record of sixty-three-and-one-fifth miles an hour for five-hundred miles was the fastest. In other words, the American train of four heavy cars, hauled to Albany by engine No. 999, the famous World’s Fair locomotive, smashed the English record more than a mile an hour, in the teeth of a stiff head-wind. Father Time, who has insisted for many years that travelers spend at least twenty-four hours on the journey between Chicago and New York, received a fatal shock on October twenty-fourth, 1895. Two men who left Chicago at three-thirty in the morning visited five theatres in New York that night! A special New-York-Central train, with Vice-President Webb and a small party of Lake-Shore officials, ran the nine-hundred-and-eighty miles in seventeen-and-three-quarter hours, averaging sixty-five miles an hour to Buffalo, beating all previous long-distance runs. For the first time copies of Chicago newspapers, brought by gentlemen on the train, were seen in New York on the day of their publication. Every axle, every journal, every box, every wheel of both these trains, from the front of the locomotive to the rear of the hind-coach, was lubricated with “Galena Oil.”

Later a train in Scotland, keeping step with the oatmeal-and-haggis fad that has deluged the land with Highland-dialect tales, snatched the garland by adding a mile or more to the Central’s achievement. The Scottish triumph was very brief. “Ian McLaren,” Barree and Crockett might shine in literature, but no foreign line could be permitted to fix the record for railroad-speed. Engineer Charles H. Fahl, of the Reading system, believed American railways to be the best on earth and backed up his opinion by solid proof. During the past summer he ran the famous flyer between Camden and Atlantic City the entire season on time every trip. The train, scheduled to travel the fifty-six miles in fifty-two minutes, always started at least two minutes late, owing to the ferryboats not connecting promptly. Yet Engineer Fahl made up this loss and reached Atlantic City a trifle ahead of time, without missing once. The trips averaged forty-eight minutes, or a fraction above sixty-nine miles an hour! This was not one experimental test, but a regular run day after day the whole season, generally with six passenger-coaches crowded from end to end. Week in and week out the flyer sped across the sandy plains of New Jersey, with never a skip or a break, at the pace which placed the record of Train 25, of the Atlantic-City branch of the Reading Railroad, upon the top rung of the ladder. This performance, unequaled in railway-history at home or abroad, brought Engineer Fahl a commendatory letter from Vice-President Theodore Voorhees. It was rendered possible only by the exclusive use, on locomotive and coaches alike, of the Galena Oils, which prevented the hot-journals and excessive friction that are fatal to speed-records.

The works are situated in the very heart of the heavy-oil district. Two railroads, with a third in prospect, and a paved street front the spacious premises. The main building is of brick, covering about an acre and devoted chiefly to the handling of oil for manufacture or in course of preparation, the repairing and painting of barrels and the accommodation of the engines and machinery. To the rear stands a substantial brick-structure, containing the steam-boilers, the electric-light outfit and the huge agitators in which the oil is treated. Big pumps next force the fluid into large vessels, where it is submitted to a variety of special processes, which finally leave it ready for the consumer. A dozen iron-tanks, each holding many thousand barrels, receive and store crude to supply the works for months. As this is piped directly from the wells the largest orders are filled with the utmost dispatch. Nothing is lacking that can ensure superiority. The highest wages are paid and every employee is an American citizen or proposes to become one. The men are regarded as rational, responsible beings, with souls to save and bodies to nourish, and treated in accordance with the Golden Rule. They are well-fed, well-housed, prosperous and contented. A strike, or a demand for higher wages or shorter hours, is unknown in the history of this model institution. Is it surprising that each year adds to its vast trade and wonderful popularity? The unrivalled “Galena Oil-Works,” of Franklin, Venango county, Pennsylvania, must be ranked among the most noteworthy representative industries of Uncle Sam’s splendid domain.

The Signal Oil-Works, Franklin, manufacture Sibley’s Perfection Valve-Oil for locomotive-cylinders and Perfection Signal-Oil. More than twenty-five years ago Joseph C. Sibley commenced experimenting with petroleum-oils for use in steam-cylinders under high pressure. He found that where the boiler-pressure was not in excess of sixty pounds the proper lubrication of a steam-cylinder with petroleum was a matter of little or no difficulty. With increase in pressure came increase in temperature. As a result the oil vaporized and passed through the exhaust. The destruction of steam-chests and cylinders through fatty acids incident to tallow, or tallow and lard-oils, cost millions of dollars annually; but it was held as a cardinal point in mechanical engineering that these were the only proper steam-lubricants. Mr. Sibley carried on his experiments for years. He conversed with leading superintendents-of-machinery in the United States and with leading chemists. Almost invariably he was laughed at when asserting his determination to produce a product of petroleum, free from fatty acids, capable of better lubrication even than the tallow then in use. Many of his friends in the oil-business, who thought they understood the nature of petroleum, expressed the deepest sympathy with Mr. Sibley’s hallucination. Amid partial successes, interspersed with many failures, he continued the experiments. So incredulous were chemists and superintendents-of-machinery, so fearful of disasters to their machinery through the use of such a compound, that he had in many instances to guarantee to assume any damages which might occur to a locomotive through its use. He rode thousands of miles upon locomotives, watching the use of the oil, daily doubling the distance made by engineers. Success at last crowned his efforts and the Perfection Valve-Oil has been for nearly twenty years the standard lubricant of valves and cylinders. To-day there is scarcely a locomotive in the United States that does not use some preparation of petroleum and the steam-chests and cylinders of more than three-fourths of all in the United States are lubricated with Perfection Valve-Oil.

The results have been astounding. Destruction of steam-joints by fatty acids from valve-lubricants is now an unknown thing. Not only this, but as a lubricant the Perfection Valve-Oil has proved itself so much superior that, where valve-seats required facing on an average once in sixty days, they do not now require facing on an average once in two years. The steam-pressure carried upon the boilers at that time rarely exceeded one-hundred-and-twenty pounds. With the increase of pressure and the corresponding increase of temperature it was found next to impossible to properly lubricate the valves and cylinders to prevent cutting. The superintendent-of-machinery of a leading American railway sent for Mr. Sibley at one time, told him that he proposed to build passenger-locomotives carrying one-hundred-and-eighty pounds pressure and asked if he would undertake to lubricate the valves and cylinders under that pressure. The reply was: “Go ahead. We will guarantee perfect lubrication to a pressure very much higher than that.” And to-day the higherhigher type of passenger-locomotives carry one-hundred-and-eighty pounds pressure regularly.

When it was clearly demonstrated that the Perfection Valve-Oil was a success, oil-men who had pronounced it impossible and had been backed in their opinion by noted chemists commenced to make oils similar to it in appearance. While many of them may have much confidence in their own product, the highest testimonial ever paid to Perfection Valve-Oil is that no competitor claims he has its superior. Some urge their product with the assurance that it is the equal of Perfection Valve-Oil, thus unconsciously paying the highest tribute possible to the latter.

The works also make Perfection Signal-Oil for use in railway-lamps and lanterns. Since 1869 this oil has been before the public. It is in daily use in more than three-fourths of the railway-lanterns of the United States and it is the proud boast of Mr. Sibley that, during that time, there has never occurred an accident which has cost either a human limb or life or the destruction of one penny’s worth of property, through the failure of this oil to perform its work perfectly. Making but the two products, Valve and Signal-Oils, catering to no other than railroad-trade, studying carefully the demands of the service, keeping in touch with the latest developments of locomotive-engineering and thoroughly acquainted with the properties of all petroleum in Pennsylvania, the company may well believe that, granted the possession of equal natural abilities with competitors, under the circumstances it is entitled to lead all others in the production of these two grades of oils for railroad-use.

Hon. Charles Miller, president of the Galena Oil-Works, and Hon. Joseph C. Sibley, president of the Signal Oil-Works, are brothers-in-law and proprietors of the great stock-farms of Miller & Sibley. Mr. Miller is of Huguenot ancestry, born in Alsace, France, in 1843. The family came to this country in 1854, settling on a farm near Boston, Erie county, New York. At thirteen Charles clerked one year in the village-store for thirty-five dollars and board. He clerked in Buffalo at seventeen for one-hundred-and-seventy-five dollars, without board. In 1861 he enlisted in the New-York National Guard. In 1863 he was mustered into the United States service and married at Springville, N. Y., to Miss Ann Adelaide Sibley, eldest child of Dr. Joseph C. Sibley. In 1864 he commenced business for himself, in the store in which he had first clerked, with his own savings of two-hundred dollars and a loan of two-thousand from Dr. Sibley. In 1866 he sold the store and removed to Franklin. Forming a partnership with John Coon of Buffalo, the firm carried on a large dry-goods house until 1869, when a patent for lubricating oil and a refinery were purchased and the store was closed out at heavy loss. The refinery burned down the next year, new partners were taken in and in 1878 the business was organized in its present form as “The Galena Oil-Works, Limited.” The entire management was given Mr. Miller, who had built up an immense trade and retained his interest in the works. He deals directly with consumers. Since 1870 his business-trips have averaged five days a week and fifty-thousand miles a year of travel. No man has a wider acquaintance and more personal friends among railroad-officials. His journeys cover the United States and Mexico. Wherever he may be, in New Orleans or San Francisco, on the train or in the hotel, conferring with a Vanderbilt or the humblest manager of an obscure road, receiving huge orders or aiding a deserving cause, he is always the same genial, magnetic, generous exemplar of practical belief in “the universal fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.”

Major Miller is one whom money does not spoil. He is the master, not the servant, of his wealth. He uses it to extend business, to foster enterprise, to further philanthropy, to alleviate distress and to promote the comfort and happiness of all about him. His benefactions keep pace with his increasing prosperity. He is ever foremost in good deeds. He gives thousands of dollars yearly to worthy objects, to the needy, to churches, to schools, to missions and to advance the general welfare. In 1889 he established a free night-school for his employés and the youth of Franklin, furnishing spacious rooms with desks and apparatus and engaging four capable teachers. This school has trained hundreds of young men for positions as accountants, book-keepers, stenographers and clerks. The First Baptist church, which he assisted in organizing, is the object of his special regard. He bore a large share of the cost of the brick-edifice, the lecture-room and the parsonage. He and Mr. Sibley have donated the massive pipe-organ, maintained the superb choir, paid a good part of the pastor’s salary, erected a branch-church and supported the only services in the Third Ward. For twenty-five years Mr. Miller has been superintendent of the Sabbath-school, which has grown to a membership of six-hundred. His Bible-class of three-hundred men is equalled in the state only by John Wanamaker’s, in Philadelphia, and James McCormick’s, in Harrisburg. The instruction is scriptural, pointed and business-like, with no taint of bigotry or sectarianism. No matter how far away Saturday may find him, the faithful teacher never misses the class that is “the apple of his eye,” if it be possible to reach home. Often he has hired an engine to bring him through on Saturday night, in order to meet the adult pupils of all denominations who flock to hear his words of wisdom and encouragement. Alike in conversation, teaching and public-speaking he possesses the faculty of interesting his listeners and imparting something new. He has raised the fallen, picked poor fellows out of the gutter, rescued the perishing and set many wanderers in the straight path. Not a few souls, “plucked as brands from the burning,” owe their salvation to the kindly sympathy and assistance of this earnest layman. Eternity alone will reveal the incalculable benefit of his night-school, his Bible-class, his church-work, his charity, his personal appeals to the erring and his unselfish life to the community and the world.