XII.

THE LITERARY GUILD.

CLEVER JOURNALISTS WHO HAVE CATERED TO THE PROPLE OF THE OIL REGIONSNEWSPAPERS AND THE MEN WHO MADE THEM-CULTURED WRITERS, POETS AND AUTHORS-NOTABLE CHARACTERS PORTRAYED BRIEFLY-SHORT EXTRACTS FROM MANY SOURCES-A BRIGHT GALAXY OF TALENTED THINKERS-WORDS AND PHRASES THAT WILL ENRICH THE LANGUAGE FOR ALL TIME.

HIRTY-SIX YEARS have had their entrances and their exits since Col. Drake's little operation on Oil Creek played ducks and drakes with lard-oil lamps and tallowdips. That seventy-foot hole on the flats below Titusville gave mankind a queer variety of things besides the best light on "this grain of sand and tears we call the earth." With the illuminating blessing enough wickedness and jollity. were mixed up to knock out Sodom and Gomorrah in one round. The festive boys who painted the early oil-towns red are getting gray and wrinkled, yet they smile clear down to their boots as they think of Petroleum Centre, Pithole, Babylon, or any other of the rapid places which shed a lurid glare along in the sixties. The smile is not so much on account of flowing wells and six-dollar crude as because of the rollicking scenes which carmined the pioneer period of Petroleum. These were the palmy days of unfathomable mud, swearing teamsters, big barrels, high prices, abundant cash and easy morals, when men left their religion and dress suits "away out in the United States." The air was redolent of oil and smoke and naughtiness, but there was no lack of hearty kindness and the sort of charity that makes the angels

A. P. WHITAKER.

want to flap their wings and give "three cheers and a tiger." Even as the city destroyed by fire from heaven boasted one righteous person in the shape of Lot, whose wife was turned into a pillar of salt for being too fresh, so the busy Oil-Dorado had a host of capital fellows, true as steel, bright as a dollar and quicker'n greas'd lightin'!" Braver, better, nobler, squarer men never doffed a tile to a pretty girl or elevated a heavy boot to the coat-tails of a scoundrel. About the wells, on the streets, in stores and offices could be found gallant souls attracted from the ends of the world by glowing pictures-real oil-paintings-of huge fortunes gained in a twinkling. Ministers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, soldiers, professors, farmers, mechanics and members of every industry were neither few nor far between in the exciting scramble for "the root of all evil." A host of changes, some pleasing and more unutterably sad, have the swift seasons brought. The scene of active operations has shifted often. The great Bradford region and the rich fields around Pittsburg and Butler have had their innings. Parker, Petrolia, St. Petersburg, Millerstown and Greece City have followed Plumer, Shaffer, Pioneer, Red-Hot and Oleopolis to the limbo of forsaken things. Petroleum Centre is a memory only. Rouseville is reduced to a skeleton. Not a trace of Antwerp, or Pickwick, or Triangle is left. Enterprise resembles Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," or Ossian's "Balaclutha." TipTop, Modoc, Troutman, Turkey City, St. Joe, Shamburg, Edenburg and Buena Vista have had their rise and fall. Fagundas has vanished. Pleasantville fails to draw an army of adventurous seekers for oleaginous wealth. Tidioute is an echo of the past and scores of minor towns have disappeared completely. For forms and faces once familiar one looks in vain. Where are the plucky operators who for a half-score years made Oil Creek the briskest, gayest, liveliest spot in America? Thousands are browsing in pastures elsewhere, while other thousands have crossed the bridgeless river which flows into the ocean of eternity. To keep matters straight and slake the thirst for current literature newspapers were absolutely necessary. Going back to 1859, the eventful year that brought petroleum to the front, Venango county had three weeklies. The oldest of these was the Spectator, established at Franklin in 1849, by Albert P. Whitaker. At the goodly age of seventy-eight he wields a vigorous pen. A zealous disciple of Izaak Walton and Thomas Jefferson, he can hook a fish or indite a pungent editorial with equal dexterity. He is an encyclopedia of political lore and racy stories. His Spectator is no idle spectator of passing incidents. In 1851 Col. James Bleakley, subsequently a prosperous producer and banker, secured an interest in the plant, selling it in 1853 to R. L. Cochran, who soon became sole proprietor and published the paper seven years. Mr. Cochran took an active part in politics and agriculture and exerted wide influence. A keen, incisive writer and entertaining talker, with the courage of his convictions and the good of the public at heart, his sterling qualities inspired confidence and respect. Probably no man in North-western Pennsylvania had a stronger personal following. The Spectator flourished under his tactful management. It printed the first "oil

R. L. COCHRAN.

report," giving a list of wells drilling and rigs up or building in the spring of 1860. Desiring to engage in banking, R. L. Cochran sold the paper to A. P. Whitaker, its founder, and C. C. Cochran. The latter retiring in 1861, Whitaker played a lone hand three years, when the two Cochrans again purchased the establishment. A. P. Whitaker and his son, John H., a first-class printer, bought it back in 1866 and ran the concern four years. Then the elder Whitaker once more dropped out, returning in 1876 and resuming entire control a year later, which closed the shuttlecock changes of ownership that had been in vogue for twenty-five years. Will. S. Whitaker, an accomplished typo and twice the nominee of his party for mayor, has long assisted his father in conducting the staunch exponent of unadulterated Democracy. Col. Bleakley passed away in 1884, leaving a fine estate as a monument of his successful career. He built the Bleakley Block, founded the International Bank, served as City Councilman and was partner in 1842-4 of John W. Shugert in the publication of the Democratic Arch, noted for aggressiveness and sarcasm. John H. Whitaker died in Tennessee years ago. R. L. Cochran was killed in June, 1893, on his farm in Sugarcreek Township, by the accidental discharge of a gun. The paper began regular "oil reports" in 1862, prepared by Charles C. Duffield, now of Pittsburg, who would go up the Allegheny to Warren and float down in a skiff, stopping at the wells.

Charles Pitt Ramsdell, a school-teacher from Rockland Township, started the American Citizen at Franklin in 1855. Sent to the Legislature in 1858, he sold the healthy chick to William Burgwin and Floyd C. Ramsdell, removed to Delaware and settled in Virginia a few years before his lamented death from wounds inflicted by an enraged bull. J. H. Smith acquired Ramsdell's interest in 1861. The new partners made a strong team in journalistic harness for three years, selling in 1864 to Nelson B. Smiley. He changed the title to Venango Citizen. Mr. Burgwin reposes in the Franklin cemetery. Mr. Smith carries on the book-trade, his congenial pursuit for

three decades, and is a regular contributor to the religious press. Alexander McDowell entered into partnership with Smiley, buying the entire "lock, stock and barrel" in 1867. His former associate studied law, practiced with great credit, and died at Bradford. Major McDowell, now a banker at Sharon-the number of Venango editors who blossomed into financiers ought to stimulate ambitious quill-drivers-did himself proud in the newspaper lay. His liberality and geniality won hosts of warm friends. He tried his hand at politics and was chosen Congressman-at-Large in 1892, with Galusha A. Grow as running-mate, and Clerk of the House in 1895. A prime joker, he bears the blame of introducing Pittsburg stogies to guileless members of Congress for the fun of seeing the victims cut pigeon-wings doing a sea-sick act. Col. J. W. H. Reisinger purchased the outfit in 1869, guiding the helm skillfully fifteen months. April first-the day had no special significance in this case-1870, E. W. Smiley, the

E. W. SMILEY.

present owner and cousin of Nelson B., succeeded Reisinger. The Colone located at Meadville, where he has labored ably in the journalistic field for a quarter-century. Mr. Smiley steered his craft adroitly, usually "bobbing up serenely" on the winning side. He is a shrewd Republican worker and for twenty years has filled a Senate-clerkship efficiently. What he doesn't know about the inside movements of state and local politics could be jumped through the eye of a needle. His right-bower in running the Citizen-Press-the hyphenated name was flung to the breeze in 1884-is his son, J. Howard Smiley, a rising young journalist. The paper toes the mark handsomely, has loads of advertising and does yeoman service for its party. The Daily Citizen, the first daily in Oildom, expired on the last day of 1862, after a brief existence of ten issues. A fit epitaph might be Wordsworth's couplet:

Since it was so quickly done for,

Wonder what it was begun for."

Later newspaper ventures at Franklin were refreshingly plentiful. In January, 1876, Hon. S. P. McCalmont launched The Independent Press upon the stormy sea of journalism. It was a trenchant, outspoken, call-a-spade-a-spade advocate of the Prohibition cause, striking resolutely at whoever and whatever opposed its temperance platform. Mr. McCalmont wrote the editorials, which bristled with sharp, merciless, unsparing excoriations of the rum-traffic and its aiders and abettors. The paper was worthy of its name and its spirited owner. Neither truckled for favors, cringed for patronage or ever learned to "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning." Beginning life a poor boy, S. P. McCalmont toiled on a farm, taught school, devoured books, read law and served in the Legislature. For nearly fifty years he has enjoyed a fine practice which brought him well-earned reputation and fortune. Ranking with the foremost lawyers of the state in legal attainments and professional success, he does his own thinking, declines to accept his opinions at second-hand and is a first-rate sample of the industrious, energetic, self-reliant American. By way of recreation he works a half-dozen farms, a hundred oil-wells, a big refinery and a coal-mine or two. James R. Patterson, Miss Sue Beatty and Will. S. Whitaker held positions on the Press. Mr. Patterson is farming near Franklin and Mr. Whitaker manages the Spectator. Miss Beatty, a young lady of rare culture, was admitted to the bar recently.

S. P. M'CALMONT.

The Independent Press Association bought the Press in 1879. This influential body comprised twelve stockholders, Hon. William R. Crawford, Hon. C. W. Gilfillan, Hon. John M. Dickey, Hon. Charles Miller, Hon. Joseph C. Sibley, Hon. S. P. McCalmont, Hon. Charles W. Mackey, James W. Osborne, W. D. Rider, E. W. Echols, B. W. Bredin and Isaac Reineman, whom a facetious neighbor happily termed "the twelve apostles, limited." They enlarged the sheet to a nine-column folio, discarded the bourgeois skirt with long-primer trimmings for a tempting dress of minion and nonpareil and engaged J. J. McLaurin as editor. H. May Irwin, the second editor under the new administration, filled the bill capably until the Press and the Citizen buried the hatchet and blended into one. Mr. Irwin is not