James Hardison's Story of the Early Oil Days

I went from there to Williamsport and from there to a little town on the west branch of the Susquehana river near Lockhaven, to work in a saw mill. I had been there but a little while when the men in the mill struck, and hearing of the excitement in the oil region I took the train for Curry and from that point I went on a train of box cars over the Oil Creek railroad to Shafer, six miles from Pithole, where the oil excitement was intense. These box cars were loaded with passengers, many riding on the top because there was no room inside.

At Shafer we all got off and went on foot to Pithole where several wells only six hundred feet deep were flowing a thousand barrels a day. This oil was worth eight dollars a barrel, but it all had to be hauled in wagons to the railroad six miles away, or to McCray's Landing on the Allegheny river above Oil City.

The price for hauling was two dollars, or two dollars and fifty cents per barrel, and there were a thousand teams to be loaded every morning.

It made no difference how early a man got to the wells; there would always be a long line of teams ahead of him to be loaded.

I made a trade for a team on the shares, dividing the profits after all expenses were paid between us equally.

In about a year a pipe line was built and then I went to drilling my first well and took an interest in it as payment for my work.

In the meantime my brother Harvey came from Maine and commenced work as I had done at first, in teaming, but he soon got a job at gauging for the pipe line that had a tank at the mouth of Pithole Creek at Oleopolis. The line was a six inch gravity cast iron line and the first oil that was turned into it went with such force that it knocked the tank down.

The first well that I drilled was on the flat not far below the wells on the Holmden farm. Will Dean, Eugene Dean and a man by the name of Campbell, and myself, were to have one thirty-second interest and our board each, making one-third for our work. We finished the well in good time, but it was a dry hole.

Then we went over to Pioneer and took an interest with Lyman and Milton Stewart and drilled two wells on the noted Benninghoff farm whose owner, a miserly old German, was afterwards gagged at his farm home and robbed of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

The wells that we drilled proved a success and from Pioneer we went to Shamburg, where Lyman Stewart had purchased the Tallman farm for sixty-four thousand dollars. Milton Stewart, Frank Andrews and J. W. Irwin were partners in the purchase. Lyman Stewart made arrangements with Hank Webster and me to form a drilling company and drill the wells on this Tallman farm. I got a string of iron pole tools with left hand threads to be used to unscrew the tools that were stuck in the mud vein just above the oil sand, usually, and I had plenty of work to do in this line until they got to using big casing, shutting off the water and drilling through it, and then the mud vein disappeared.

One time I was over to Irwin's office near Petroleum Center, and he said to me, "I have got to buy Lyman Stewart a gold watch and chain."

I said, "How so?" and he replied, "When I put in that one thousand dollars for one-sixty-fourth share in that Tallman farm, Lyman said that farm was going to pay a million dollars, and I told him if it did I would buy him a good gold watch and chain." "And here," he said, as he placed the statement on the table, "is a statement showing that more than a million of money has been taken from there."

While we were at Shamburg Charles P. Collins came and immediately went to work with us. Brother Wallace also came about this time and went to work at pumping on a well we owned that was located at Pithole Creek near Oleopolis.

In 1871 we went down to Parker's Landing, and Harvey and I bought out Lyman Stewart's share in the tools and we went to drilling by contract wells in Butler and Clarion Counties.

I joined the Odd Fellows at St. Petersburg in 1872 and the Masons in 1874.

On January 20th, 1876, I married the girl I had waited for for ten years. Her name was Miss Mary E. Brooking, then a resident of Mercer, Penn., but a native of St. Johns, New Foundland. Her father, Captain John Brooking, went down with his vessel and soon after his death the widow and family of five girls and one boy, came from St. Johns, New Foundland, to Mercer, Penn. Mary was the oldest child and felt that she could not leave her mother until the younger children had grown up.

We commenced housekeeping in St. Petersburg, and in May my mother came from her far-away home in Northern Maine to visit her three sons and the three daughter-in-laws that she had never seen (Harvey and Wallace were married before I was.)

We were all living in Clarion County, and when she got through with her visit Wallace went with her to the Centennial in Philadelphia and from there she went home to Maine.

Later in the same year my sister, Mrs. Dorcas Collins, Miss Ida Merrill, Aunt Adaline Hardison and her son, Haines, my sister, Mrs. Mary Ann Bishop, Waldo Hardison, Charles P. Collins and Lowell Hardison, and my wife and I, formed a happy family group in visiting the Centennial for several days, after which we went to Washington for a short visit. When my sister Dorcas returned to her home she had a new daughter-in-law, for Miss Ida Merrill had become the wife of her oldest son, Charles P. Collins, a marriage that joined two pioneer families of Aroostook County.

In 1878, I moved with my family to Bradford, McKean County, where I lived for five years and operated a patent casing spear which was used to loosen casing that could not be pulled any other way.

Then, for six years, I left the oil business and went to farming in Kansas, four and a half miles from Salina on the Smoky Hill River.

Then we went back to Pennsylvania, and in company with C. P. Collins, I drilled a good many wells and made many dear friends in the four years that we lived there in Tionesta.

Business changes again followed, for in 1892 we removed to Geneva, Ind., where in company with C. P. Collins and J. R. Leonard, we operated under the name of Collins, Hardison and Leonard, drilling a good many wells, and in 1895 we incorporated the Superior Oil Co., with C. P. Collins as president, James H. Hardison, vice-president, Harry Heasley, Secretary, and James Leonard, Treasurer. Chester W. Brown was with us as field superintendent for a year and made his home with us.

I put in the first power for pumping a group of wells that was installed in Indiana, bringing a man from Tionesta who understood how to do it.

In 1901, the Superior Oil Company sold out most of its property, and my brother Wallace wrote and invited my wife and me to spend the winter with him in Los Angeles, saying that he would buy a house if we would come.

We gladly accepted the invitation and Aunt Mary, as nearly everyone called her, and myself, accompanied by our niece, Miss Edna Dean, who had been in our home ever since the death of her parents when she was about ten years old, arrived in Los Angeles after a pleasant journey and were met at the station and conveyed to the fine commodious residence that Wallace had bought.

The next morning my brother took Aunt Mary to the kitchen and introducing her to the Chinaman cook, one of the best in the land, said: "Lon, you will take your orders from Mrs. Hardison." Lon looked a little sour at first, but soon got over it and after a short time volunteered to do the sweeping and other work in the house. He found Aunt Mary the best boss he ever had and about the only thing she taught him to cook was baked beans and brown bread. We could go away and when we returned be sure of finding him there and glad to see us.

Edna had an aunt, a sister of her father, who lived in Escondido, to whom she made an extended visit.

We had many visitors in Los Angeles, and among them was Sam M. Jones (Golden Rule Jones) and who made his headquarters with us. He was an old friend of us all and we greatly respected him. He was not very well at this time and died not long after. Aunt Mary and I rode in the carriage, which contained Brandt Whitlock, in the funeral procession to the cemetery. Whitlock was one of the speakers at the funeral.

We visited in Los Angeles for about five months and then started for home, stopping off to see the Grand Canyon of the Colorado in Arizona.

I arrived home in May, 1902, and the Superior Oil Company having a few leases left, I again went to drilling wells and continued in this until 1913, when Waldo A. Hardison and friends purchased the stock.