The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-18 00:00:00

The Oil. Regions of Pennsylvania.

(krom the Times Correspondent.)
OIL CITY, Oct. 1.

It is little more than four years ago since I was
last in this then almost unknown, but now world-
famous, oil region. In the comparatively brief in-
terval that has elapsed everything but the geogra-
phical conformation of the country, everything but
its mountains and rivers, has been changed, and
even these are now scarcely recognisable. The
mountain tops have been shorn of their forest
growth of ages, and in its stead rise cities. Wild,
solitary creeks and river inlets, known only to en-
thusiastic sportsmen for their game and fish, are
now roughly bridged, their shores lined with shanty
wharves, their waters covered with every kind of
nondescript craft that can be got to float, all laden
with oil ; and the whole neighbourhood abounds
with such evidences of wild, rough, eager, hurrying
activity as literally can be seen in no other part of
the world but in the new diggings and oil cities of
P etrolia.

Petrolia and its wealth have become a power in
the State during the last three years, and every day
increases its ride-spread influence—every day adds
fresh instances to the long list of colossal fortunes
realised in a week, either by the possessors of a few
acres of poor farm land on whichoil has been found
or by the fortunate speculator who has " struck ile"
and parted with his 50th interest in a flowing well,
for which he paid $lOO, at a premium of $25,000.
Every day, too, adds to the influence of Petrolia as
new and more -valuable uses for the oil are hourly
discovered, and the demand for it becomes more
certain and more universal both in the States and
Europe. It is, in fact, almost impossible to de-
scribe, and it would certainly be very difficult to
exaggerate, the extraordinary rise in the material
prosperity of all around this region. I think lam
speaking within the mark when I say that within a
circuit of 30 miles round this Oil City there are
more so-called cities and towns now existing
than there were villages, or even farms, four
years ago. Take one instance, Corry, four years
ago, was a poor farm, where the thinly scratched
soil of cold clay land yielded so little that the whole
place, buildings and all, might easily have been
purchased at $8 or $lO an acre. It was a mere halt-
ing place for sportsmen en route to shoot deer in the
now manufacturing regions of Petrolia. I was at
Corry the other night. It is a fine rough city of
about 10,000 inhabitants. The Atlantic and Great
Western Railway, which has opened it [up, has its
great depot there, and has made it the central ex-
change of petroleum. It has nearly 20 banks, two
newspapers, and the city is now building a large
opera-house. The quotations made on the oil-ex-
change at Corry, whether of oil, gold, or breadstuffs,
influence Wall-street, and have infinitely greater
weight on the trade of the country than anything
done at Philadelphia, or indeed throughout all
Pennsylvania. Yet all this has been done within
four years, and the site of a city which now trans-
acts business to the amount of £3,000,000 sterling
annually, and where the land sells almost as dear
as in Cheapside, could all have been bought four
years ago for less than £5,000. But Corry is only
one sample out of many. Its position as the arbiter
and ruler of prices between the oil regions and New
York and Europe gives it, of course, great import-
ance, though in reality the city is not larger than
many others of Petrolia which are much younger.
Rouseville, Plummer, Titusville, Franklin, are all
the juniors of Corry by a couple of years, yet some
of these are almost as important as Corry itself and
nearly as large. The city from which I write can
scarcely be counted as more than three years old,
yet even after what I have seen of the sudden rise
and sudden wealth of oildom, its extent, its squalid
wealth and dirty evidences of incessant activity, its
population, and its resources, all make it a pheno-
menon even in this land of hurried wonders. Oil
City claims to dispute pre-eminence even with
Corry, though I am told by Englishmen that its
rise, its wealth, and business energy are, as it were,
things of every-day occurrence compared with the
new light which has risen further up the hills,
the now universal beacon of attraction in the rush
for speculation—Pithole City. It is only four
months old. It is only four months since the first
trees of the forest amid which it stands were
felled ; yet a city, both in size and population,
it is. admitted to be—a city which is now in influ-
ence and excitement second to none in all
Petrolia. It matters not to state experiences of
Cherry Run, Titusville, Cherry-tree Run, Oil
Creek, Sugar Creek, Rouseville, or all the now for
a time disregarded regions. Most of the wells in
these last-named localities are pumping. At Pithole
they are all flowing, and flowing at a rate which,
even for Petrolia, is marvellous, and is making the
people round about for miles wild in their desire and
efforts to reach this new land of promise and
performance. " New diggings" at California—a
" new rush" in Australia, give no idea of the furor
produced here by striking flowing wells in any ter-
ritory, no matter how unfavourably situate with re-
gard to means of transit, means of getting there,
means of living, or means of shelter when there.
Where oil is there is wealth, and with wealth comes
rapidly the opportunity of indulging in all the rough
backwoodsman's notions of luxury, such as dry clean
beds and food and drink when he wants it, while he
is making a fortune. Gold digging is a slow and not
too sure a way to fortune. Here at the oil regions
nothing is slow, and something is sure. It is a mere
gamble—ss,ooo for a chance of a million. There are
many blanks, but there are also many prizes ; and
when the prizes come they are so out of all propor-
tion to the venture that it ceasesto be a wonder that
people's heads are turned, and they risk their " bot-
tom dollar" in what may make them millionaires or
paupers in a week. All that is written of the wildest
manias of South Sea schemes, all that novelists have
depicted of John Law's rule in France, falls utterly
short of the fever of speculation in Petrolia. Reason-
ing is useless here.

What can be said when you meet, as you do con-
stantly, one of a party of five or six hard working
men who, knowing the country, banded together to
sink for oil at a cost of less than £2,000, and struck
a flowing well, which they sold in. a week or so
to a company for £250,000, receiving a royalty
half the oil it yielded, and which brings them in
their thousands a day seven. days in the week,
for a year, 18 months, or two years together? '
What can be said when you meet men who lost
heart, or capital, or both, and parted with their
interest in a sinking well for a horse and $lO to
take them out of the unlucky region, and who, be-
fore they reached their homes, have heard that their
venture had been a prize, and their $lOO interest
had been sold for $50,000 ? Reasoning, in fact, is
as much out of place here as would be provident
societies or insurance companies. Every man knows
that in these territories he has to carry his life and
fortune in his hand. Till the latter is played out
h e seldom leaves, and as long as the former lasts he '
almost sure to return and venture again.
Yet it i,
tive said that the worst part of the specula-
mania has died out ; that a better acquaintance
with the nature of the oil regions, and the
best methods of
making thorn yield their trea-
sures, has taken the
ventures out of the hands of
mere speculators into
those of
who conduct theirpublic companies,
risks o ll better systems, and
who so manage that if their profits are very much
smaller they are, at least, v
It is claimed, in. fact, thateoilrauch more certain.
ventures are being
b
reduced to the level of good paying
co al
and iron
and
dds those
ar
mines. This, however, is true only as r
who let the land in which oil is sought
work.
expected
to be found. It is not the poor hard- g
long
ntgo
farmers who sell. They have been bought out lin
since (more than two or three months) at what
them was the munificent price of $2O or $3O an acre,
and the purchasers of these lots and farms never
sell them. They are only leased in short terms of
from three to seven years in lots of acres or half-
acres. The lessee is bound to put down one well
in each lot, and one-half of its yield in oil goes to
the ground landlord. This is what is called the
system Which has done away with speculation—
this is the regular matter-of fact business rule
which is to put an end to ventures and keep
out all but capitalists, for capitalists
are very
much venerated here. But what is the fact ? This
time last year the whole of the land of Pithole City