Columbia Democrat and Bloomsburg general advertiser. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1850-1866, 1865-05-27

that lay successively below them, in spite
Of the frantic efforts of their owners. Oily
ropes in oily hands we're Of no avail for
snubbiug round oily posts; everywhere
went with run, or rather with q slide,
and for once, at least, the creek deserved
i's name Boatmen, standing on oily
thwarts aud guuwhales, and handling oily
poles, were capsizad into the water, and
came out dripping with oil. Que repor.
ter counted ifty-six considerable wrecks
between the Tar farm and Oil creek
bridge. Boats were forced up to their full
lengths out Of the water upon the McClin-
took bridge pier, like aoes of ice, three
hundred barrels, STAYED and whole, foa,ed
from one Of them alone. The new rail.
road will prevent such trangico-comic
scenes from happening in FUTURE
But far more fearful scenes than these
by water have occurred on shore. More
than once, in spite Of oil precaution, a
spouting we'll has taken fire, and roarcd
and burned like a volcano. Then pump
works, engine houses, ores and boa,s, the
soil, the stream, and the river into which
it pours its fame, spread their common
coufagration over day and night. In the
autamn of 1861 a we'll about three miles
up Oil creek was lit by cigar, while
thirty or forty people were standing
around il, of whom fifteen were killed in
s,antly by the explosion and thirteen Sc
verely injured. A column of fire, with its
head rising and falling from thirty to fifty
feet, continued to burn.
The Little & Merrick we'll was one
hundred and fifty feet deep at first, but in
the spring of 1861 was deopened, without
considerable increase Of oil, until half-past
six O'Clock in the afternoon Of April II, ,
when, from depth of three hundred and
thirty feet, stream of oil and gas, mixed
with very little water, four inches in di-
ameter, rushed up with such violence that
its spray reached far beyound the top of
the derrick. The air became an atmos-
phere of gas. The .ickened hands forsook
their boreipg tools and fed, leaving the
oil to waste itself, like cataract, into the
creek. The engine fremen put their fires
out. Soon great crowd collected from
the older works, and closely surrounded
new jet, when, suddenly,two Simultaneous
flashes, and report like the rolling fire of
platoon of musktry, as it seemed to
those at hand, bu, like two separate can
non shots 10 those who felt the concus-
sions three miles distant, and to those that
heard them seven and eight miles off, in.
augurated general confagraion, A
scene of indiscribable terror and confusion
ensued. Yet all escaped but half dozen,
who we're burned to charcoal where they
stood; many others died, however of their
wounds, and numbers more were Scared
for life, Four wells lost everything, in.
cluding 500 barrels of oil on hand, and
other property wa, destroyed elsewhere
In the dead Of night there stood the foun.
tain of fame, a jet Of pure oil, not subsid-
ing and returning to its work, but a cease
less suninterm,led rush, like the steady
blowing off Of steam boiler, and more
than hundred feet in height, rolling
clouds of black and massive smoke up
over the tops of the surrounding hills with
a ceaseless, surf-l like roar.
In the autumn of 1862 the tanks ortbe
Filkins wells caught FIRE, and the space
burned over soon embraced from eighteen
to twenty acres,on which one hundred and
fifty oil tanks, full OF three months sup.
ply, were standing close together, inter.
mingled with engine houses, Gees, &c.
Seven flowing and three pumping wells,
with thirty thousand barrels of oil, took
fire in quick succession. The flames ran
up the trees OF the maple grove, and the
valley was black with smoke that stfed
the heroic men who fought the flames
Men stood bravely on tanks of oil as dan
gerous as SO many powder magazines
Oil creek, of course, took fire, and in
creased the granduer of the scene. There
were no explosions during the whole con.
hagration crude oil is not explosive.
Returning to the general history of the
oil regions, which we left for moment
to describe their biographical details, the
mania for oil.well boariug was not long
confined to Oil Creek valley but soon took
possession of the main valley of the ALE.
ghany from Franklin nearly up to Warren,
and the lateral valleys OF its tributaries
Two mile run and French creek. It then
spread southword, and began similar
history on Slippery Rock creek and Bea
YER and Mahoning rivers, Up the latter
valley is spread into Ohio,aud established
wells in Trumbull county on some of tho