The Cleveland leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1865-1865, 1865-07-03

at you above the windows, wherein are
displayed consumptive lemons and bottles
of mixed tnrpentine and raw h~ighwines,
labeled whisky !" past Cherry Run: once
Hthe center of the oil basin, sir" and still
bristling with derricks of which not one in
twenty shows signs of life; past Plumer,
which sprsng, in q quarter of q year, from
8 hamlet upon 8 hi. into q village, then a
town, then a city in everything but 8 char
ter and a mayor, but which now mourns
the paling of its glory in the light of q
bigger thing beyond all this is the road
10 Pitholel
A hundred rough board structures where
three weeks ago there wss one solitary
house and barn not less than fifty more
cess of erection; the original stumps stand
ing in the middle of the two principal
streets, around which stumps the paths
wind worse than the streets of Boston q
population of five hundred men AID five
women a saloon every five rods and q
boarding house with bar attached in all
the intermediate spaces ; M great shell
of hotel where sleepers are packed away
al night like herrings in g box two tele-
| graph offices in full operation, around each
of which is a crowd of oil operators,
waiting their turns TO be served a market
and a news depot, in joint occupation of
the one room, eight by fifteen, of q shanty
put up yesterday and which has not yet q
sign of q door or q window; the proprietor
Of the "Rl Dorado Saloon" opening his
bar and mailing up his sign before his house
is rooted or enclosed white cloth tents
pitched in the rear of 1.-The hotel, where,
when the house is packed to the ridge pole,
the surplus guests are put to sleep upon a
bundle of hay lumber $50 a thousand and
rising; and through all this, darting to and
fro like generals aids at a grand review,
or q flock of swallows through the summer
evenings air, spectators on foot and on
horseback, each ready to buy Or sell, if the
price is only big enough this is Pithole
City to-day.
A valley in the bills with a running
stream at its foot the roads full of stumps,
the hillsides full of rsttlesnakes, the bot
toms full of boys, the people full of specu-
lation, and the earth full of oil acres of
empty oil barrels here, and acres of filled
oil barrels there derricks going up like
mushrooms in 8 night engines clsnking
and putting ; hOrsemen dashing up, hitch
ing their horses, taking a look and having
" -Aashing off again in
search of land or leases ) gtOuPSss-
standing or sitting wherever there is a
vacant spot, and here on the hillside, three
chatty adventurous young ladies, from
somewhere where neat riding habits are
not unknown, come to see the sights the
office of the United States Petroleum
Company surrounded like a beseiged fort
ress and down there by the side of the
stream, surrounded by huge tanks, the
grand centre of all this wild excitement, the
three magnificent wells, out Of whose
iron mouths, with q rush and q roar, the
rich, unctuous huid'pours INCREASINGLY into
those mammoth tanks, holding an average
of twelve hundred barrels apiece and of
which there are no less than sixteen pro-
vided for the Frazier we'll alone:-this is
] PitL~l-sIsIc -~.-SLis aOtH day Uf juno,
eighteen hundred and sixty five. Do you
wonder that men are excited; that they
leave Office and dock and deck and farm
and pulpit and rostrum and rush 70 secure
some part of the splendid prize, when the
smallest of these three wells yields more
than q thousand dollars q day 10 its own
ers at the present exceedingly low price of
oil2 Is it strange that they flercely con-
tend for the privilege of paying q bonus of
five, eight or ten thousand dollars for q
lease in the immediate vicinity Is it
marvellous that the fortunate holders of
leases or interests here tell you exultinply
that I'VE have struck the oil centre at last
sure pop2" These men certainly have q
reason for their confidence. Six months
ago this was undeveloped territory, with
just as much prospect of oil as there is to.
day upon Stewards Run, Tionests and
hslf-s-dozen streams in this part of the
country, and no more;-when lol the Yery
first well strikes q tremendous vein of oil,
and the very next two put down in its vi
cinity also strike big veins and give q
princely reward to the operators. What
other part of the country has given such
splendid return; in the very first three
we'll sunk2 These men who pay v
$4,000 bonus for 8 half acre lease are moi
as wild as you may think. They know
that a quarter interest in the United States
wells sold q few days ago for 100000, and
that the holder of q sixteenth interest IN
one of the adjoining wells which is yielding
about 500 barrels daily with the sucker
rods still in and necessarily o~bstructing q
CREST portion of the aperture through
which the oil must lowC refused an offer of
$4,000 for his interest, and they resgon
correctly that any n Of the wells to be
put down may be as good IS either ofthsse.
The United States Company have
surveyed the farm upon which their well
is located into half acre leases, sll of which
have now been disposed Of, and he who |
would have an interest in any of these lots
must buy it Of the present holders. Where
these holders wish to sell any part of their
interests, tkey usually sell an eighth or q
sixteenth of the working interest, and in
several cases four thousand dollars have
been paid for 3 sixteenth, the purchaser to
pay in addition q proportionate assessment
for the putting down of the well. A Cleve-
land gentleman offered yesterday ten thou
sand dollars for one sixteenth in each of
three leases very favorably located upon
this tract, he to pay all future assessments,
and wss refused. Should 1 give his name,
it would be q sufficient guarantee that he
IS not one to be excited by toll on the
BRAIN" but looks at q project in 8 business
way before he invests money in It.
1 have spoken thus far only of the wells
upon the Holmden Farm, because this is as
yet the centre of attraction. A quarter of
! mile above, however, is the Boston well,
11metimes called the Homestead or the
Morehead Well. This is on land owned
~ the Boston Oil Well Company the