Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1867-01-03
A ase.sared millionaire.

from the Pittsburgh Commercial, December 81. ]
Last week a brief item chronicling the
sale of the Steele Farm on Oil Greek, for
taxes due the Government, started on its
voyage on the sea of neWspaperdom The
paragraph will doubtless be read by many
without a second thought, but those few
lines might easily form the text for dis
course as lengthy as the moral law. 1t is
hardly an eXaggeratiOn to state that wher-
ever petroleum is known, the name of
Johnny Steele" the young prince of We
mango County, has been heard, while the
accounts of his apparently boundless
wealth and reckless expenditures were
told in hundreds of pages. Soon after the
sale of the farm, the closing act brief his
tory of the same may not be entirely with
out interest, which the Crawford Journal
thus narrafes: tay
The farm more generally known son the
creek" as the widow McClintock farm, is
Immediately opposite the fiourishing little
town of Housewife, and was among the
first Of the oil producing wells of the val
ley Early in 1868 the Van Slyke well on
this farm was struck, and flowed for some
time at the rate of $500 barrels per day,
and several wells, yielding from 200 to 800
barrels were struck at subsequent periods.
Besides these there were many small wells,
and the territory, though sadly misman-
aged, is still considered as among the best
in the oil region. In 1864 widow McClin-
took died from the effects of burns received
while kindling a fire from crude oil. At
his time the average daily income from the
anded estate Of the farm was $4,000, and
by her viii the property with all her pos
sessions in money! was left, without reser-
vation, to heradopted son, John w. Steele,
then about twenty years of age. In the
iron safe, where the old lady kept her mo-
ney, was found $150,000, two thirds of the
amOuntin greenbacks and the balance in
gold. Mrs McClintock was hardly cold in
her coffin before young Steele, who APP
pears to have had nothing naturally vicious
in his composition was surrounded by a set
of vampires, who chung to him as long as
be had dollar remaining The young mil
ltonaire's head was evidently turned by his
good fortune, as has been that of many an
older man who made his 'piie in Oil" and
he was of the impression that his money
would accumulate rapidly unless it was ac-
tually thrown away, and throw it away he
did. Many of the stories concerning his
career in New York and Philadelphia SAVIOR
strongly of fiction, and would not be cred
tied, were they not SO well authenticated.
Wine, women, horses, faro, and general de-
bauchery made wreck of that princely
fortune, and in twenty months Johnny
Steele squandered two millions of dol
lars. Hon. Jno. Morrissey, M. c., went
through him at faro to the amount Of
100000 in two nights; he bought high
priced turn outs, and after driving them an
hour or two gave them away; equipped
large minstrel troupe, and presented each
member with diamond pin and ring, and
kept about him besides, two or three men
who were robbing him day after day He
is now filling the honorable position Of
doorkceper for Skilf & Gaylords MINISTRIES
the company he organized and is, to use a
very expressive but not strictly classical
phrase, completely played out"