, 1885-01-18

hIrcub became uAeu Win houses stoTeHJ ~
tells. Offices, and saloons, and as business COZ
stantls increased, the mud about town and
among the wells grow deeper and deepei
Quite often q pair OF horses drawing at
empty wagon would stick In the mud =
Holmdsn street, and founder about mit'.
pulled out by men with ropes and pulley
In the scarcity OF water, mud was used ~
~extinguish fires
The first evidence OF permanent growth IN
the new town was the erection Of the Chase
house, nt a cost OF 300 900, by II. Patchen
and s. H Allen. II was originally called
the Pntchen house, but the name was changed
when the place was sold to George X Chase,
of New York city. The Bonita house, James
W. Bontn, proprietor, was next built, at a
cost Of $50. 900, on tho bluff above the town
Then followed the Danforth house, which
cost A.. ID. Dnnforth 10000, and the Morey
Farm hotel, a magnificent building, worth
$70,00U. Before summer closed there were
about fifty hotels in the town, exclusive Of
boarding-houses and restaurants For the
better protection OF Life and property a
burgess and a borough council were elected
on Dec. IL. The fact that some Of the can
didates elected were not residents Of tho state
was not permitted 10 interfere with the gem
eral result.
In january, 1905, tho town was at the
height Of its prosperity. Il had banks,
churches, daily newspapers, water works,
several theatres, a good opera house, large
hotels, two telegraph Offices, pipe lines,
plank roads 10 n~eiRhboring towns, and a
narrow-guage railroad from Pit Hole 20 Oleop-
oils and Oil City. The Reno, on City g. Pit
Hole Railroad company had q road-bed
graded and ties laid from Reno 10 Pit Hole,
but the work was never finished. The Pit
Hole Daily Record-the first daily news
paper published in Vennngo county-was
started by Col. Lee NJ. Morton, Sept IS,
1865. It was printed on a Washington hand
press and had q circulation Of ], 500-the
limit OF the pressman's working capacity.
The paper did a good bust ness and was pros
porous so long as the town had a paying
existence.
The town held up well for nearly a year,
and then began to fade. It went very sud-
denly. A few weeks before its decline the
people were confident that the big wells
could never cease to produce oil in immense
quantities The general confidence in the
town was so strong that on Fob. l2. 1866. The
Daily Record printed this;
"The Daily Record is now a liked fact; and
as long as n single hole shows signs Of oil, or
q derrick Is visible, IL VIII continue to make
it's appearance. While Oh City, Petroleum
Centre, Tidioute, and other older and so
called nvelier towns ave been without a
paper, Pit Hole from its birth has supported
a daily paper, and Is likely to do so for years
TO Gomez
What a win boast that was l never real
lied fully until l visited the ruins OF Pit Hol
a few weeks ago. l had known, Of course,
that the oil wells had suddenly leased to pour
out their floods Of petroleum; that the peo-
pic had gone elsewhere to speculate, and that
the erratic city had fallen into decay. But l
was not prepared for what / saw when, in
nm endeavor TO live the old days over again,
l hired a saddle-horse at Titusville and
pushed my way through the almost forgotten
country that leads to the Pit Hole valley.
On the edge Of a bluff, ;. eleven miles from
Titusville, ! came upon an old man, shabby,
decrepit and weather-benten, who sat upon a
log at the upper edge Of the feid, with
boarded chin In his hands, looking vacantly
down the still valley. He glanced up a little
TO speak as / approached, and then resumed
his doubled-up attitude.
"Loodn' for Pit Hole, strangerT he asked.
%If y'are, jest tie your gray to that saplin',
there, an come an sit down here on this
stick O. timber n look till you're tired
l had ridden eleven miles through mud
and water, over rocks and logs, up hill and
down, TO see this-an old log cabin, the dis
mantled wing Of an old hotel, and a lonely
field upon which neither tree nor shrub would
grow. And this was Pit Holel / had left it
bctAhAuk WAb bh1J lCobiof bantAAAAH WIFI bonA-
ness, and half mnd with tho excitement Of
wild speculation. Now, even nature had for
fakon It, leaving only tho half-crazed old man
10 guard its dust and nshes- The harmless
old man had lived In peace and contentment
on a little clearing on the site OF Pit Hole all
his life. The oil fever had found him poor, 1t
made him fabuloualy rich, and when 1t sub
sided It left him poorer than before, for Ii
had wrcnched his poor old mind OIL its bear
ings.
"What do you seer l asked, seating my.
self beside the old man, and not letting him
know that the landscape was by degrees be-
coming strangely familiar to me.
"What do | seer said he slowly, without
moving his eyos from the bare, brown valley.
al see a city full of people; l see n valley
swarming with life and business; the smoke
of countless furnaces, the steam from count
less engines. / hear tho clang of hammer
and anvil, Tho roar Of swift wheels, the rattle
OF cranls and bolts, the voices of busy men,
the Jun Of industry.
4This," said the sad, old man, laying his
hand s~orrowfully upon the rotting timber
this is all that is left Of the Bonita house, q
noble structure. Down there, where you see
a woodchuck burrowing, stood the Chase
house, the best hotel in northwestern Penn
sylvania. The postofico occupied one of its
big corners, and n noisy c;owd of oil princes
oiled It's score Of rooms. Right across the
street, where a sapling grows, a murder was
done, and Just above Is where the first
woman in Pit Hole shot herself through the
heart In a fit of remorse. Drink,
some said, but l knew better. A
short distance below-thsre's q cow MUNICH
ing dry grass there now-stood the
Methodist church, dedicated with great pomp
by Bishop Simpson, Of Philadelphia; DR..
Loomis, president Of Allegheny college. and
Rev, G. w. Maltby, presiding elder of the
jamestown district; never had q dollar of
debt, as / know personally. Mul..
sob, yes, I can point 'em all out-hanks,
churches and theatres there was Murphy's
theatre over that pool Of waterl, machine
shops, pipeline offices, tho railroad station,
hotels; there stood the Morey Farm hotel,
destroyed by fire by an incendiary. And the
big oil wellsi Why, over there among those
homegrown bushes was the great Pool well,
the pride OF the town, the wonder Of the
whole country. 1t flowed for a time at the
rate of 1890 barrels a dayi Then there
were the old Frazier, good foe 900 barrels a
day; the big Grant well, 100 bar
rolls; the Burtis, 300 barrels; the
two Homestead wolls; the Eureka,
which produced 80, 900 barrels all told; the
famous Twin wells, No. l and Nc. s, on the
Thomas Holmden farm, and hundreds OF
others. The land all around here was Gov
erod as thick as trees with them. What do
YOU sec nowi Here and there the blackened
end OF a length Of iron casing sticking a foot
above g~round-that Is all. Everything Ia
gone BODYBUILDING, derricks, tanks, ma
chinery, tools, men and money. The town
lasted two years, and then faded away until
to-day there is nothing loft ! lived here al
most alone when the town started. and / am
living hero alone now. Men nave come and
gone by thousands, but 1 have remained
truo to the old place. Sometimes at night
when l am alone in my little old house down
there, I live over the days OF 65> l sec tho
waves Of speculation and strange innovation