Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-06-16
Gabe Harris.

we'll flowed "off head the petrole-
um was wasted. 1t ran over the
tanks brim, saturated the dry leaves,
and formed pools on the hill sides in
the depressions behind the trees and
stumps.
The spring had been early; by the
last week of April the snow was all
gone from the recesses of the deep
forest. There had been but little
rain, and the warm sun had dried the
rotting timber in the woods. The
leaves strewing the woods were crisp
and combustible as paper. They
were scattered hither and thither by
the frequent breezes blowing from
the Great Lakes. and they found
Judgment only where they fell into
waste petroleum and became soaked.
Never were there conditions more ia
vorable for a terrible, disastrous for
est fire.
Everybody was careful of fire.
Men who in sullen silence, or with
angry denunciation of the Pipe Line
company, watched their oil run to
waste, forbore smoking in the woods
for fear a spark from a pipe would
start the confagration they all dread
ed. Drilling was stopped fires were
drawn from the boilers at pumping
wells.
The producers had held mass meet
ings and denounced the action of the
company; and had even attempted
violence. To all complaints the COM
pany seemed Indifferent; to protect
their property they had called upon
the sheriff of the county and his
posse, which consisted mainly of
men in their employ.
From all the meetings Gabe Harris
had been absent. In the attack upon
the pump station he had taken no
part but every day he had gone to
the office of the s'Lines" and asked
to have his oil 'srun." Having made
the request and received an answer,
he handed the superintendent an es-
innate of the amount of petroleum
that had run to waste on his lease the
previous day. The reply he received
was the same that all applicants were
met with:
"We have no room, but are in
creasing our tankage daily, and hope
to relieve you soon. However, if
you wish to sell your oil for immedi-
ate shipment, we will run it at once"
Immediate Shipment oil brought
twenty cents barrel less than the
market price for crude petroleum, land
many of the producers, pressed by
their creditors, or needing money to
buy the necessities of life, were fore
ed to accept the company's terms.
But Gabe, though his credit was
nearly exhausted, would not thus
yield to monopoly. Rather than
sell his oil for immediate shipment he
would let his creditors have his prop
erty, and support his family by work
ing on the streets of Hartford. His
home he could retain, for the little
portable house with its furniture was
paid for, and he would not have to
pay ground-rent, as on the leases the
surface of the ground had no value,
save where the derricks and their en-
gine-houses and tanks were located.
Perhaps he would not have been so
courageous had his wife not been of
the opinion that his course was right
Her nature, though affectionate and
gentle, was independent and self-re-
liant. Poverty had no terrors for
her. She had endured 1T, had suffer-
ed many privations in practicing rig
id economy in order to save the wag-
es Gabe had earned as a driller, so
that some day they might have lease
of their own. They had secured one !;
on it had put down three wells, and
were meeting with regularity and
promptness the notes given for ma
chinery and tanks when the ''shut
down" came, and their oil joined
that of other producers on the hill
side forever lost. She was glad
Gabe had not become violent and
made threats as his neighbors had
done, because she thought much
talk display of weakness, and she
would have regretted her marriage
had she at last found herself the wife
of weak man. She knew she could
rely on his silent determination to
win in his conflict with the "Lines"
without an appeal to dynamite, which
remedy for their abuses was daily
threatened by the producers.
Meantime Gabe formed a plan. He
resolved to run his oil himself, first
gauging his tanks in the presence of
witnesses to ascertain the amount
they contained; then he would turn
the stopcock, and set a donkey en-
CINE to work pumping the petroleum
into the main line. When his tanks
were empty, he would demand of the
shines storage certificate for the
amount of the oil run,
On a clear warm morning in Nav
he kissed his wife good-by for the
day, and set out on horseback for
Hartford to make final demand on
the company to run his oil.
His lease was at the head of the
Kendall creek valley. From the door
of his house he could see the Tuna,