Semi-weekly independent. (Plymouth, Marshall County, Ind.) 1895-1897, 1895-12-14
COAL OIL JOHNNY. ~
lie Once Had Vast Wealth to Rcck-
1css1y Spend.

i'll the career of Coal Oil johnny. who,
under the name of John Steele. is living
| happily, after Il most riotous career. in
| Nebraska. He did number of the
/ most foolish things imaginable and
strangely had he done one less lie
might be a miserable beggar to-day.
His life story is one of deep interest.
In December. 1857. William McClin-
| took, owner of an almost worthless lit
tie farm on Oil Creek. in Franklin
County, Pa. accompanied by his wife,
went TO the county poorhouse 10 pick
out q boy for adoption. is they had
already adopted from the same insti-
! tuition a daughter. They selected Il
lad II or Il years old. to whom the
name of John Steele had been attached
though how he got it does not appear
in the record. \ little more than Il year
later the farmer died. leaving all his
small property To his widow. and she.
| impressed by his sudden demise with
new sense of he Insecurity of life. al
most Immediately mace her will. She
| bequeathed to her adopted daughter.
who was her favorite. the sum of s..
| 900 the total sum she and her husband
! had. by a lifetime of frugality and toll,
managed to save. To the boy. John
Steele. she left the farm, which was
| possibly worth couple of hundred
| dollars at that time. Within Il few
months after her execution of that in
strument. on Aug. 2S, 1859, Col. Drake
struck oil on the first bored well, which
was on the McClintock farm.
Col. Drake leased One-eighth Of an
acre from the Widow McClintock, for
which she received One-half of the
yield of the we'll. That contract was
made in advance, when nobody had an
idea Of what we'll might yield, and
neither party to it had any monopoly
of amaZement when hundreds of bar
rels of petroleum per diem were real
lied. Very speedily the farm was
! leased in One-eighth- f-an-acre patches
and dotted all over with wells. The
widow was in receipt of thousands of
barrels of oil every day, which she
found ready sale at SO to So Il barrel,
and the sums of money she handled
were greater than she had ever before
believed existed. As she had no con-
| fidence in banks. she sent down to
Pittsburg for a big safe, which she
crammed full Of money and bonds.
One evening in March. 1862. she was
| found charred to death in the burned
ruins of her home.
AS John Steele had been legally
adopted, he was the natural heir to the
contents of the big safe and the river
of revenue from the oil-prOducing farm
his possession of which was further
fortified by the widows will, made be-
fore the change in her fortune. This
| sudden acquisition of enormous wealth
turned his head, not all at once, but
| speedily. He wished to find i'll enjoy
ment of it an intensified consciousness
Of its reality, but was too ignorant
! to do so in any intelligent way.
| He married the daughter Of one of his
wOrkmen. and she taught him to write
his name in Il labOriOuS, mechanical
/ way. and that was all he ever learned
Of the art and mystery of letters. She
tried to keep him straight. but he knew
! too little to comprehend self-reSpect.
| felt himself too rich to be trammelled
| by cOnventiOnaiities or to care for the
| opinions of others, and thirsted for Il
riOtous excess of sensuOuS qualification,
the highest pleasure he was capable
| of.
Only a few months after his mar
rage he went away to Philadelphia,
taking with him boon companion
named SlOcum. whose assigned duty
was the carrying of his money and pay
J ing it out as he chose to Squander it.
The life of prodigality and uncontrolled
/ dissipation into which he plunged was
so wild as to be almost beyond belief
| lie ordered champagne. not by the
bottle, but by the basket. He gave a
$1,000 diamond to negro minstrel
| for singing song that pleased him.
| He frequently bought carriages and
! the teams attached when he wished to
ride q few blocks, and then presented
them to the drivers. On one occasion
he wagered q bottle of wine that he
would spend, actually paying out for
| fun" and not giving away. $4,000 Il
day for 90 days, and won the bottle
| At another time he received a large
sum of money from the rentals on the
farm when he was on the street and
| quite drunk. 1t was in bank notes, as
he always required it, checks being OBJ
| jects of suspicion with him, and when
| he had stuffed it into his pockets they
bulged out like those of an urchin after
a raid on an apple orchard. His coat
could not set well on him, padded with
money as he was, and he was disgust
| ed. Just then he caught sight of a
bank. and, rushing into it with the airy
| Formally of ''Here, take care of this
| id stuff for me. It's nuisance"
dumped the whole pile before the re-
ceiving teller and went away ere that
functiOnary could take breath or gather
his wits sufficiently to give any evil
dence Of the deposit. And when Coal
Oil Johnny, as John Steele was by this
time known, tried in brief spasm of
sObriety, to remember where he had
/ Iof oil tI,ot he, mt III