The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1895-11-28
COAL OIL JOHNNY ALIVE,

much comfort out Of the supposed
death in abject poverty of the model
prodigal. Coal Oil Johnny" such a
finale being what one would naturally
expect from the pyrotechnic career of
pernicious activity that m2de him
famous. But the inevitable order Of
the fitness Of things is out Of joint
again. as usual. Coal Oil Johnny is
not, as is popularity supposed, dead
and buried, but alive butin pretty good
condition physically, and quite com
Portable circumstances. And shock
ing as 1t may be to those accustomed
to holding him up as a horrid warn
ing to the young. the fact seems be
yond dispute that Coal Oil Johnny's
good financial plight to day is the di-
rect result Of his having been a reck
less, irresponsible, drunken spend
thrift when young.
As he ceased being far as the
general public were concerned-a re
liable entity, and passed into history
some thirty years ago, the present
generation hardly know him as more
than a name associated with many
wildly fantastic stories Of amazing
prodigalily, and perhaps without some
such publication as this to rescue him
! from oblivion, IN a little while more
the myth finders would fall foul Of
his name and argue him ont of real
existence, as they have William Tell
and Blue Beard, probably ascribing
ms origination to the advertising
genius Of the inventor of a popular
! petroleum soap after which the unique
imaginary being was no doubt named"
such transportations Of facts being
| in the the way Of the legend shalps.
| Let it goiupOn record, then, as the
solemn affirmation of solid fact, while
the man IS still living proof. that
| Coal Oil Johnny was a real person;
that he did al the amazingly fool
things told Of him and many more,
and that if he had done one less ne
| might be a miserable beggar to day
which he is not any whore near to be
ing. Aud while the story Of his life
may no longer properly serve to en-
phasize teachings of the dire results
of i'll advised expenditure under the
adventitious stimulus of alcoholic en-
thusiasm. it may still suffice to pre-
| serve his memory as an unparalleled
illustration of fool luck.
In Decemqer, 1857, William McClin
took, owner of an almost worthless
little farm on Oil Greek, IN Franklin
comfy, Pa, accompanied By his wife,
went to the county po0rhOuse to pick
ont boy for adoption, as they had
already adopted from the same insti-
tuition daughter. They selected a
| lad twelve to fifteen years old, to
whom the name OF John Steele had
been attacbed-though how he got
| it Goes not appear in the record. \
little more than a year later the far
mcr died. leaving all his small proper
| ty to his widow, and she, impressed by
| his sudden demise with a new sense
Of the insecurity Of life, almost i'm
mediately made her will. She be
queathed to her adopted daughter,
who was her fayorite, the sum of
$4,000, the total sum she and her hus-
band had, by lifetime Of frugality
and toll, managed to save. 10 the
boy. John Steel, she left the farm,
which was possibly worth a couple OF
hundred dollars at that time. Within
! a few months after her execution OF
| that instrument, on Aug. q, 1859,
Col. Drake struck oil on the first bor
ed well, which was on the McClintOck
| farm
Coal oil was not a new thing, even
! then. The Seneca and COrnplanter
| tribes of Indians used to collect it, by
means Of blankets, from the surface of
a spring where Oil City stands to-day,
and valued it highly as a remedy for
rheumatism and other ailments. And
when Hicks Spraker, in 1927, bought
that spring from the Government, the
oil was put up in four and siX-Ounce
bottles for medicinal use by the Pitts
burgh firm of Reynolds u She2, to
whom he sold it. That firm, 10y the
way. dissolved partnership IN a row
over the reckless enterprise of the
Junior partner, who bought seven bar
rels of the oil at one time-th springs
output for q year quantity SO vast
that the senior partner did not believe
II would ever be all sold The sales Of
| Harlem OIL and "Mustang Lini-
ment." as petroleum was then called,
| increased from year to year. and, as 1t
was discovered at other points, 1t masq-
ueraded as Seneca Oip and ''Aier's
! Rock OiI'-always as medicine.
/ -t,'he iast-namad stuff came from Sam
mel NJ Kier's sails wells, at Tarentum,
few miles above Pittsburgh, where
| It was primarily regarded as a great
nuisance. but eventually became his
most important product. Hewas the
! first person to conceive the possibility
of IFS baing available for other uses
than medicinal. He burned it in an
old-fgshioned coffee pot-llke lamp, and
was satisfied that. although It made
much smoke. and gave forth q vie
smell in burning, it would be, if purl-
fed and used in d properly construct
81 lamp. of value as an llumlnant.
Without waiting for those improve
ments. the people III all that district
| were. in n1S46 and iT47, using the crude
Getroleum in their common cal lamps
lu 1859 Ir. kier started one barrel
! still in Pittsburgh for the refining OF
petroleum for Illuminating purposes,
and in short time found Unnecessary
10 put fve-barrel still in operation.
Others followed bis example, and
when lie invented 4 proper lamp for
the iuoffensise burning Of the refined
eli. it became popa!as, and was large
is In demand at the time Co! Drake
made his Discovery, which Is common
Iy looked upon nov rs the initial
point Of the oil era,
Col. Drake leased Que eighth Of at
acre from the Widow McClintock, fol
. which she received one half of the
: Weld Of the well That contract was
made in advance. yheu nobody haG
f al idea Of what d wen might y.eld
and neither party to il had any mon
/ 0polv of amaZement when hundreds