The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-12-26
OIL WELL ROMANCE.
PICTURESQUE RISE AND FALL or
THE CHERRY GROVE FIELD.
Guards Around Mystery-Its Pros
perity Vanished Forever Almost
in Days Time-MammOtb Fort
unes Made and Lost.

Oil operations i'm the field resemble moth
| ing so much as military operations. When
| a new field has been discovered, remote
from civilization or an inhabited country,
| the genius of the oil pioneer shines forth.
| He cuts roads through trackless forests,
| strings telegraph wires, climbs mountains
| and spans waters with pipe lines. He
| builds temporary towns, which sometimes
| become permanent. One lucky strike has
made a millionaire out of a laborer in
night; but the change in his condition has
hardly been swifter than the change of
a barren wilderness to a land flowing with
milk and hoHey-and oil.
Romantic and picturesque in the ex-
IRENE was the rise and fall of the Cherry
Grove field. So sudden were the changes
they rose to the dramatic. Cherry Grove
is in Warren county. Years before
cherry grove probably gave the place It's
name but when Grace, Dimick & Co.
drilled a well there in 1882 the forest was
a thick growth of hemlock. This was the
first well drilled. 1t was located on lot
No. 6ls. The well became a mystery
whose fame has outlived the Cherry
| Grove field.
When the well had been drilled in it
was kept surrounded day and night with
every man armed, patrolled the Immediate
vicinity of the well every hour of the "a.
Grace, Dimick & Co. had made what
they believed to be a bonanza strike.
They were determined to guard their Sc
cret, and the best way they thought to
do that in the oil field was at the point of
a gun.
The shotgun guard only made rival firms
more anxious to know what had been
found on lot No. GAG. And the rival firms
succeeded. They obtained knowledge of
the dazzling prospect of immense wealth
to be gained at Cherry Grove. The rivals
associated under the name of the Anchor
Oil Company, and on lot No. 647, adjoin-
ing the one on which the mysterious well
was located, another well was drilled.
This we, ignited from a gas explosion
pillar of fire in the air, consuming over
1000 barrels of oil a day. But that is an
other story.
The wells, were in the heart of track
less wilderness, the haunt of wildcats and
owls. The Anchor well was nine miles
from Clarendon on one side and nine mics
from Sheffield on the other. There were
but two farms in the township The re-
mainder Of the land was owned by Horton,
Crary a. Co., tanners, of Sheffield and the
Farnsworth tanneries of Clarendon.
The latter had a plank road running
seven miles into the forest, while the. Hor-
ton firm had a six-mile road through its
land. There was also township road, lit
tie better than a bride path, running at
right angles between the termini of the
p4ank roads leading from Tiona to Ball
town.
oil flowed from the first we'll drilled-the
mystery well-qn May 49, 1882. In sixty
days from that date, July 10. the Cherry
| Grove field was at the hight of its produce
ton. 1t was yielding. 1000 barrels daily.
| 10 reach this result, behold the trans
formation that has taken place. The
| Clarendon road had been extended to Gar
Held. The Cherry Grove railroad had
been built distance of ten miles, from
Tiona 70 Garfield. The Farnsworth rail-
| road had been built from Sheffield to Gar
field, distance of sixteen miles. What
| had been forest five miles long and one
and one-half miles wide was now inhabi-
| ted by 10000 people. There were driIers
and bumpers, saloon keepers and gam
blers. butchers, bakers and candlestick-
| makers, Where two months before traV-
| elers. had to- cut roads through UNDER
brush; roads were as numerous. as streets
! Company had lain a four-inch pipe to
Kane, distance of forty miles.
| The same company had lain a three
| inch pipe from the field to Clarendon, nine
! miles A pumping station had been built
| with a battery Of eight 50-horse power
! together, and had daily capacity OF is, 900
| barrels each. y
Two towns had been built within the
| limits Of this tract-Gartield and Farms
| worth. Each town had from 1900 to / 800
| buildings The struggle for wealth was
! at nigh tide, This Arabian nights dream
continued Two months longer. On Sept
| y, exactly Tour months after oil flowed
l from the mystery well the death knell
of the Cherry Grove field was sounded
| when the intelligence spread that salt wa
/ ter mad made its appearance in flowing
Wells. 50 Almost as quickly as it had risen
i Held fell TO its former condition. good
i place for rabbits and squirrels On the
day when the disaster to the field became
| known, 10000, 600 barrels of oil were in
stock. The market, which had been de-
| pressed by the field Immediately adyanc-
ed 70 cents. AZ an average of 25 cents
n n Dob oil. =
a net profit of $4,000 COO soon after thai
followed the famous boom to ST IS. which
made and unmade hundreds of fortunes
All trades have their tricks, and the oil
BUSINESS Is not the exception. When on
orators make a good strike and desire to
lease sSurrouiInIding territory as cheaply as
the Wen is plugged, and the story cir
culated that the we'll is a, duster Some
times plug five feet long is lowered to
the bottom of the well, and is covered
with sand several feet Deep In some
cases the well is boarded up, and after
is quietly leased. An oil man relates a
story to the effect that derrick was pull
ed down in Warren county in order to
cover up valuable strike.
An operator leased large amount OF
territory IN Butler county some years ago
and found that he was stuck, as it was
non-produclng. He sent a stranger to the
owner of the farm and had him offer the
farmer considerable sum over the value
of the land for the farm. The farmer was
only too glad to sell outright at the fig
urc offered but his difficulty Law in gel.
ting the operator off the land Therefore
the farmer went to the operator and
pleaded with him to relinquish his claim
I which the operator did very gladly In
return, the farmer, of course. relinuuished
his claim. After he had done so the OBJ
orator pulled up stakes and the farmer
was left with his farm. The stranger who
had offered to purchase ii outright at such
a handsome figure never came back.
Ia the early days of oil excitement, when
the name of Pithole was synonymous with
immense wealth, and when millionaires
walked about in that neighborhood dressed
in Jeans. a rich field was offered to unscru-
pulous persons. To the credit of oil men.
it cannot be said that they, as a rule, were
victims rather than aggressors The swim
lerS were generally outsiders who. after
having schemed to get little money, were
never seen again in those parts A favor
} lite trick of these swindlers was TO 20 on
, selling shares in oil wells INDEFINITELY In
, those days an average well was worth
much more thar II is now, so that one-six-
tenth, or even one-thirty- OF a well
might mean snug fortune. 1t is said that
during the Pithole days shares in wells
were sold until forty or fifty six-teenfhs
had been sold No one ever dreamed ~