The morning news., 1897-08-29
PAGES II 10 20.
PENNSYLVANIA NEW OIL KING
CRATIC SITS ALL DAY AND
WATCHES HIS OIL FOUNTAIN.

struck II by Accidcnt-YIeIds Him
More Money and Is Easier to Ham
die Than kIOndiiSc Find-Run by
"a Home-NImde water wheel.
Bradford Pa. Aug. 19-In these days
of Klondike finds. wnen the earth is Civ
ing up treasure for the asking, and 81
bcria, Texas and Alaska all calling out
for people 20 come and be millonaires.
one stops to wonder where It viii all end
ana to ask If nature. after all, does not
intend to make millionaires of her chill
dren.
But if any one doubts seriously that
Nature does not oftentlmes encourage la
zness in her children, he should make a
little journey into the oil fields of Brad
ford, Pa There Is a man down there
whom Nature, in her most gracious
mood, simply has compelled to be lazy.
All he does day in and day out the year
round is to sit upon the bank of one OF
her little creeks and watch Nature slave
for him. If he were to raise his finger
he might undo all the skilful plotting that
has been done by her in his behalf.
Long ago this favored child-hes an
Irishman by birth and his name is Mi
chael Grath-discovered the folly of toll
ing for his living. Before the discovery he
owned little tract of land that was as
sterile ana barren as a strip of the Jer-
sey coast lie titled and plowed until
he was wrinked and bent. and all he got
was barely enough to keep body and soul
together. But one day he found that that
barren littba strip of land was oozing with
oil. lie said nothing about IL, but he re-
doubled his efforts. and after a while he
had enough money saved to put down a
welLs lie struck oil the day the riggers
threatened to quit unless they received
their pay.
The well was not gusher; it was what
Is known in the oil regions as small
producer" and yielded on an average
twelve barrels a day
While Grath was looking about for
some method to pipe his oil the rains came
and swelled the tiny creek which passed
through his farm until its course was
changed and 1t flowed by his well That
was all the Irishman needed AT practi-
cally no expense beyond the cost of cutting
a little timber from his land, he rigged up
a water wheel, and soon nature was mer-
rily pumping her treasures into a neigh
boring tank owned by one OF the big pipe
lines, ana Grath was charging her work up
to the company al 50 much a barrel.
When she had saved long enough for
Grath to save some money he put down
another well, which like the first, proved
to be small producer. The supply from
this wei was pumped by the same wheel
INTO the same neighborng tank, and the
only increase IN the lrIshman's labor was
TO charge double the sum for the work
nature was doing.
A small producer" Is a fortune, al
most the same as a big producer, be-
cause ii takes so much less labor to run
II. Grath sometimes employs a man ana
sometimes he doesn't but he gets rich
Just the same. on rainy spell he can
sleep most of the day and wake up to
ma himself just 50 many dollars richer
and VIXEN he goes off on a three-days'
fishing he comes back to find his for
tune Is just so much greater than II was
II matters little to him what the price
Of oil may be, The cost Of production
worries him not at all. Even with IL
down to 50 cents a barrel he Is sure OF
an income Of Sl2 a day, and that is
enough to meet all his needs. When
there Is dollar oil he wakes rich fast
and his slave does the work for him at
the same rates. For years he has watch
ed her. and never once has she gone on
strike or asked for shorter hours.
Capitalists have again and again tried
to buy the Grath place. but this new
Rockefeller of Pennsylvania thinks he is
doing very we'll just as he is. He does
not know just how much he Is worth.
but thinks 1t Is considerable"
James Tuckerman.