The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1901-06-15
M00NLlGHIER HANK STEWART
and The RUIN liz WROUGHT with
HIS ILLICIT NITR0GLYCERINE,

new York, May 23.-Ofa all the old oil
country characters who come here occa-
s1onally, in pursuance; of the ineyfSahIe
all good things come to New York..
none Is more famous, though unhonored
and unsung in story or song, than Hank
stewart, whose name will make the mind
revert to the old days of Bradford. PIT
nole' Petrolia and the cities that have
risen and fallen with the price of Oil r.
PROBABLY has been fifteen years since such
men as II. II. Rogers, John D. Auchbod
OF Dan O'Day even have heard the name
on Hank Stewart, but when they see it
mere II Will bring train Of recollections
ndli peasant and half angry and wholly
mixed WIN a little Of the physical fear
they telt IN the old days of oildom, when
hank was in their immediate neighbour
mood with his double load Of r,itro-glvcer-
Inc and whisky.
For Hank was ''moonlighter,o and
Time was when the men such as now are
at the mead of the Standard Oil found Use
lor MIN In shooting their oil wells on tho
say DIS dld all the other large producers
IA the early days. That was because there
was SUCH d neaVy tax imposed then on
I''e manufacture and sale of nitro glycer-
inc that lew cared to go into the business
opehiy and go about their work in day-
hght The result was a scarcity of tho
explosive, and then sprang I'D the busi
Ness OF the moonlighter. so-called because
no lax was paid on the stuff, which was
Hisoe IN some deep ravine in much the
SAME way moonshiner makes his stuff
linen, loading the goods in cans fitted
'hto queerly Shaped box wagon. the
1loonllghter would drive over the rough
country roads at night where the we'll
was 10 be shot, for oil meant money in
lhose Gays, and nobody hesitated in talk
ing the contraband article from the moon,
nghter, who always was well paid for his
dangerous work.
N1tro-glycerine is about the touchiest
thing known, and when made in haste
or IN the improper proportions of glycer
Inc and acid sometimes used nv the moon
lighters. would go off if one spoke a.
rough word to it. And when it went it
was suddenly, and it usually took with it
the landscape and anything else handy
and all without warming. 8z5 gsst W go b :.s
Nhled Many, but Never TIimself. II
NOW, Hank, when sober, had the great
est respect for nitro-g lycerine but when
ne got a load of whisky on board, too.
Inc combination was bad and the nitro
slycerlne would quit, leaving a great hole
IN the race of nature, but no traces Of
the GEAR departed to bury in it. While it
may be unkind to Hank to say that he
mas slain his Scores it is certain that the
contraband stuff he hauled so recklesslv
ABOUT the Oil country did so. And the
strangsst part of it is that the stuff never
Killed Hank Stewart. So frequent were
the explosions that at nights when peo-
pie were Jared out of bed by the letting
go OF $50 quarts of nitro-glycerine half a,
mile away, they only crawled back into
bed and said:
That's Hank Stewart again. Wonder
who he got that timer"
In fact, Hanks escapes were so MANY.
so marvellous, so almost miraculous, that
1t was prophesied freely he was born to
be hanged, and that Providence simply
was saving him until the proper time.
Then the moolighter only laughed and
took another deep drink of the product of
his cousin, the moonshiner whipped up
his horses and careened on his way to
where an Oil we'll was to be shot. -"
Probably the most reckless thing he
ever did, outside of the original way in
which he won the prettiest girl along Oil
Creek, was when he drove one-half of
Petrolia to the hills and the other half to
the cellars. 80.
Money was plenty as whisky and
flowed as freely in the mad days of cid
Petrolia, and Hank always had a good
deal of botn at his command One raw
day be got an order to deliver the goods
at Phillips Well No. 1 in Thorn Creek, as
it was to be shot that night. Hank had
been drinking, and a delegation. of .citi-
zens quietly informed him at the public
bar that he would better get out of town
as soon as he could with his double load
OF explosives. "n
~ An Insult to BE Avenged.
Hank didn't say anything, but looked a
little ugly, and soon went to the shed
near the hotel, where he had hltched, his
team. There's with shaking hand, but
drunken elaboration, he carefully poured
from his cans about five quarts of nitro
glycerine into a ten-quart shell, as the
long tin can Is called that Is used il
shooting O well. Then unhitching his best
and most FESTIVE horse he snddlsd it.