The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-10-20
WILKES BOOTHS OIL WELL.
Coincidence Between Its Destruction
and Lincolns Assassination.

Coincidence Between Its Destruction
and Lincoln's Assassination.
About the close of the year 1854"
said an old-time venango county Pa,
oil operator, "when the Prather boys
were securing about the oil country
trying to raise money to buy the Holm
den property at Pithole, before oil had
been found at that afterward famous
and rich but short-lived petroleum CEN
ter, John Wilkes Booth was at Mead
willie one day, waiting for train east
ward on the Atlantic and Great West
ern railroad, now the Erie. He was in
the office Of the McHenry house. One
of the Prather boys was there talking
up the prospects of oil at Pithole.
Booth became interested. He began
to talk with Prather. He stood by a
window, and as he talked scratched
his full name John Wilkes B00th), on
one of the panes of the window with
the diamond in q ring he wore. The
signature was written on the glass in
heroic characters The upshot of
Booths talk with Prather was that he
invested $4,000 in Pithole property.
IN the following April the drill
struck the oil vein on this property
and the famous Homestead well began
spouting 500 barrels of oil a day. Pit
hole had in the meantime turned out
To In ;oI>o IN "a tI0T1 10
Prathers had prophesied, and tenn
| ing city had sprung up in the wilder
ness like magic The Prather boys
had bought the Holmden well for $780,
| 600 and sold it for more than 100000.
| The HOMESTEAD we'll, in which Booth
had his $4,000 investment, was only
one of & dozen equally large spouting
wells grouped at Pithole. Oil was then
| Sc a, barrel, and the smallest fraction
of ownership in Pithole we'll was a
| fortune.
THE night that President Lincoln
| was shot a thunderstorm, something
unusual at that time of year, gathered
over Pithole. There was but one flash
of lightning and one clap of thunder.
This was not regarded with any sig
| nifCance at Pithole at the time, but
subsequent revelations clothed it with
significance that awed the supersti-
tious and startled those who were not.
The tidings that the war was over
| had reached the oil regions, and the
American flag was flying from the top
of every derrick The one thunderbolt
| of that storm at Pithole struck the rig
of the Homestead we'll and set it on
| fire. When. next day, the news of the
assassination of Lincoln by Booth came
to Pithole that city was overhung by a
dense pail of black smoke from the
burning Homestead we'll. AS far away
as Oil City the ominous black pillar
was seen hanging against the sky over
| Pithole.
THE fact that the assassin Booth
owned part of the Homestead we'll at
once occurred to all at Pithole and
when it was learned that the bolt had
descended upon it at the hour and min
ute that Booth had fired the cowardly
shot that martyred the president the
| coincidence seemed so significant that
every effort that had been making tc
extinguish the fire at the we'll and stop
the great waste of wealth every lap OF
the flames was adding to ceased on the
moment, and the spot was Stunned by
all but the others interested in the
well, who at last succeeded in getting
controlt over the flames.
THE moment the news of the assas-
sination reached Meadville indignant
guests at the McHenry house, Mead
vile, would have scattered to frag-
ments the window where on BoDth had
inscribed his name a few months be-
fore, but the proprietor of the hotel
succeeded in saving it, as he had a
thrifty eye to its future value He re-
moved the offensive pane from the Win
dow and subsequently sold it, for a
good price to a Philadelphian, who,
believe, presented it to the Pennsyl-
vania Historical society. From the
Chicago Tribune.