The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1905-09-16
THE WANDERING OIL MAN.


than the Arab of the desert ever was,
says the Barletsville correspondent OF
the Kansas City Star. Go to Penn
sylvania. to Texas, to California, to
japan or to any other place where
there are oil wells and you will find
the same faces, you will hear the
same talk of working barrels, "
pulling rods' and all that sort of
thing.
A man who would drop down in
Rangoon to-morrow-and Rangoon
is ION the road to Mandalay, where
the flying fishes play"-or into Kuro-
saki or into Tamaluipas might expect
to find old man John H. Galley, John
Markham, J. c. Mcdowell, Hugh P.
Brawley, The. Barnsdall.
It gets into mans blood. He
follows the derricks and the screech
of the shackle rods naturally. He
can't help it. Take the case of John
H. Galley. There is man who is a
multi-millionaire. He needs no more
of this worlds goods. He has an
independent fortune. Yet if an oil
field should be discovered tomorrow
in Kamskatka, off in the snow and
ice, John H. Galley would be one of
the first men on hand and he would
have the second or third derrick
erected in the field.
John Markham is another of the
soldiers of fortune. He toiled and
sweated in the swamps of Louisiana
and Texas, drilled Improbable holes,
spent his money and came to Kansas.
Then he went to the Territory.
Before that he had been all over the
world. And he knows things. He
knows what the East Indians drink
in Rangoon to quench their thirst.
He knows how they live in the tenn
perature of 12o degrees in the shade,
and he knows other things which
have helped him to success.
John McCready, canny Scot, has
drilled wells for the Japanese Govern
menr and has drilled wells for the
Standard Oil in Japan. He has been
all over the world. this driller. He
knows the size of pipe, the size OF the
casing and the cost of the well in
every oil field in the world.
Then there is Bill Myers. He is
sometimes called Windy Bill. He
has manufactured powder for the
United States fleet in the Mediterra-
mean to salute President Loubet of
France, and he has done other things
of note. He has certificates of honor
from the Khedive of Egypt-he drill
ed some oil wells for the Standard Oil
Company in that country and got into
trouble thereby--and he is also an
officer of lodge of honor of the Sui
tan of Morocco.
Bill Allen is another of the globe
trotters. He has been in Mexico and
in India. He can give you the for
nation of the wells in Upper Burma
or the wells in Chelsea, Okla, with
equal facility. And it is all one to
him where he is, so long as he is put
ting down the holes.
Dick Fowler is another. He has
been all through the Pennsylvania
fields and the West Virginia fields
and the Ohio and Indiana fields, and
he can spin yarns by the hour. He
knows how the glycerin man at Brad
ford was blown up and how the other
glycerin man escaped, how the springs
of one of the glycerin wagons were
located under the can and how the
other fellow had his springs three
inches to the right and thus saved his
life.
Hugh Brawley has been with the
oil companies in Pennsylvania, Texas
and Kansas for more than ten years.
Now he is in the gas business, but he
has been around the world in the oil
business.
John T. Gaffey is another one Of
the globe trotters in the oil business.
He has been in the kyack fields oi
Alaska, in the Beaumont fields, in
the Louisiana fields, in the Mexican
fields, and now he has made for
tune in California and retired-tem-
porarily. No man who has ever got
the fever in his bones retires from the
oil business permanently.
There is, also, M. L. Lockwood
his real name is Marquis lafayette
who has done all the oil fields and is
now in Kansas. He is an old man
as years go, grayheaded, and with a
son old enough to vote two or three
times, and yet he is still following
the flag of adventure, still after the
pot of gold which grows at the rain
bows foot.
1t goes that way in the oil bust
ness. You meet man at Nagasaki
you meet the same man at Half Moon
Bay, you meet the same man at Santa
Maria, and then again you meet him
ION the road to Mandalay." Young
and old, freshman and postgraduate
saint aud sinner, all the oil men fol
low the same road, and wind up al
the same place at last.
They all hope some time or other,
somewhere in the game of life, te
make 'play against the Standard. .
Most of them are too polite to admit
it, but that is the hope which inspires
them to climb the mountains and e
down into the sea looking for oil
always looking for oil, and always
looking for oil where the STANDARD
Oil Company can't get it. The,
think and dream of oil in place
where the curb is on a monopoly
where they will get ''run for thei
money" It is the pathetic side o
the oil business, this thing of men
years wandering over the earth search
ing for place where the mailed han'
} cannot reach. They have not foun'
it yet.
SOME TIME ago an old negro wa
burned to death. The text Of th
funeral address curiously enough hap
pened to be-: