Oil and Our Oil Creek Ancestors |
Our ancestors and the 1860–1870 oil boom years
… damn lumbering. I would rather have McClintock’s farm than all the timber in
Western Pennsylvania . . .
—Purportedly said by Albert H. Crosby, an early entrepreneur of the Venango
County fields. From the Titusville Morning Herald, 28 January 1881, via Giddens
(1938), page 32.
Watsons and Lytles
Robert W. Watson's farm (see Robert W. Watson in "Descendants Reports") was located near Pleasantville (Map 2), some distance from the Oil Creek valley. His widow, Margaret, and sons and daughter sold the property (24 acres) to an oil consortium group from New York for $8000 in 1865, which was about 3 years before oil was discovered in that general area.929 James Jamison (see #9 of Jamisons in the section ”Descendants Reports.” ), who died 7 years before the oil boom years, probably did not own property in the productive regions; perhaps he did not own property at anytime in Venango County—there are no deeds in or out of his name recorded in Venango County.
By the late 1860s, the Mill Farm, originally owned by John Lytle (see #3 of Lytles in the section ”Descendants Reports.” ), had been sold or leased to oil entrepreneurs, but I am not sure that the grantors at that time were the Lytles. In 1870, there was one producing well on the Mill Farm, called the Olive, which belonged to the Mineral Oil Company of New York and four other wells in progress.930
Flemings
Before the oil excitement, the Flemings owned considerable land in Oil Creek valley, mainly above Miller Farm, and also in the upland area a couple of miles east of the Miller Farm, in what became known generally as the Shamburg region. The 1857 landowners map of Venango County, published by R. Irwin, C. H. Heydrick and C. Heydrick, shows the location of these tracts just before the oil activity. Henry (1873), considered one of the most accurate accounts of the oil excitement years, indicates two Fleming farms in the valley during the 1860s. In contrast, an 1865 map of the Titusville Herald appearing in Asbury (1942), page 72, shows only one Fleming Farm in the valley.
Starting at Titusville and moving downstream, the Oil Creek farms were in order: the first Bissell Farm, upper and lower Stackpole Farms, Potts Farm, and then the Shreve Farm.931 The original owner of the Shreve farm was S. Shreve.932 He would have been Samuel Shreve, husband of Sarah (Fleming) Shreve. In 1870 the Shreve farm was owned in by the Great Western Consolidated Oil Company. The Shreve farm apparently was not productive territory.933
And then, according to Henry (1873), page 98:… The Flemming Farm, next below, owned by Mrs. Flemming, was found to be, if not entirely unproductive, at least unremunerative territory, and is now [1873] without any evidence of development.
The same can be said of Henderson Farm, which is just below it.
The Jones Farm, which is next in order, though thoroughly tested by sinking nearly twenty wells, was never proved productive territory, yet from surface indications it was as promising as any farm along the Creek.
The second Flemming Farm, a little more than four miles below Titusville, is next after the Jones Farm, and the beginning of better territory. The flats on this farm were thoroughly tested, and several good wells obtained; one a flowing well was successfully operated for some time, when the owners, hoping the more completely to shut off the surface water and increase the flow of oil, drew up the tubing to change the seed–bag [see below]; but after re–arranging it, from some unaccountable cause, the well not only ceased to flow, but never again produced oil.
The Miller Farm, now a station on the Oil Creek R. R., and formerly the scene of great enterprise on the part of the Pit Hole and Miller Farm Transportation Company, is the first below the Second Flemming Farm on the Creek . . .
From the description, the second Fleming Farm (Map 3) was probably owned by the heirs of Andrew Fleming (#2), at the time Ann (McClintock) Fleming (#21 of “McClintocks”) (Andrew’s widow) and children Sarah, John and Andrew. Incidentally, the well Henry described for the second Fleming Farm was brought–in in 1863 (the developer was Asher D. Atkinson—more about him later), and first flowed at about 300 barrels a day. The first Fleming Farm (Map 2), the “Mrs. Flemming” Farm, at that time would have been in the possession of Sarah Elizabeth (Jamison) Fleming, widow of John R. Fleming (#34 of Jamisons and #32 of “Flemings”), and Robert Fleming her son. John R. Fleming was a son of Edward Fleming, who had the original tract.
The seed bag, mentioned above, and appearing to cause all sort of grief on Andrew Fleming’s farm, was a device used by early oilmen to shut off surface water from the oil–bearing strata below. My uncle, William H. Fleming, Jr., recalled cleaning out old wells on some of the Fleming leases and bringing up the remnants of many seed bags. The bag was a sleeve of stout leather, perhaps 4 to 6 feet in length, fitting loosely over the tubing.934 The lower end of the sleeve was tied to the tubing, the bag filled with flaxen seed, and then the top end was also tied to the tubing. The flaxen seed swell in a few hours, and this closes the hole so water can not pass down. The trick was to place the seed bag at the proper depth.
John S. Fleming's (#27 of “Flemings”) farm (or land)—only part of what the Flemings owned at the time—was in the high country, the Shamburg region, a few miles from the valley itself (Map 2). This land was part of his father's (Samuel) original claim. In 1864, John S. Fleming and sister Nancy Jane Fleming and mother Jane Fleming sold some of the land for $5000, no royalty being involved, to John W. Potter,935 who in turned sold it to Asher D. Atkinson, an early oil entrepreneur, who dealt in drilling wells, leasing, and buying potential oil property. (See also under Nancy Jane Fleming, #28.) This was less than four months before the Frazier well came in on the Holmden farm located on Pithole Creek, an area also not believed to be productive territory, because it was away from a large valley. Atkinson actually paid $20,000 for the property. Dr. Potter of Tidioute had obtained from John S. Fleming a first refusal for purchasing the land for $5000; but Atkinson then offered Potter $20,000, which was accepted,936 a profit of $15,000 to Potter.
The Flemings sold the land the same year Dr. G. Shamburg purchased the Oliver Stowell Farm. At the time it was still felt in oil circles that the productive oil tracts were only to be found in the Creek's valley and the valleys of its tributaries. There had been no oil activity in the high country away from the Creek or its tributaries.
Three years later, in 1867, Dr. Shamburg brought in productive wells on the Stowell Farm; and shortly after, drilling commenced on what was then called, and continues to be called in oil circles, the Atkinson Farm. Four Atkinson Farm wells, called the Jack Brown, the two Fee Wells, and the 4.11.44 (so called because the well flowed for 4 days at 11 hundred barrels a day, totaling 44 hundred barrels during its "flowing" life), were immensely productive.937 For the year 1867–68 alone, the average for the entire Atkinson Farm field was about 2500 barrels a day, at a time when oil was selling for about $3.70 a barrel at the well–head.
McClintocks
See also the online version of the McClintocks. The McClintocks were located in the lower Oil Creek valley, in the middle of some of the biggest strikes of the early 1860s. Hamilton [Sr.] and his brother Francis McClintock (see #15 and #17 of McClintocks in the section ”Descendants Reports.” ) came to Oil Creek in the late 1790s. Hamilton's original claims, on both sides of the Creek, was a short distance south of present–day Rouseville (see Map 3), whereas Francis’s farm was farther north, at the present–day site of Petroleum Centre. Both Hamilton and Francis had died before the Drake Well was drilled. When the oil activity started, one of Hamilton's sons, Hamilton, [Jr.], and a grandson, John (son of James McClintock), owned parts of the original claim. Sarah (McKnight) McClintock, the widow of a third son, Culbertson (#68 of “McClintocks”), owned land above Rouseville (Map 3), separated from Hamilton and John McClintock’s farms by the farms of Archibald and John Buchanan. Francis McClintock's farm, which encompassed what was to become Petroleum Centre (Map 3), was owned, at the time, by Francis's son George Washington McClintock.
Rouseville is located on both sides of Cherry Run where Cherry Run flows into Oil Creek (Map 3) on the old Archibald Buchanan Farm and extending to the table land of the John McClintock Farm.938 The first settler on the land that was to become Rouseville was our Francis Culbertson (see #8 of Culbertsons in the section “Descendant Reports”). Rouseville takes its name from Henry Rouse,939 who, with others, leased the adjacent John Buchanan Farm. Rouse lost his life when the gusher of the Merrick Well came in on 17 April 1861 and resulted in an explosion and terrible fire.940
In 1858, before the oil excitement, Hamilton [Jr.] sold a small 57 acre tract on Cherry Run, about one and a half miles from Rouseville and two miles from Plumer. Hamilton sold the land to William Smith for a yoke of oxen. Smith in turn sold the land in 1862 for $1000.941 The tract was eventually purchased by the Cherry Run Petroleum Company of Connecticut. In 1870, this tract was valued at several millions dollars, and “… Such are the chances in this favored land of oil. What one loses another gains.”942 I could not find this transaction recorded in Venango County Grantors Index, “M.”943
George W. McClintock in November 1863 leased his farm to George H. Bissell and Company.944 In 1864, about 16 months before George Washington McClintock died, George and Angeline McClintock sold the farm of 207 acres and 99 perches to Frederick Prentice, George Bissell and James Bishop for $385,000, with the stipulation that a certain graveyard, containing 48 perches [this would be the old Petroleum Centre Cemetery, where George’s parents, Francis and Rachel Hardy McClintock, are buried, see #17 of McClintocks in the section “Descendant Reports”], be reserved for George.945 Earlier, in April 1861, George W. McClintock sold some of his land to a John E. Elliott.946 The Central Petroleum Company of New York intensified drilling in the area, staked off streets, and leased lots for buildings. Before long the farm was transformed into a booming, rollicking oil town called Petroleum Centre, with at one time a population of over 3000. This boom town reputedly rivaled Pithole for wickedness. In fact, Coal Oil Johnny (see below), who would have known, claimed that Petroleum Centre “for unadulterated wickedness … eclipsed any town I had ever favored.”947 Unlike most boom towns, Petroleum Centre remains today as a small hamlet. Part of George McClintock’s farm encompassed a circular ravine, about three–fourth of a mile long, called Wildcat Hollow, having at one time over two hundred wells.948 Henry (1873), page 103, states that every square rod of the Wildcat Hollow area of McClintock’s farm was at one time perforated with a well hole, and suggests that three million dollars must have been taken from this area.
Large flowing wells were brought in on Hamilton [Jr.] and John McClintock's farms. In fact, the third well drilled in the valley (the first was the Drake and the second was also in the Watson Flats area) was at the site of Hamilton's spring in the middle of Oil Creek.949
This well, as were many wells on the McClintock property in 1860, was “kicked–down.”950 This primitive drilling method and variations of it were slow but, except for labor, cost little. Most of the early oil books about Oil Creek mention the procedure.951 The butt end of a pole of green wood, perhaps a half to three–quarters of a foot in diameter, was attached to the ground. About a quarter of the way out from the attached end, the pole was suspended over a fulcrum. Near the pole’s far end, the drilling tools were attached. Also attached to the free end were two stirrups. Two men did the drilling by each placing a foot in a stirrup and pulling, or kicking down. When their feet were raised, the pole, and hence drilling tool, sprung back; and so it went, hour after hour, day after day. Two men with lots of stamina might average about three feet a day.
The Tarr and Story Farms
Two of the biggest producing flowing well in Oil Creek valley were the Philips No. #2 (reported to have flowed over 3000 barrels a day for several months) and the Wolford on the Tarr Farm952 (Map 3). This James Tarr was the second husband of Elizabeth (McClintock) McClelland (#71 of “McClintocks”), a daughter of Hamilton and Mary (Culbertson) McClintock. How James Tarr came into possession of the farm has been dealt with in the McClintock section, under Elizabeth McClintock. In short the famous Tarr Farm was not part of Tarr property purchased by James Tarr from James Tarr’s father or other relatives—the Tarr’s properties were mainly in Cherrytree Township. Indeed, James Tarr did not even purchase the land that became known as the Tarr Farm. It was purchased from William Story by James Tarr’s wife, Elizabeth (McClintock) McClelland Tarr, in 1860.953 Elizabeth purchased it for a modest sum considering this was at the start of the oil excitement, apparently as part of an arrangement made several years earlier and probably related to Elizabeth and first husband Francis R. McClelland (who had previously occupied the farm) having issue, Mary A. McClelland. (Francis’s mother was Jane Story McClelland, a sister to William Story.
James Tarr perhaps made more money from his royalties than any other farmer in the valley. James Tarr, instead of immediately selling out to oil concerns [perhaps he could not even if he wanted to because the farm’s deed was in the name of his wife Elizabeth (McClintock) McClelland Tarr] leased the farm to many oil speculators—some are mentioned in the McClintock section, under Elizabeth McClintock. Perhaps the Tarrs had learned from the circumstances of their neighbors, the Storys, see next. Compared to oil deeds of some of the other Oil Creek property owners, especially at the beginning of the oil excitement of the 1860s, the Tarr deeds seem especially detailed and explicit as to what was expected. Here is an example:
Venango County Deed Book T, page 640, instituted 10 August 1861, recorded 15 August 1851 (FHL film #864551):[In this deed, James and Elizabeth Tarr leased their 195 acres to Herman James of Erie, Pennsylvania; the punctuation is mine, the deed had no punctuation] … assigns the sum of Twenty Thousand Dollars in manner following: that is to say, Five Thousand Dollars in hand at the execution of these presents, One Thousand Dollars on the fifteenth day of September next ensuing the date hereof, and One Thousand Dollars on the fifteenth day of each month thereafter until the full amount of twenty thousand dollars aforesaid shall be paid, the deferred payments to bear interest from the date hereof and is to be secured by judgment bind? [bond] and the first Five Thousand Dollars of the deferred payments to be additionally secured by mortgage of one undivided half of six thousand two hundred acres of land in Michigan and the second Five Thousand Dollars of deferred payments to be secured additionally by mortgage of six hundred and thirty seven acres of land in South Valley township, Cattaraugas County, New York. It is further agreed that no well shall be burned [or buried?] or oil stored on the said land within five perches of the house and barn of the parties of the first part [James and Elizabeth Tarr] without their consent. And it is further agreed that if any controversy or litigation shall arise between the said parties of the first part and any of their lessees in consequence of any leases that have been made the said Herman James shall become party thereto and shall pay one half of all expenses attending such litigation. And the said Herman James further agrees to pay one–half of all taxes that shall hereafter be assessed on the said tract of land or so much thereof as shall yield oil assessed separately. In testimony whereof the said parties have hereunto set their hands and seals the day and year first above written.
Attest
James Tarr
Elizabeth Tarr
Herman James
The words “assessed separately” underlined before signing.
A. McCalmont
C. Heydrick, Witnesses.
In 1865, the Tarrs did sell the farm and eventually retire to Meadville after they had reputedly accumulated about five million dollars from oil royalties alone.954
Dolson (1959), pages 25–26, has this to say about James Tarr (the time is August 1859, shortly after Drake brought in his well on upper Oil Creek):
The head sawyer looked thoughtfully at the vanishing rear end of his employer’s horse, then called the tail sawyer, a lusty, loud–voiced, bull–necked young fellow named James Tarr, and told him to look after the mill. Then he too leaped onto a horse and went off, to get two leases of his own by sundown.
The tail sawyer, James Tarr, went back into the mill and cheerfully oiled the circular saw. He owned two hundred acres on the creek, so poor for farming that he’d taken the job at the mill to help eke out a living for himself and his wife and child. Within three years, he would eke out gold the equivalent of two million dollars from leases and outright sales of his land, and at the most conservative estimate, another million in royalties. When he took his daughter to a fancy finishing school to enroll her, the headmistress murmured snobbishly that she was afraid the girl didn’t have the capacity. James Tarr pulled out a roll of bills as thick as his neck, and roared, “Then buy her some.”Of course by 1859 James and Elizabeth Tarr had more than one child; indeed all of James’s children except James B. Tarr were born by that time, including three daughters and a step–daughter. Ruth Ellen Tarr Hurst in her 11 August 1997 letter to me relates a variation of the above story, which also appeared in early papers: “The principal of the school expressing a fear that the girl had not ‘capacity’ the fond father profoundly ignorant of what was meant drew a roll of greenbacks from his pocket and exclaimed ‘damn it, that’s nothing,’ buy her one and here’s the stuff to pay for it!” Regardless of the particulars, a good story it is. Too bad McLaurin (1902), page 139, had this to say: “The fact that it is pure fiction may detract somewhat from the piquancy of the incident.”
Regardless, ridicule, derision or at best condescension by the privileged rank was undoubtedly the fate of many of the uneducated Oil Creek farmers who struck it rich. I am sure that James Tarr, who, with his native cognitive abilities, honed from necessity and appearing to have outmaneuvered the slickest of the oil entrepreneurs, “cried all the way to the bank.”
The famous Tarr farm was originally part of the homestead of James Story (Map 3). James Story died intestate in 1805, and his heirs could not agree on partitioning the farm. An 1820 document listing children of James Story is of historical interest as it relates to how the oil–rich land of James Story was subsequently to be sold, especially the part that became the famous Tarr Farm.
Venango County, Pennsylvania, Orphans Court, Docket 1, 1820, page 23:955
Estate of James Story, Decd of Sugar Creek [present–day Cornplanter] Township, Venango County. The Petition of Robert Story, eldest son of James Story of Sugar Creek Township, Deceased, humbly shewith that your petitioners said Father died Intestate about the 10th day of June 1805 leaving a widow named Jane (June?) since intermarried with Peter Raw [could this be Rowe?] and issue four children, to wit your petitioner, William Story, Jane intermarried with George McClelland, and Elizabeth, the last of whom is still in minority, and that the said Intestate died seised in his demesne as of fee of and in a certain messuage plantation and tract of land situated in the Township aforesaid bounded by lands of Francis McClintock and others containing about 400 acres more or less with the appurtenances.
Your petitioner therefore prays your Honors to award an Inquest to make partition of the premises aforesaid to and among the children and representatives of said Intestate in such a manner and in such proportions as by law of this Commonwealth is directed of such partition can be made without prejudice to or spoiling the whole, but if such partition cannot be made thereof as aforesaid then to value and appraise the same, and further to inquire and ascertain whether the said Estate with the appurtenances will conveniently accommodate more than one of the children of the said intestate and if so, how many of the said children it will conveniently accommodate and make report of their proceedings to the next Orphans Court. And your petitioner will ever Pray etc
Robert Story
May 23rd 1820. Prayer of the petitioner Granted and Inquest awarded.
___ Issued to Shff. ___ 4th Monday of Augst. A. M. McCalmont.
Inquisition indented and taken at the dwelling House of James Story deceased in the Township of Sugar Creek, Venango County before A. Bowman high Shff of said county by twelve good and lawful men of his Bailwick who ____ upon their solemn Oaths respectively do say that the lands and tenements above mentioned could not be parted and divided to and among the widow and all the children in the said unit [?] named without prejudice to or spoiling of the whole thereof. Therefore do value and appraise the same at $1150.
From an 1843 Venango County Orphans Court document,956 we know that son William Story (#3 of “Storys of Cornplanter Township”) “by purchase and conveyance from his brother Robert” subsequently came into possession of the Story farm, to become one of the most productive oil regions along Oil Creek. At the beginning of the oil excitement in late 1859, William Story sold most of the farm, except for the part on the east side of Oil Creek, which was sold in 1860, apparently by prior arrangements to Elizabeth (McClintock) McClelland.957 The 1859 transaction involved a group of speculators from Pittsburgh who bought the farm for $30,000 and “some other contingent benefits.”958 In the early 1860s, the farm was organized into the Columbia Oil Company and since then the farm has been known by this name instead of the Story Farm. In 1860, as mentioned above, William Story sold, by prior agreement, the land on the east side of Oil Creek to Elizabeth (McClintock) McClelland Tarr.
The 1859 transaction was the subject of much litigation, and the Storys eventually succeeded in obtaining a judgment for about $20,000 against the property.959 The tale of how the Pittsburghers succeeded and George H. Bissell failed in obtaining the farm is reported in at least two of the books on the early oil excitement.960 Apparently Bissell got to the farm first and was willing to pay all the owner asked; but William’s wife [Margaret], who Dolson unkindly called the “farmer’s dumpy little wife,” refused to sign the contract. The agent for the Pittsburgh group, Ritchie, Hartje and Company,961 then induced her to sign with the promise of a new silk dress! McLaurin (1902), page 138, quipped, “The long–haired novelist, who soars into the infinite and dives into the unfathomable, may try to imagine what the addition of a new bonnet would have accomplished.” But is it a true story? We will probably never know. The Story Farm did prove to be very productive oil territory. During the last 6 months of 1863 alone, the Columbia Oil Company paid $300,000 in dividends to its stockholders.962 To add to this sad tale, as far as the Story family is concerned, James Story (William's father) drowned in the Allegheny River in 1805. William and Margaret Story removed to Ashtabula County, Ohio, where they are buried. 963
The heirs of William Story’s sister Elizabeth (Story) McCray, who died in 1841, sold their 169 acres share of the Story tract in Cornplanter Township in 1864 for $169,000.964 Heirs mentioned were William J. McCray, Nancy McCray, Mary E. McCray, John Wilson and Margaret his wife, Gilson Eakins and Isabella his wife, and Rachel McCray.
Chronologically the events leading up to the famous Tarr Farm, with sources cited elsewhere in this section and in the McClintock section, were
Before 1805
James Story settled on lower Oil Creek in Venango County. I do not know if his land was a Holland Land Company purchase.
1805
James Story died intestate (drowned in the Allegheny River), leaving a widow, Jane, and children Robert, William, Jane and Elizabeth. By 1820, daughter Jane had married George McClelland.
1820
The heirs of James Story petitioned the court to decide whether it was feasible to partition the land among the heirs without prejudice to or spoiling the whole. The Inquest ruled that the farm could not be partitioned without spoiling the whole.
1843
In January, the will of Jane Story, widow of James, was recorded. She left her part of the farm to her grandson Francis R. McClelland, a son of her daughter Jane (Story) McClelland. This part was on the east side of Oil Creek.
1843
By June, Jane’s son William Story had purchased his brother’s (Robert) share of the farm, and Francis R. McClelland agreed to release any and all rights that he held to the farm by virtue of the last will of Jane Story.
1844
Elizabeth McClintock married Francis McClelland in July 1844, and they resided on the part of the farm left to Francis by his grandmother but which Francis had released rights to in 1843.
1847–49
Francis and Elizabeth (McClintock) McClelland had issue, Mary A. McClelland.
1849–50
Francis McClelland apparently died.
1851
Elizabeth (McClintock) McClelland married James Tarr, 18 September 1851.
1854
On 10 March 1854, Samuel M. Irwin surveyed for Elizabeth McClelland Tarr the 198 acres of land on the east side of Oil Creek, owned now by William Story, formerly occupied by Francis and Elizabeth McClelland and now occupied by James and Elizabeth McClelland Tarr.
1859
Late in 1859, after the start of the oil excitement, William Story sold most of the farm; that is, the part on the west side of Oil Creek, to oil speculators. That part of the farm was eventually owned by the Columbia Oil Company.
1860>
On 3 April 1860, for $200, Elizabeth (McClintock) McClelland Tarr purchased the 198 tract of land on the east side of Oil Creek from William Story and his wife Margaret. The transaction was recorded 9 June 1860. This tract was to become the famous Tarr Farm.
The Hyde and Egbert Farm
Another child of Hamilton and Mary (Culbertson) McClintock associated with a famous oil region of Oil Creek was Ann McClintock (1802–1869). She married Moses Davidson. The youngest of their two sons was Alexander Davidson (1834–1900).
There are several, almost identical accounts of how the lucrative Alexander Davidson property ended up as the Hyde and Egbert Farm965 (see Map 3). The accounts, however, do not tally with known dates, names and documents. But first a synopsis of these accounts: Two Egbert brothers put a down payment on the Alexander Davidson Farm in 1860.966 The farm was located “just across the creek from Petroleum Centre.” Although Alexander initially accepted the contract, he then rejected it, and a new contract was drawn up. Alexander died soon after this,967 but Alexander’s wife (according to Dolson, 1959, page 136) or Mrs. Davidson (according to Asbury, 1942, page 108, and McLaurin, 1902, page 132—the connotation being, at least to me, that she was Alexander’s wife) maintained she did not sign the contract and contested the sale. She eventually signed the deed in the spring of 1862, receiving a one–twelfth royalty for the oil on the 38 acre farm, which McLaurin (1902), page 132, called “… a triangular speck on the map, consisted of a mud flat, a smaller portion of rising ground and the remainder set edgewise.”
The problem is that Alexander Davidson, who became wealthy from oil produced on this property, did not marry until 1862 and did not die until 1900, moving eventually to Williamsport, Pennsylvania.968 In 1860, Alexander (age 26) was enumerated in Cherrytree Township969 as head of the household with his mother, Ann (McClintock) Davidson (age 57), and two of Alexander’s sisters, Mary (age 25) and Nancy J. (age 18). Egbert could not have possibly contracted to buy the farm from Alexander’s parents, Moses and Ann Davidson, at least for oil developments, because Moses died February 1858, before the oil excitement.
There was another, earlier Alexander Davidson of Cherrytree Township, who came to Venango County prior to 1801;970 was on the 1805 tax list for Sugarcreek Township971 (Sugarcreek Township at that time included Cherrytree, Cornplanter and other present–day townships), and in 1818 was on the tax list for Cherrytree Township.972 In 1850, he was enumerated in Cherrytree Township (age 86) with Mary Irwin (age 52), Catherine McFadden (age 23) and Mary Jane McFadden (age one day).973 This Alexander Davidson was born near Philadelphia in 1760; married 8 May 1794 Miss Sarah Davidson who was born 1772; they had eight children, one being Andrew. Alexander died in 1854 or 1855.974 This Alexander Davidson left a will975 mentioning son Andrew and daughters Polly Irwin, Betsey Wilson, Rebecca Neill,976 Nancy Davidson,977 and Jane Davidson. Perhaps this early, Cherrytree Alexander Davidson was the father of Moses Davidson and hence grandfather of Alexander born circa 1834.An account that correlates with known dates, names and documents goes like this. In 1857, a few year before the oil excitement, George Washington and Angeline McClintock sold 19 acres and 71 perches of land, part of tract 244, in Cornplanter Township for $160 to Alexander Davidson,978 son of Moses and Ann (McClintock) Davidson. In February 1858, Alexander’s father, Moses Davidson, died, leaving a widow, Ann Davidson. In 1860, Alexander purchased another 19 acres of land bordering on this tract; this from William and Margaret Story.979 The total tract of 38 acres 41 perches was to become the famous Hyde and Egbert Farm. Incidentally, William and Margaret Story sold the approximate 19 acres of land to Alexander the same day they sold 198 acres of land to Elizabeth McClintock McClelland Tarr, land that was to become the even more famous Tarr Farm.
In 1860, “Alexander Davidson and Ann Davidson his mother” agreed to sell the 38 acres and 41 perches of land to A. G. Egbert.980 Subsequently, Alexander and Ann Davidson wished to divide and settle their joint interest in the contract with Egbert and “they agree to bind themselves … shall be equal in all their money in all the oil and all profits arising . . .”981 This agreement was possibly the result of Alexander’s mother (not Alexander’s wife) refusing to sign the initial contract. In 1863 (by which time Alexander had married) Alexander, his wife Phoebe [Morgan], and his mother, Ann, sold the 39 acres and 41 perches, “being the whole of two purchases of Alexander Davidson,” to A. G. Egbert for $2,625 and one–twelfth of the oil found.982 Egbert, apparently sometime between the 1860 and 1863 contracts, sold a half interest in the farm and a one–half interest in the oil to Charles Hyde.983
In December 1863, Ann Davidson and Alexander Davidson quit claimed to J. W. Sherman for $20,000 the remainder of their interest in the farm sold to Hyde and Egbert. In short, Alexander and Ann Davidson’s one–twelfth interest in the oil went to J. W. Sherman.984 The lucrative Maple Shade Well was specifically mentioned in this deed.
Hyde and Egbert’s 1860s oil developments turned the small 38 acre tract into one of the most lucrative regions on Oil Creek. For its size, the Davidson Farm, or Hyde and Egbert Farm, was perhaps the most lucrative in Oil Creek valley. Two of the famous flowing wells were the Coquette, flowing over a 1000 barrels a day when oil was struck in the spring of 1864, and the Maple Shade, also flowing over 1000 barrels a day in August 1863.985 According to Henry (1873), page 356: “The fabulous product of this farm, gave it a world–wide notoriety, and brought untold wealth to its fortunate owners.”