Show ic COAL L oil 1011 CAP CAREER EER RECALLED AFTER OVER afi THIRTY YEARS I 1 still living I and 1 I 1 rojo ying I 1 11 ito lii lit a ien ren ible le and comfortable manner in voluntary depoole dran lt in lit a 11 ink mel hll ion from rum lo coverty verty FOLKS FOND of instructive sto ries with moral endings h hive hie ie taken much comfort out J f afi iff of the supposed 1 l fy death in abject pov ia erty of th thit it model i 1 l r ii I 1 coal oil L 1 johnny such 11 finale being what one would naturally expect fiam the pyrotechnic career of gerni pernicious cious activity which made him caious fotous ta ious dut but the inevitable order of the V fitness 1 of thinea Is out of joint again i as asuat coal oil johnny la is not as Is 1 popularly supposed dead and burled buried abut ut alive alle in pretty good condition phy si cally 11 and in quite comfortable cir and shocking ing as it ma ato those accustomed to holding him jup up as a horrid warning to the young the fact seems beyond dispute that coal LOII oil johnnys good plight ton n day y Is the direct result of hia his having I 1 tin a reckless rech less irresponsible drunken spendthrift when young ailin I 1 in december 1857 william mcclan t k owner of an almost worthless orth less little t II 11 farm on oil creek in franklin coun A i taji pennsylvania accompanied by his iw iotte tte vent ment to tho the county poorhouse to vp paek k a boy for adoption as they had al at thready adopted from the sime tinn a daughter they selected a lad 12 years old to whom the name of njohn steel had been attached though aw trew he got it docs does not appear in the eCA eckord ord A little more than a year later farmer died le iving all his small t f to his widow and she im sed by his sudden demise with a v sense of the in Inie curit of life alet alt att t mide her will III she ba ut to her adopted daughter b an was as her favorite the sum of 2 1 to total 0 ta 1 6 sum um she and her husband t lifetime of frugality and toll mand tima to save sae to the boy john steele I 1 ra left the farm which was possibly th a couple of hundred dollars at 1 t time within a few months after I 1 execution of that instrument on 19 28 1859 Colont 1 drake struck oil I 1 the first bored well which was on mcclintock farm I 1 ol 01 I 1 inel net drake leased one eighth of an e from the widow mcclintock tor for w ch ell she received one halt of the yield he lie well that contract was made avance id vance when nobody had in idea hat a well might yield and neither i to it had any monopoly of amaze d t t when hundreds of barrels of peum per diem were realized zed ver dlly dily the farm was leased out in one th ot of an acre patches and dotted iver ver with wells the widow was in lat of thousands of barrels of oil y day for which she found reida reid re id at from 12 to 15 per birrel and y sums of monay she handled wore were ter than she had ever ener before beed d existed As she had no confidence lanks anks sho she sent down to pittsburg for wats g safe which she crammed full of e ey and bonds life was as such an ting whirl of astonishing experience ler er that she forgot all about the will that death may come as denly enly t to a rich widow as to a poor farmer had aie st not done so it ib probable pro bible that the contents of more than one big pigeon ho e in the big safe would have b en added to the adopted daughter a share one evening in march larch john steele who nho had hid been with a team oil returned home and found the hoube in ashes the chirred bones of the widow picked out of the julns it was supposed that she had set herself blazing and then the house b bv aa using petroleum to the kitchen hitchen fire As john steele h hid td been legibly adopted ho he was nas the natural heir to the contents of the big safe and the river of revenue from the oil producing farm his possession of which i is further fortified by the widow a will made before the change in her fortune this sudden acquisition of enormous wealth turned his heid not all at once but sp edily he wished to find in enjoyment of 0 it an intensified consciousness of its reality but ivas nas too ignorant to do so in any intelligent wa dav he lie married the daughter laughter of one of his ills Nor workmen kmen and bhe fhe taught him to m write rite his name in a laborious mechanical way and that was all he ever of the art and mystery of letters she tried to keep him straight but he knew too little to comprehend self respect felt hirn higi self too rich to be trammeled by conven or to care for the opinion of others and thirsted for a riotous excess of sensuous gratification the highest pleasure sure he was capable of suddenly his ae alth came to an end he ile had succeeded in squandering even more than his vast ast income and was in debt of course he had beu be u alund red mercilessly right and left but had literally thrown away several fortunes and creditors scenting bla his downfall were pressing him ho lie mortgaged the farm for a I birge irge sum and plunged afresh into even wilder extravagance and more reckless dissipation than before but with less to go upon and thi the end came quickly ills in d career was over after a short time of abject destitution in which he was deserted by all who had bail upon him he went to work driving the girard house stage in which guests were carried to and from the railroad depots soon he wearied of that and some one paid his fare back balk to oil creek where he obtained employment as a freight handler at the depot lu in which capacity h earned 25 i 1 month 1 1 I hat was not enough to support himself ind his family and there was nothing more re mune ratie that he could find flud there to do his ills wife raise J by the eale sale of her jewels a sum tor for the transportation por tation of the family out to nebraska and in lincoln coal cal oil johnny seti settled t I 1 down they were verv ver poor but managed somehow to livo liv tor for johnny waa was a willing worker at any labor he could procure realizing the e evil eil il fortune of such limitation aa as had been put upon hia his capacities by big Igno ignorance ig nonnce rince he took cae ca e thit that his son a bright lad should re he ie as good an education aa as waa was a 11 under the existing circumstances when the boy was old enough he obtained employ ment as a ticket and freight agent at the ahland neb rail rall road station and there his father coal oil dolinny that was aas plain john steele as everybody about there knows him steidl sten dlly and patiently for the railroad company compan under the son a direction handling freight taking ciro care of the station and so on and he is a hale hearty and well ell breser preserved ed man apparently about 53 sears bears of age seemingly well contented but he is by no meana means dependent now upon hia his labor for the 11 of his family or upon his ills anti industrious dust rious son at a time when lit hie situation seemed most lul t rable and his prospects least hopeful while he wag still seeking a days work ork at any hard labor in lincoln fortune again smiled upon him a gleam of his ills old luck gilded his hi life once legain in some way ay the directors direct oia ois of a phila delphia bank in which bo he h id td made an all informal deposit thirty 4 ira irs before learned of the unhappy con altion of the steele family away out ii nebraska of the reformation tn in coal oil johnny 8 habits and the danl manly kle gle he uns tr ing to nake for the post put having assured them themselves selNes of the iden of their erratic depositor they made up his account an ani I 1 forwarded ded to him the sum left in their charge h irge with ith int erbst from the date clate of its deposit how much it was aas la Is known only to those concerned but it Is believed to havo have been somewhere abut probably more rather than less NN ith that money of choice farming land near ashland were purchased and a good house erected with barns out houses excellent fence etc there mra mrs steele Is in control and it if the bad ide idea i should occur to johnny of an experimental peri mental return to the tumultuous delights of earlier days it is 13 not probable that he would be able to prejudice the family Inte interest reet in that thit farm B but lit there are no fears of his doing so I 1 le lias hag proved hini himself gelt a man not mer merely e ay a warning |