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TALES OF A WESTERN NEW YORK BOOM TOWN By Constance Taylor Williams As I sit here under the canopy of the RV parked atop Richburg Hill, lean back in my canvas chair and look out over the valley, I feel very insignificant. It's as if I am one with the trees and the hills surrounding me. It's wonderfully quiet and peaceful here on my now-private summit, and so very beautiful. One can see for miles in three directions. The only activity -aside from the butterflies bouncing from buttercup to buttercup across the meadow and the deer flies buzzing over my head -is a tractor off in a distant valley, silently pulling a hay wagon. Horses in a field far to the south appear unmoving because of their distance. I close my eyes and try to recall what it looked like fifty years ago, when I was a child growing up in that distant valley where horses now graze. It seems so long ago that we lived in Allentown and yet, not long ago at all... ... As a little girl I was fascinated by the constant activity on the hillsides near where I now sit in near-silent solitude. There were always people -men, mostly. The hills for miles around were peppered with powerhouses from which rod lines protruded in several directions. They bounced up and down as they tugged at the pumping jacks which brought the "Pennsylvania crude" nearer the surface so it could flow through pipes to collection tanks. I always sort of resented the term "Pennsylvania crude." We were New Yorkers! Pennsylvania was all the way the other side of Alma, where my Dad and both of his parents were born and various aunts, uncles and cousins by the dozens still lived. Great Grandpa Julius Caesar Quick's big Victorian house with its wrap-around porches and beautiful, ornate chestnut woodwork was built at the very top of Alma Hill and I'm told it was the site of many a "shindig" on the Fourth of July for at least two generations... ...people came from miles around to play “town team” baseball and sample the homemade ice cream which Grandma Agnes made using packing ice from the bear cave in the woods. The children were allowed to take turns cranking the ice cream machine by hand [and considered it a privilege] The oil from the leases which my father worked was stored in the tanks until "tankers" (trucks) came to pick it up and transport it to the refinery seven or so miles away in Wellsville. At the foot of Norton Summit -on what is still called Yaeger Road for a family long gone -was a tank farm, from which oil from other leases was collected and pumped through pipelines directly to the refinery. The pressure plant, where Grandpa Taylor spent part of each day -except Sunday when he strictly kept the Sabbath - polishing equipment until it shone, contained powerful machines which were seldom idle. The "BOOM, boom, boom, boom, BOOM, boom, boom, boom" which the engines emitted, continued day and night. My grandparents lived next door to the pressure plant on Phillips Hill and my brother and I loved to stay overnight at their house. We'd sleep on the pulled-out studio couch in the parlor, under Grandma's homemade scrap quilts, and be lulled to sleep by the rhythmic booming from the pressure plant. Three generations of men in my father's family were drillers and pumpers, although Dad was a "roust-about" and a "tool dresser" as a young adult. Each day the pumpers would start the noisy gas engines in the powerhouses, walk the miles of rod line trails and periodically make their way to a collection tank, where they would climb to the top, open the hatch and measure the depth of the thick black liquid within. One had to take a deep breath of fresh air before opening the hatch as it was easy to be overcome by fumes. Occasionally the gas or oil would catch fire and the volunteer firemen would have to come and put it out. (Most of the men in town were volunteer firemen. ) Once I asked my grandmother why Grandpa's feet were so peculiar... ..he wore specially-made black shoes and his toes "weren't right." She told me that nobody talked about it anymore, but that Grandpa had to jump from the top of a big tank one day, as the oil and gas under him had caught fire. I thought that sounded exciting! Little did I realize at the time how Grandpa must have suffered that day and for many days thereafter as he did his work. It seems to me that Grandpa always carried something over his shoulder as he climbed the hill to the powerhouse -sometimes a huge pipe wrench, but more often a scythe. The scythe served more than one purpose. It was used mostly to keep the grass and weeds trimmed under the rod lines and around the powerhouses; it also served as a weapon if one of the "spotted adders," which often sunned themselves around the engines' exhaust pipes, decided to be aggressive. {Those spotted adders were bad news! Sometimes the boys would climb up the hill behind the Allentown School during lunch recess, catch one, and chase the screaming girls with it until a teacher or Nate {Swarthout) or Lyle {Ellsworth), our school "janitors" (they were more than that!) came to the rescue. ...(but that's another story!) Between our house on Allen Street and our neighbors' was a pumping jack, which squeakily pumped oil from morning until night. There were jacks everywhere in our town. There was even one in the middle of the school's baseball diamond, surrounded by a picket fence. There were special rules which applied if anyone had the good fortune ( or misfortune, if on the defending team) of hitting the ball inside the fence. The batter was only allowed to go as far as second base, while one of the poor unfortunates in the field climbed the fence and retrieved the oily ball. Drilling rigs -sometimes referred to as "standards" or "derricks" -dotted the hillside between the powerhouses. A rig was typically 24 feet across at it’s base, tapering considerably at the top, and 72 feet high. (I checked this out with my Dad!) Drilling was dangerous and hard work, especially so in the winter. I've heard Dad tell about the daily climb up one of the steep slopes near our house through chest-deep snow, to the rig where he would begin the midnight 'til eight shift. He would dry out his frozen clothing in the warmth of the rig as he worked. In those days he was a "tool-dresser" -low man in the chain of command. One of his jobs was to keep the bits hammered out so that a sharp one was always ready. Shouting above the clang on the metal and the noise of the engine, the driller would, from time to time demand a change of bits, whereupon the string of pipe would be raised from the drilling hole, the bit changed, and the operation continued. Occasionally the cables would break or some other calamity would arise which would necessitate having one of the men climb the 72 feet to the top of the rig to make the necessary repairs. During freezing western New York winters, this was an extremely dangerous task, but Dad apparently never had a major catastrophy -at least not any that he told us about! He said each man was allowed only one such catastrophy, and he didn't want to use up his allotment. I recall once when curiosity overcame my fear of punishment and I bravely ventured inside a rig when Dad was drilling. It was incredibly dirty and noisy, as the metal bit was pounded deeper and deeper into the ground in search of the oil. From time to time as the hole filled with water, the "tools" would be pulled up and out, swung aside, and a bailer attached. The bailer would then be lowered down into the hole, allowed to fill with "sand pumpings," again raised to the surface, swung outside and dumped on the ground. The sand pumpings were a smelly mixture of oil, clay, sand and water and usually were a grayish color. As children we loved to play in the sand pumpings on the hill behind Clevelands' house if we could do so undetected. We made mud pies and even pottery-like baskets and bowls, which we'd hide somewhere so they'd bake in the sun. I recently talked about my early potter's experience with a petroleum engineer acquaintance who worked for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. He exclaimed, in a horrified voice, "My gosh! Imagine the PCB exposure you all must have had!" Then I told him about my great grandfather, who worked all of his life in the oil fields and only retired from pumping at age 92 because his eyesight was starting to get a little fuzzy and he was finding it somewhat difficult to accurately read the pressure gauges. Perhaps Great Grandpa John would have lived longer had he not been exposed to all of those carcinogens?! There were other dangerous occupations in the oil fields, such as that of the "shooters," whose job it was to bring in the nitroglycerin. When a good well was drilled, a hole would be "shot" by lowering the nitro down into the hole and setting it off. The resulting explosion (which ideally wouldn't occur until the exactly planned moment) would create a pocket at the base of the hole, which would allow for much easier extraction. Needless to say, all shootings didn't go as planned, and lives were frequently snuffed out in accidents involving nitroglycerine. Before oil was discovered in the area in the late 1800's, logging and farming were the main sources of livelihood in Allegany County and its environs. Petroleum production here reached its peak between 1920 and 1940, when it was determined that water could be pumped into the wells, forcing the natural gas to exert pressure which would force the oil into underground "pools," from which it could more easily be pumped. This new "water flooding" practice resulted in a gigantic boom in oil production. One lease in the area produced over 1,000 barrels a day. It is said that wells were located almost every 300 feet (alternating lines of water wells and oil wells) over an area which extended for approximately ten miles in each direction. Our town in the valley was referred to as a “boom town” as I was growing up. As a child I thought the term was a reference to the sounds made by the powerhouses and pressure plants. There were several general stores in town, one owned by my maternal grandparents) a multitude of houses which varied in size and elegance, pipeline supply stores, saloons, and even an opera house. The small wooden schoolhouse rapidly filled to capacity and was replaced during the 1930s with a good sized two-story brick edifice with a large, well-equipped gymnasium/auditorium and a library. It was financed entirely by the villagers' oil money on a pay-as-you-go basis -no government funding! It remains today, with its big, old cast iron school bell still intact. Sadly, however, it is no longer used as a school, the last graduating class being in 1959. Today the children ride the school bus to Scio, a few miles away, where they sit in much larger classes and are taught by teachers who probably don't know a whole lot about drilling except what they've heard from their grandparents, or perhaps what they've read. Once each June those who graduated from, or attended, the brick school have a potluck supper in the basement of the Allentown United Methodist Church. They look at pictures and talk about the days when the creek was so full of oil that no self-respecting fish would be caught dead in it and when Allentown had a reputation for being a "real stinker."(Crude oil is rather odiferous!) Mostly, though, they reminisce about the days of the deer and the derricks. They talk, gratefully, about the days -not so long ago - when nearly everyone in town knew your name, your parents, what instrument you played in the school band which trekked up the hill to the cemetery every Memorial Day, and probably the month of your birthday. One couldn't misbehave too badly at school or on the way home because chances were great that Mom would already have had a report by the time you got there! I lean back in the chair and pick up the binoculars. In the distance I can make out two children, running toward a pond behind a red barn. One is dragging what appears to be a shovel, the other a homemade net. They're probably hoping to catch some pollywogs in the pond. Maybe they'll even shape some bowls out of the muddy clay soil.
Some things never change!
Copyright ©2003 Constance Taylor Williams (Constance Taylor Williams was born & raised in Allentown,NY. She has served actively in many Organizations and currently holds the office of Chaplain, NYS D.A.R. -- What's more, I am proud she's my sister and I wish she would write more articles like this one. 2005/rt/Webmaster) |