Hi Everybody: Here's a little bit more: Fascinating Stories from Earliest Settlers. Reminiscense of 1797. A correspondent of the Meadville Republican, whom we imagine to be the venerable John Reymolds of that city, furnishes the following information with regard to the valley of Oil Creek, as it appeared nearly four-score years ago: (published in 1959). Seventy three years have marked the dial plate of time since I first saw the valley of Oil Creek. Jonathan Titus, then a young man, has the same year settled on the tract of land now covered by the city of Titusville. What was it then? A beautiful plat covered with hazel and ground oak shrubbery, with scattered clumps of white oak trees, giving a parklike semblance. The distant hill-sides were covered with oak, interspersed with pine and hemlock. Mr. Titus had erected a small log house on the second elevation from the creek, and near to a beautiful gushing spring of excellent water sufficient to drive a grist mill, and to supply a breakfast of trout: with which excellent fish all the rivulets of this region then abounded. This year the Holland Land Company erected the first saw mill in the valley of Oil Creek. It was on the east branch, a mile above the forks. Samuel Kerr was manager for the company, and also their surveyor, to show land and lines to settlers. Francis McClintock the same year settled on the tract whereon Petroleum Centre is now located, and below him in the valley, James Story, Francis Buchanan, Hamilton McClintock and Nathaniel Carey. There were all, who in my remembrance were settled on the waters of Oil Creek in 1779. >From time to time a former resident would return to Titusville during the oil boom, drop in at the Herald office and talk enough for a little item. In this way, on Aug 24 1887, we get a look at the year 1817: THEN AND NOW - Mr. Robert Stewart, of St. Charles, Minn., is sojourning a few days with his relative, Mr. G.S. Stewart. His first visit to this region was fifty years ago, when he resided at Conneaut lake. There were then but five or six houses in this settlement. Joseph L. Chase kept the "store" and the population of the entire region earned their bread by lumbering. Forty years ago Mr. Robert Stewart discovered an oil spring on the Allegheny river, two miles from the mouth of the creek, and forth with purchased a tract of land containing 400 acres (including the spring) for ten cents per acre. The supply oil from the spring was about one barrel per week. It was procured by saturating blankets and then wringing out the oil. This line of business was extensively followed by settlers along the creek, and was as remunerative as any other employment. The crude oil was conveyed down the Allegheny to Pittsburgh and other points, where it was purchased by druggists for $1.25 per gallon. Mr. Stewart operated his spring for two years and then sold his land for fifteen cents per acre. It must be interesting to such a one to note the changes which the interval has produced; to find that an insignificant settlement has expanded into a populous and enterprising city, and that the surrounding wilderness, then the hunting grounds of the savage, bears everywhere today the improvements of modern civilization. To be continued Bev