"I was a valet to horses with the rank of private when General Lee surrendered to General Grant”
The war between the states had broken out and, putting aside his dreams of riches, Lyman Stewart joined a group of volunteers from the valley and enlisted in the 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry. He spent most of the next four years as "a valet to horses with the rank of private.” He often said that his only claim to military distinction was that "my unit was at Appomattox Courthouse when General Lee surrendered to General Grant, ending the war.” When he returned to the Venango Valley in 1865, Stewart found his village of Titusville had grown from 400 to over 6 , 000 . Lacking capital, he enrolled for a hurry-up commercial course at Eastman’s Business College, at Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Within six months he managed to digest the course. Returning to the valley, he opened an office at Pioneer Run, not far from Titusville, buying and selling oil leases. His boyhood experi ence of tramping over the hills collecting hides and delivering leather for his father’s tannery now became an unexpected asset. Undoubtedly Lyman Stewart knew the valley better than any other operator. His lot now took a turn for the better. Hardly had he opened the office when a boom hit Pioneer Run. Speculators, promoters, financiers and drillers arrived in large numbers. Lyman Stewart was ready for them. Negotiating leases with the farmers, he began to make money. He started to buy 1/ 64th interest in wells that were producing, thereby spreading his meager capital over a maxi mum of chances. Later he was able to increase this to 1/3 2nd and eventually to l / 8 th. Lyman was joined in the oil business by his brother Milton. Milton wasn’t a good mixer and preferred to handle the financial and refining end while Lyman got out into the field. He never seemed to have any trouble commanding the re spect of the toughest worker or most foul- mouthed promoter. The Christian character and testimony of the Stewarts so impressed an oil producer by the name of Frank W. Andrews that he asked the brothers to join him in his new Claremont Oil Company at Petroleum Center. As one of the eight partners, Lyman Stewart made a substantial fortune from the transaction. A short time later Andrews came to the Stewart brothers with the proposition that
a lease on the John Benninghoff farm. I calculate there’s oil under those rolling knolls.” Oil. Now Lyman’s father knew what had gotten into his son. The peaceful Venango Valley in Western Pennsylvania in this year of 1859 was undergoing a transformation. The Seneca Oil Company’s Edwin L. Drake, working with the local blacksmith, had rigged up a drilling outfit and had started prospecting for oil. The operation was known locally as "Drake’s Folly.” At 69 /z feet Drake hit oil. It was the world’s first oil well. Now the elder Stewart could see the rock-hard determination in the set of his son’s shoulders. "Lyman,” the father’s voice was gentle but in his eyes the hurt was still painfully there. "You’re a God-fearing young man. Perhaps this new voca tion is God’s will. May He prosper you accord ingly.” To Lyman Stewart the words of his father were like a benediction and entirely fitting for a man with his faith. The Stewarts were sincere adher ents of the Presbyterian church. Every evening Lyman’s mother read the Bible aloud and the seven children took part in the family prayers that ended each day. Lyman’s father helped to raise funds for the first Presbyterian church erected in their area and he occasionally preached the sermon when the weather delayed the circuit riding pastor. Young Stewart exchanged his $125 for the desired lease but failed in his attempt to raise enough money to drill a well. Six years later others drilled on the Benninghoff farm and struck the first 300-barrels-per-day well in the nation. Lyman Stewart had lost the possibility of a for tune in his first oil venture. He soon saved up enough for a second try. He and several partners leased the Boyd farm near Petroleum Center. This time, profiting from experience, the partners saved enough money to drill a well. Their first well was a producer, but just as it came in several new wells by other drillers came in, producing more oil than the market could handle. The price of oil fell so low that Stewart and his partners could not afford to pump the oil. Again Stewart had to call it quits. Later the Boyd farm became one of the valley’s richest producers.
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