1865 PENNSYLVANIA OIL BOOM CORRESPONDENCE A rare and unusual correspondence on the settlement of America's largest oil boom town, Pithole, Pennsylvania where crude oil literally seeped from the ground and gushed from water wells in 1865. A fine correspondence from William H. Shelton, an ex-Union artillery officer who served at the battle of Gettysburg, moved to Pennsylvania in 1865, and settled in Pithole. He writes a very interesting 11 letter archive, totaling 66 pp., between Oct. 15, 1865 and Easter 1868, giving a vivid account of living in America's largest oil boom town as she grew and prospered. He then left the city as the wells began to dry up. Now a ghost town, Pithole is located in the Oil Creek region of western Pennsylvania and is now listed as a National Historic site. Life in Pithole was anything but boring. Shelton relates how the city's buildings popped up overnight, and how her social life was like living in 1850's California, with robberies, drinking and chance encounters with call girls filling his day. In very small part: "...[Oct. 15, 1865]...No doubt you want to learn about Pithole-a wonderful place...it is Sunday...I am going to the theatre...can't I go to the theatre on Sunday when a Presbyterian Divine has the whole stage...the balcony is transformed as by magic into a gallery...the whole performance will be over...before the ballet girls are up...none of our churches are yet completed. The Methodist and Presbyterian are going up side by side...the opera house is just opposite our front windows...we have a population of about ten thousand...where was a very good sheep pasture last May. We nearly all live in hotels...some of the hotels rejoice in very aristocratic titles as the Astor, Metropolitan...Scott, Lincoln & Sherman...there are perhaps a thousand of the fair sex in the city, but most of them are Hotels girls and...more showy than accomplished [and] wear blue silks, red worsted shawls, bad hats and say 'Roast beef, Roast lamb...beats all onions', by way of a slur upon those who associate with them. We call them by such eloquent titles as 'Mutton luggers', 'Hash jerkers'...all this...helps to give you some idea of the society in Pithole...California life and money making is being repeated in Western Pennsylvania. Everybody carries a revolver...the roads out...are infested with road agents as we call them and not an evening has passed...without some cases of robbery in the public streets. A man was knocked down and robbed...as he came out of one of the banks...I am engaged with Capt. Bloomfield in the furniture business... [Nov. 3, 65]...my Pithole acquaintances...six companions in a room...are playing...one on a guitar and the other a young M.D. is pacing the room threatening to lick a brother of the same profession... [Nov. 21]...retired at six-sent out for a full glass of brandy...that is the only drink of Brandy I have taken in Pithole...then I got tight [drunk]... [Dec. 3]...there is hardly a day passes that I don't say 'no I thank you gentlemen I don't use the article [liquor]...often a half dozen times a day...I am too independent to accept an invitation to drink and would sooner drink two glasses out of my own pocket than one when asked...the wholesome check of good society is what we need...P.S. just refused another drink with my usual grace... [Dec. 31]...Capt. Brady and an ex reb officer, late on Magruder's staff, with his left arm maimed by a Mechanicsville shell [are] in an animated conversation about the war...we old soldiers are the most charitable class in the world...they are watching the old year out at the new Methodist church, but we will have a Presbyterian vigil of our own... [Feb. 11, 1866]...I had another...egg nog party in the office...we...out of respect for the ladies concluded to furnish light drinks. So we procured a monster glass bottle...filled with clear water...labeling it with the names...of six kinds of liquors. A hat box filled with crackers completed the feast...and Rocking chairs provided for the lady guests-five in number.. after filling the glasses twice, made the ladies all drink out of the bottle...I took good care to keep the liquid out of reach of their lips...that was a...Pithole entertainment...of the new excitement...prevalent here...a fire occurred last week and a well having been pumped dry commenced to flow oil instead of water. Several others showed like indications...I found men pumping steady streams of oil from the water wells with common, wooden, suction pumps. One such well, twenty five feet in depth is pumping night and day. At a day's yield of about 60 barrels. Which...the men sell for three dollars and a half at the well. In the same neighborhood are several other like instances and a number of old springs...in the hillside...from which the owners are filling barrels with their dippers. The likes was never known before in the oil region...when we talked of surface oil before we meant that found at a depth of one hundred and thirty or fifty feet... [Feb. 19]... I do object to your opinion of the ladies who graced the rocking chairs. I took pains to say that they were ladies owning to the scarcity of the article here and I might add that only two out of the five would ever taste the eggnog. There were no blue silks but charming red shawls...Pithole society is improving...there are nice little couples here...with occasional sprinkling of ladies who are some bodies nieces or some bodies sisters... [Wernersville, Pa., May 9]...I have turned my back on that youthful city and taken my abode...at the other end of the state...my object was...to sustain my cosmopolitan reputation and see the sun rise at an earlier hour...the inhabitants of Berks County...farm one of the finest valleys in the state, [and] are dutch as the rats in a Holland dyke, and speck the Pennsylvania dialect of their native tongue which is quite...unintelligible...I went to a dutch shire the other night. The boys were remarkably agile in the maze dance...these youthful dancers with their hat on and coats off smoked cigars in the parlor and spat freely...[June 3]...do you suppose I wanted to mix business with pleasure and that when the business was of a very unpleasant return; I came to forget the vexation...he asked me the same question... [Sunbury, Pa. Easter Day 1868]...I have been engaged in the Life Insurance for some time...but am canvassing at present for Abbott's 'Life of Gen. Grant'. I am going to Danville...early tomorrow a.m... ". A rare chance glimpse at a thriving town that soon became a ghost town. Overall very good. $600-800