The History of Standard Oil: Volume 2

MP3 Audio CD. The project for a seaboard pipe-line to be built by the producers and to be kept independent of Standard capital and direction had been pushed with amazing energy. Early in the fall of 1878 General Haupt reported that his right of way was complete from the Allegheny River to Baltimore; contracts were let for the tele- graph line and preparation begun to lay the pipe. Before much actual work had been done it became clear to the company that it was not from the Butler oil field but from that of Bradford that a seaboard pipe-line should run; that the former field was showing signs of exhaustion, while the latter was evidently going to yield abundantly. With a promptness which would have done credit to Mr. Rockefeller himself, Messrs. Benson, Hopkins and McKelvy changed their plan.

The new idea was to lay a six-inch line from Rixford, in the Bradford field, to Williamsport, on the Reading Railroad, a distance of 109 miles. The Reading, not having had so far any oil freight, was happy to enter into a contract with them to run oil to both Philadelphia and New York until they could get through to the seaboard themselves. In November, 1878, a limited partnership, called the Tidewater Pipe Company, was organised with a capital of $625,000 to carry out the scheme. Many of the best known producers of the Oil Regions took stock in the company, the largest stockholders being A. A. Sumner and B. D. Benson.

The first work was to get a right of way. The company went at the work with secrecy and despatch. Its first move was to buy from the Equitable Pipe Line, the second independent effort to which, as we have seen, the Producers' Union lent its support in 1878, a short line it had built, and a portion of a right of way eastward which Colonel Potts had been quietly trying to secure.