Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/224

 tinued and intolerable interference by the Standard with the extension of their pipe-lines to the seaboard. That both the crude and refined lines should ultimately reach the sea had, of course, been the intention from the first. But it was not until 1895 that the company felt firm enough in its finances to push the extension. The route laid out was from Wilkesbarre to Bayonne, New Jersey, by way of Hampton Junction, on the Jersey Central Railroad. By this course two railroads were to be crossed, the Pennsylvania and the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western. Under both of them ran the pipe-lines of the Standard and the Tidewater, and the United States Pipe Line officials believed they had an equal right to go under, but they took it for granted they would be opposed, and prepared for it. Looking over the titles of the land along the Pennsylvania, Mr. Emery, the president of the company, who was personally directing the extension, found one for an acre; the owner did not know of his possession and was glad to sell it. This gave the United States people a crossing, but even then they were obliged to carry on a long litigation in the courts before they were free to use their right.

Coming to the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, they decided to test their position by laying a pipe. It was promptly torn out. A farm over which the railroad passed was then purchased and preparations made to lay the pipe in a roadway under the tracks. As this road was some seventeen feet below the rails, any claim that there was possible danger from the oil seemed feeble. Knowing that the point was watched, Mr. Emery tried strategy. Taking fifty men with him he went in the night to the culvert under which he meant to cross, laid his pipes four feet under ground, fastened them down with heavy timbers, piled rocks on them, anchored them with chains, established a camp on each side of the track, and prepared for war. They soon had it. First,