DOWNHOMERS: The definitive answer today from Darell D. Harris of
Oswayo about those “downhomers”:

“When I began to drill in the oil fields during the mid-’40s,
there were several ‘downhomers’ who were drillers and tool dressers
in the Bradford and Bolivar oil fields. Most of them, as I recall,
were from the Brookville area of Jefferson County.

“They had begun to arrive into McKean County in the latter part
of the ’30s to find work in the oil fields. Most of them had worked
on gas wells in Jefferson County. The way the wells were drilled in
McKean County was somewhat different from the way it was done in
Jefferson County. In Jefferson County, they drilled with wire line
and a swivel socket or wire line and a cracker. (A cracker was a
manila cable 250-300-foot long, spliced onto the wire line and
hooked to the drilling stem.)

“Since the drilling was done in McKean County with manila rope,
the new arrivals found the process using the rope instead of wire
line a bit difficult to adjust to. There were other small
differences in the drilling procedure between the two counties.
Therefore, they would always say, ‘We did it this way down home.’
It was for this reason they were nicknamed ‘Downhomers.’

“It was claimed by some of the natives of McKean County that you
could tell a ‘downhomer’ when you saw him coming. He always wore a
pin-striped shop cap, carried his lunch pail under his arm, instead
of by the handle. If you failed to recognize him by these
differences, if you would talk to him for 2 minutes, you would hear
him say, ‘We did it this way down home.’

He also writes about those Clarion County horse thieves:

“In the 1920s and into the mid-’30s, horses were used to move
everything in the oil fields from drilling rigs, steam boilers,
casing and everything that was needed for producing oil. Therefore,
there was a great demand for good horses. These horses were worked
hard and were short-lived. Therefore, there was always a good
market for horses. I have been told by old teamsters that in the
’20s, there were various men who lived in Clarion County who would
steal a horses there, then bring them to McKean County for selling
to innocent buyers, who later found out that they were stolen.
Therefore, the term ‘Clarion County horse thieves’ was often
used.”