This affiant J. C. Leighton being duly sworn says:
I have resided for the last four years and a half close to the creek running from the Pico wells and on the road between the Pico wells and Andrew Station, at a point about three miles below the wells, was on the Pico claim about four years ago and before there were any wells there. The oil spring which is in the canyon and about 40 or 50 feet from well No 3 was then running oil from about 20 to 25 gallons a day as I now remember. I assisted from time to time in hauling the oil away from the spring. It was caught in a small reservoir with the water and the parties would dip it up from the surface of the water.
Since Mentry has been in charge, I have been hauling oil for the company quite steadily. The oil from this spring collects in the pools and when the high water comes as it does after each heavy rain, oil is necessarily washed down. Although I have been on the claim very often since Mentry had charge, I am positive that I never saw any more oil in the creek or running to waste during said time than I did before said wells were sank except upon two occasions hereinafter named. Oil seeps from rocks in various canyons leading into the Pico creek and forms in pools and is washed down during the high water and it is not true that all the oil seen in said creek comes from the Pico claim.
I was on my way up the canyon the day before Smith made a dam and caught some of the oil, as stated in his affidavit filed in this case on behalf of the plaintiff. I met him running down the creek and asked him what he was doing. He said he was running down to catch some oil that was running down the creek. I told him to hurry up and he could overtake it a short distance below my barley field about where the water ceased running or sinks in the sand. I passed on up the creek and a short distance above saw the oil had stopped coming down. Although I noticed the creek all the way up, it did not run anymore. I saw that this was some oil that had been turned into the creek and it certainly did not amount to more than from three to five barrels. I noticed that it was old looking oil and dark and heavy.
Upon another occasion, I saw some oil running down the canyon when a limb of a tree fell on a branch pipe line and broke it, letting the oil run out. Mentry was with me and rode up a short distance on horseback and shut off the oil. Not more than 3 or 4 barrels escaped that time.
I have visited on an average the Pico wells two or three times a week for the last four years and I never saw any of the Pico wells plugged so as to obstruct the flow of oil, but I have seen an oil saver used and also a plug with a large pipe in it, so as to admit of the passage of oil and gas. No one of ordinary intelligence, not even a Chinaman, would suppose that either this saver or plug could obstruct or check the flow of oil or gas because in both the pipes leading from them were placed in plain sight and were large enough to run a well of 2000 barrels a day.
I am satisfied that Mr. Mentry has used and operated the four wells described in the complaint herein in the best possible manner and that he is a skillful and unusually conscientious operator and is extraordinarily attentive to his business. He has the best reputation of any man I know of in California as a driller and manager of oil wells and certainly he is the only man who has successfully drilled and operated wells in this district.
I never heard any complaints as to his management of the wells until this suit was brought, except from one R.C. McPherson, and I have heard him speak very roughly about him and he evidently did not like him, but after McPherson talked this way I know he employed Mentry to try and get out some tools which McPherson had got fastened in his well.
I was at the Pico wells when F.B. Taylor was there with Sanford Lyon and others about two years ago and saw the spurt of oil from No 2 mentioned in Lyon’s affidavit. At the time there was a wooden plug in the top of the casing but an outlet pipe ran through the top of the plug and up about four feet high where there was an elbow. This pipe was for carrying the oil to a barrel at the well and from which it was piped to the tans and was at capacity to furnish an outlet for ten time the amount of oil flowing. This outlet pipe was in plain view and Mr. Lyon must have known it furnished an outlet as the oil was running out of it in sight of all of us and Mr. Taylor and others gauged the flow and there was considerable talk about in that time the parties desiring to see the well spurt asked Mentry to make it do so. He took out the plug having the outlet pipe and put down a sand pump and after some delay and considerable agitation, the well made a spurt. The spurt was not caused by taking out the plug, nor was the plug returned until the flow had ceased.
J. C. Leighton
July 13, 1878