OIL INDU8TB'Y CENTENNIAL

The First Oil Well

PARKE A. DICKEY CREOlE PETROLEUM CORP. MEMBER AIME MARACAIBO, VENEZUELA

Abstract depth of 69 ft. (Fig. 1). The well produced about 10 BID. Land along the creek valleys was quickly leased and drill­ Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/11/01/14/2237157/spe-1195-g.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 The birth of the oil industry on Aug. 27, 1859, was ers, teamsters, coopers, speculators and others flocked to spectacular and its later history has been colorful and the area. The excitement exceeded that of the California romantic. gold rush 10 years before. During the early part of the last century the industrial By the end of 1859 three more wells had been drilled revolution was in fUU swing. The demand for oil for and by the end of 1860, 74 wells were producing. The lubricating the machinery and illuminating the factories excitement increased in 1861 when the first flowing wells had been supplied from tallow and whale oil. In the 1850's produced thousands of barrels a day. These flooded the an industry based on the production of illuminating oil market completely and the price fell disastrously. Since from coal was growing rapidly, and a refining technology then the industry has repeated the pattern of boom and utilizing thermal cracking and distillation was well devel­ over-production, but eventually the demand has always oped. It was soon found that petroleum was superior to caught up with the supply. coal as a raw material, but it was a scientific curiosity, occurring in many places, but in small quantities. At the same time along the tributaries of the Ohio River Introduction a considerable industry had grown up around the manu­ The story of the beginning of the oil industry is color­ facture of salt. The brine was obtained from sands at ful and romantic, and has been told many times. The depths up to 1,000 ft. A drilling technology had developed, excitement during the 1860's attracted a large number of and the methods of cable tool drilling were mostly invented writers who published many contemporary accounts. The between 1800 and 1830 along the Kanawha, Muskingum, first general history was The Early and Later History of Conemaugh and Allegheny rivers. Petroleum, with Authentic Facts in Regard to its Develop­ Petroleum was produced along with the brine at neariy ment in Western Pennsylvania, by J. T. Henry, published all the salt manufacturing plants. At most of these it was in Philadelphia in 1873. Another account was written in used to illuminate the plants and grease the machinery. London in 1914 by James Dodd Henry, The History and It was inevitable that this new source of oil should come Romance of the Petroleum Industry. to the attention of the coal oil refiners, and that attempts The most complete and scholarly history of the begin- should be made to produce oil by drilling. The combination of a large and growing demand for oil, a well-developed refining industry and a highly developed drilling technology provided an explosive mixture.

The spark finally occurred at Titusville, Pa., on the site WATSON FLATS OIL FI~~-=--.~ of a famous oil seep that had been exploited by the Mound­ W.E. F,rfi,. Drd.- _.__ K,u "c" W.II -=-__ _ builders and later by the Seneca Indians and the early CITY OF TITUSVILLE ::"'~ -= O\l-~~ =-:~~ ~- settlers. Two New York promoters, George H. Bissell and Voll., of 011 Crll. be- Ianathan G. Eveleth, formed a company which purchased :.::.~ the farm on which the seeps were located. They were unable to sell stock until they published a glowing report on the commercial value of the oil written by Benjamin Silliman, Ir., a famous chemist and professor at Yale U. Financial su'pport was finally obtained from lames M. Townsend, a New Haven banker, and his associates. Edwin L. Drake went to Titusville in Dec., 1857, to start T operations for the company. The first year he opened up 100' the old springs and attempted to exploit them. He decided 1 to drill for oil and employed a salt well driller, W. A. THI "0 ITIt"Y Smith, who came to Titusville in the spring of 1859. Oil SAND was encountered on Aug. 27 at the unexpectedly shallow

Manuscript received in Society of Petroleum Engineers office Dec. 29. 1968. Fig. I-Geology of the Drake Well.

14 SPE 1195-G 110URNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY dmgs of the oil industry is The Birth of the oil Industry try is ascribed by others to the Civil War, followed by the by Paul H. Giddens, published in 1938. It is also the most rise of the petroleum industry. In any case, it is clear that readable, for the author is not only a careful student but the demand for oil could not be met by the whalers. a gifted story teller. In addition to providing a thoroughly Recovery of Shale Oil in 1850 documented volume, Giddens collected the most important manuscripts and newspaper accounts and minted them in It had early been noticed that the manufacture of gas 30 from coal resulted in the formation of some condensible another volume • - liquids which were oily and could be used for illuminants. The present account does not pretend to add anything or The first practical manufacture of illuminating oil from to improve upon the version of Giddens. However, his mineral sources was by J ames Young of Manchester who book has been out of print for some time and may be 5 patented his process in England in 1850 • His process was unfamiliar to the younger generation of oil men. This originally the fractional distillation of petroleum, although account is written more from the point of view of the he later made oil from a type of oil shale. petroleum engineer and geologist than any of its pre­ Young was a friend of the famous English geologist, decessors. The year of 1959 will see various celebrations Lyon Playfair. In 1847 the latter brought to his attention of the hundredth anniversary of the first well, and it is an active oil seep in the Riddings coal mine at Alfreton, appropriate for production technologists to pause for a Derbyshire, belonging to Playfair's brother-in-law. This moment and review the birth of their industry. "oil spring" is reported to have produced 300 gal daily. In partnership with Edward Meldrum, Young distilled Production of lIIuminating Oil from Coal and Asphalt the crude oil and made both illuminating and lubricating

The early part of the nineteenth century saw a rapid oils. The seep, which must have been opened up by the Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/11/01/14/2237157/spe-1195-g.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 growth in the demand for light.' Buildings were more coal miners, showed an alarming decline in production, and spacious and were used more for leisure activities. Fac­ Young started experimenting with coal. The frequent asso­ tories with their new and expensive machinery had to work ciation of petroleum and coal in England led geologists of night shifts. Railroads and steamboats needed lights to the time to believe that petroleum was produced from run after dark. The early American colonists had used bituminous substances, such as coal, by he~t and pressure lamps differing little from those of the ancients, which in the earth. For a long time Young's experiments were consisted essentially of a vessel with two holes, in the fruitless, but he finally came upon the low temperature smaller of which a cloth wick was inserted. These burned retorting of coal, and took out a patent Oct. 17, 1850. oils of animal and vegetable origin; in the United States, Ordinarily, in the manufacture of coke and coal gas, the mostly tallow and lard. They gave a flickering and smoky temperature of the coal is raised rapidly to between 900 light. Candles, generally of tallow, were used extensively. and 1,200°C. As by-products, benzine, xylene and other The first notable improvement in larnos was the intro­ aromatic chemicals are obtained, which now form the basis duction of an adjustable wick and a glass chimney by of a large chemical industry. In the case of low tempera­ Argand in 1784. This improvement greatly increased the ture distillation the coal is heated to between 400 and relative desirability of lamps as compared to candles, and 800°C. Larger volumes of "tars" are obtained, much therefore the demand for illuminating oil. Whale oil came thinner and different in composition1O. They consist of to be used extensively for both lubricating and illuminating phenols and cyclic unsaturated hydrocarbons, with some purposes, but never fully satisfied the demand for the naphthenes and paraffins. The tars were redistilled and latter, which was mainly supplied by lard oil. Cottonseed, clarified with acids and oxidizing agents. castor, and corn oils were also used. Rosin and turpentine Young found that the best type of coal for the manufac­ were distilled to make an oil called "camphene" which ture of oil was "boghead coal" from Torbane Hill near required a special lamp and was dangerous, but was used Bathgate, Scotland, because its content of condensibie gas nevertheless. was much greater than that of ordinary bituminous coal. Works were erected at Bathgate in 1852 and lubricating Coal Gas and Whale Oil oil was manufactured. It was not until 1856 that "paraffin An important part of the rapidly increasing demand oil" for burning and solid paraffin were extensively sold. for light was supplied by gas made from coal. The fact that a combustible gas can be produced by heating coal was In 1853 the owners of the Torbane Hill deposit sued known as early as 1700, but the first oractical use of coal the lessees on the grounds that the mineral was not coal. gas was by William Murdoch in Bi~mingham, England, If they had been successful the oatent would have been 2 about 1800 • In 1816 the use of coal gas was common in invalid. After much litigation a~d conflicting testimony London and by 1825 it was used for lighting streets in on the part of many distinguished chemists and geologists most of the large cities of the U. S. it was decided by a jury that the mineral was a kind of The demand for oil, however, continued to increase. The coal. As a matter of fact, torbanite appears to be a remark­ 1860 census' shows 29 factories manufacturing lard oil ably rich variety of oil shale. It yields an average of 120 gal of oil per ton, which is much richer than most oil with a product value of $2,522,510. This increasing demand 2 gave rise to the rapid growth of the colorful New England shales. It consists primarily of algal remains •• It contains whaling industry, which reached its maximum production over 11 per cent hydrogen, and the high hydrogen-carbon ratio makes it resemble oil shale rather than coal, which in 1854'. From 1835 to 1860 the annual production of contains 5 to 6 per cent hydrogen". It appears to belong American whalers was 117,950 bbl of sperm oil, 25,913 in an oil shale rather than a coal-bearing rock sequence. bbl of whale oil, and 2,323,512 lb of whale bone, with a Young and his partners also later had to defend their total annual value of $8,000,000. It is said that 70,000 patent against infringements. However, they were finan­ people were employed in the industry. cially very successful, and Young also made other con­ From 1847 to 1877 the price of sperm oil never went tributions to chemical engineering processes. He was a below $1/gal. It is asserted by some that the supply of lifelong friend of David Livingstone, and was one of the whales began to decrease as a result of the intensity with principal financial supporters of his missionary and ex­ which they were hunted. The decline of the whaling indus- ploratory ventures in Africa. More than anyone else, Young can be regarded as the founder of the petroleum refining "References given at elO.d of paper. industry.

JANUARY, 1959 15 Origination of Kerosene At about the same time, but apparently independently, Abraham Gesner, a Canadian naturalist, was experimenting Q with the manufacture of illuminating oil from asphalt. Ges­ ner had originally studied medicine, but was appointed by the Canadian government as a geologist in 1838, and in 1850 became Indian commissioner of Nova Scotia. In Al­ bert County, New Brunswick there is a vein of bitumen, I vertical and up to 16-ft thick. Gesner found that it pro­ duced, ~n distillation, a higher yield of oil than either coal x or oil shale. Gesner developed a successful process and called his product "keroselain" from the Greek keros, wax, and elaion, oil. It was later shortened to "kerosene". Curiously enough, Gesner's operations were also sub­ jected to extensive litigation over whether albertite was coal. Many distinguished scientists testified, and finally a jury composed of farmers decided that albertite was a variety of coal. In this case they were even more in error Fig. 2-Diagram of an early refinery. (From Gesner, than the Scottish jurors, for the albertite is an asphalt in Treatise on Coal, Petroleum, and Other Distilled Oils, vertical veins and in no way resembles coal. published in 1361). Coal oil was extensively manufactured in the U. S. in E-Stills R - Water pipe

G - Worm tanks S - Steam pipe Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/11/01/14/2237157/spe-1195-g.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 the 1850's. The North American Gas Light Co. used K - Still furnace T - Washer gearing Young's process and in 1859 imported over 20,000 tons of l - Washers, or agitators U - Pipe from agitators to stills M - Receivers V - Ventilators torbanite for their works at Newtown Creek, Long Island, N - Market tank W - Tail Pipes 0- Syphon of still pipe X - Still house at an average cost of $18 per ton. The yield was 120 gal Q - Chimney Y - Refinery of crude oil per ton, from which 65 gal was made into lamp oil, 7 gal of paraffin oil and 12 Ib of pure paraffin·. easier to refine and purify. However, there was no known Coup Oil source of crude oil in quantities anywhere near large Another early manufacturer of coal oil in the U. S. was enough to supply the manufacturers. Luther Atwood of Boston, his brother William, and Joshua Merrill, a distinguished Boston chemist. Their plant was Development of Drilling Technology by the Salt at Waltham, Mass., and they produced a lubricating oil Industry in the Ohio River Valley which they sold under the name of "coup oil". They were As the settlers crossed the mountains and moved west­ later joined by Samuel Downer, a Boston candle manu­ ward, they left the sea coast and abundant supplies of salt facturer. Merrill and Atwood went to England to assist behind them. Subsisting as they did, on meat from game a British plant to manufacture lubricating oil from Young's and domestic animals, salt in considerable quantities was coal distillate. Their experiments resulted in an improved necessary for a preservative. "Salt licks" were well known illuminant, probably by a thermal cracking process, and to the earliest hunters because they attracted deer and other they returned enthusiastic about the possibilities of produc­ game animals. No sooner had the settlers arrived than they ing illuminating oil. attempted to exploit the licks for salt. The salt water The advantages of petroleum as a raw material were which seeped out at the licks was collected and boiled in obvious to them, and they carried out many experiments big iron kettles. on albertite and other petroleum residues, including Trini­ An interesting account of the first attempt to drill a well dad asphalt and Cuban "chapopote". A large plant was with a cable and bit was written by J. P. Hale12 of Charles­ built near Boston, where the firm operated 50 retorts pro­ ton in 1876. This story is as follows. Among the more ducing 650,000 gal of refined oil per year. Merrill and famous of the salt licks was the Big Buffalo lick near what Downer remained in the refining business after oil was is now Charleston, W. Va. It was well known to Daniel discovered and later developed the processes of thermal Boone and is not far from a famous gas seep claimed by cracking and steam distillation. George Washington. About 1800 this salt spring was Several handbooks published about this time show operated by a certain Ruffner who had two enterprising clearly the stage of technology in the refining industry sons. This country was then very thinly settled, and tools, before crude oil became important. While not advanced pipe and hardware were expensive and difficult to obtain. by comparison with later times, the processes obviously The brothers had to get along with what they could fashion involved practical chemical engineering on a considerable from the forest. scale (Fig. 2). In 1861 Gesner published a treatise on It was customary to enlarge and deepen the springs by the manufacture of illuminating oil'. Another handbook digging, and the holes thus made were lined with a hollow published in Germany by Theodor Oppler9 in 1862 states tree-this conductor pipe being generally known as a that since 1781 more than 100 patents had been granted "gum". The salt water was bailed from the hole with a on methods and improvements in the extraction of oil from "swape", consisting of a long pole, balanced near the butt coal and other bituminous materials. The processes in­ on a post as a fulcrum. At the thin end of the pole a volved heating in retorts, some of which were quite bucket was swung by a rope. The salt water was bailed elaborate. The crude oil thus obtained was distilled with from the hole by lowering the bucket into the gum with the steam. Non-hydrocarbon compounds and other impurities swape. were removed with sulfuric acid. Chalk, lime and caustics It occurred to the Ruffner brothers that if they dug clear were used to neutralize the acid and also to remove impuri­ to bed rock they might be able to obtain the brine in a ties. It was customary to distill the oil again after purifi­ more concentrated form, and then it would require much cation. less firewood to boil down into salt. They obtained a very It was well known to the manufacturers of coal oil that large gum consisting of a hollow sycamore tree with an petroleum was superior to coal as a raw material because inside diameter of 4 ft. This gum was sunk by having a it gave a much larger yield and the products were much man dig inside it, lifting the dirt with the swape, and

)6 JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY Jnder-reaming the base of the gum. Just above the bed $1.50". In Virginia, he says, "the salines of the Grand rock a layer of permeable gravel was encountered with a Kenhawa (sic) River has a very strong brine; the whole strong flow of fresh water, which was very troublesome. It produce of this work is 30,000 bushels yearly". In Penn­ was finally shut off by trimming the base of the gum to sylvania a plant on the Conemaugh River is mentioned fit the surface of the rock and driving wooden wedges in which produced upwards of 100 bushels a day. "where they would do the most good". The gum was Scientific Discussion of Well Drilling finally landed on the rock at 18 ft and the water success­ Perhaps the first scientific discussion of well drilling is fully shut off. The water t,hat seeped from the rock itself a paper'· by Prof. S. P. Hildreth, printed in the American was small in quantity but much saltier than the spring Journal of Science in 1833, entitled "Observations of the had been, and this encouraged the brothers greatly. Saliferous Rock Formation in the Valley of the Ohio". They considered digging their well deeper into the rock Hildreth gives a detailed driller's log of a well 1,001 ft, itself. However, it was too hard to dig, and too wet to blast 7-in. deep, with a geological interpretation. His description with the ordinary gun powder that was available. It of drilling is as follows. occurred to them that in order to blast they would have to drill into the rock a foot or two anyway, and this gave The operator having fixed on a spot suitable for the them the idea of making a bigger auger and drilling purpose, always near some water course, and where the deeper. The swape was converted to a spring pole by hold­ adjacent hills are high, proceeds to excavate the earth ing the butt end solid with the thin end of the tree over down to the rock, and then the rock itself to the depth of twenty or thirty feet, and from four to six feet in the hole. A special chisel bit was forged, 2.5 in. in diam­ diameter. In this cavity, called "the head", is usually eter, and hung by a rope from the end of the spring pole. placed a hollow sycamore trunk, called "a gum", which is

It was swung up and down with a reciprocating motion imbedded firmly in the rock, in such a way as to exclude Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/11/01/14/2237157/spe-1195-g.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 by men pulling on short ropes attached to the limber end the springs of fresh water; others make use of planks to form the head. When this part of the work is accom· of the pole. The bit bounced against the rock, and slowly plished, the process of boring, or drilling, commences. drilled into it. This was formerly done by hand, with the assistance of a The brine increased little by little, but the drilling pro­ spring pole, and was a tedious and laborious operation. ceeded slowly and with many discouragements. Finally, It is now performed by a horse or horses, placed on an inclined tread wheel, and machinery very simply, but in­ at a total depth of 58 ft, 40 ft into the rock, a good flow geniously arranged, so as to act, by means of a lever, on of brine was obtained and drilling ceased. the poles attached to the auger, raising it from two to The brothers decided that they needed a production three feet, at each rise of the lever, and letting it drop string of casing in order to shut off the fresher water that agam very regularly. A grass rope, with which the poles are suspended to a high frame, by its spiral convolutions, entered the hole in the upper part· of the rock. Pipe was at each rise and fall gives them a slight rotary motion, not available in the wilderness, so they made a wooden so necessary to the progress of the work. Two men are pipe, splitting a tree, hollowing it out, and tying the halves employed in this business, who stand regular tours, of six back together again with twine. When this was landed hours each, night and day. When so much of the rock is it filled with strong brine, which could then be bailed chiseled up, and comminuted so finely as to make, with the water, which always fills the hole, a soft muddy mass, out of the gum with the swape. Thus, without any prece­ and impedes the motion of the auger, the poles are with· dent or equipment, on the edge of the wilderness, the drawn, and a tube, made of copper, five or six feet in brothers drilled, cased and tubed their well in a manner length and three inches in diameter, called "the pump", basically similar to methods used for oil wells today. is screwed to the pole and let down. A valve, at the lower end, prevents the escape of the contents, which are dis­ Equipment and Technology Improve Rapidly charged through a hole made for that purpose, near the top. A cord or rope is sometimes made use of in this Improvements in equipment and technology came process, in place of the poles. The poles are made of quickly. At first tin tubes were made in Charleston for tough, white ash wood, twenty-five feet in length and two casing, the joints being soldered as they were lowered inches in diameter. They are attached to each other by into the hole. Copper was used next, and finally iron strong iron sockets and screws, so as that a screw at the It lower end enters into a socket at the upper end of each when it became available in the area. was soon found pole. By the addition of fresh poles, as the well descends, that drilling proceeded faster with a heavy iron stem they are lengthened to any desirable depth. The auger is above the bit. Jars were invented in 1831 by Billy Morris pointed with the best cast steel, and is from twelve to and were called "slips" by the salt well drillers. They fourteen inches in length, and from three to four inches facilitated the action of the bit, but their principal use wide, as the operator may think best, it being very useful to have the well of a greater diameter at the top, as it was to provide a loose connection between the stem and necessarily and unavoidably grows narrower as it de­ bit so that when the latter got stuck it could be hammered scends, and would not afford sufficient water, unless an upward. Hale says that steam engines were regularly allowance of this kind were made. The operation grad­ used for pumping after 1828. ually cuts away the sides of the auger, and as it is re­ paired or a new one applied, unless this adaptation is Another useful invention was the "seed bag packer". carefully attended to, it becomes fast in the bottom of the This consisted of a leather sleeve, 12- to 24-in. long, slipped well, and is with great difficulty removed. The progress over the bottom end of the tUbing. It was tied tightly with made, each day, varies, with the density of the rock, from twine at the top and bottom ends. The annular space one inch to five or six feet, but is necessarily slower as the well deepens; for much time is necessarily consumed between the outside of the tubing and the inside of the in taking up and letting down the poles, for the purpose sleeve was filled with flax seed, sometimes with gum of pumping or clearing out the detritus, which is com­ tragacanth added. After it was lowered into the hole the posed of sand or mud, according to the nature of the water swelled the flax seed, expanding the packer until rock_ It is often necessary to line the upper portion of the well, for one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet, the leather engaged the walls of the hole and shut off the with a copper tube, to prevent the process of caving, water. occasioned by the disintegration of the soapstone or argil­ These drilling methods apparently spread quickly. Jere­ lite, which principally composes the upper strata to this miah van Rensselaer in a lecture" before the New York depth. It is also sometimes needed to keep out the springs of fresh water, which, mingling with the salt, would oc­ Lyceum of Natural History in 1823 describes deep salt casion additional labor in the evaporation. wells at a number of places in the Ohio River valley. One on the Muskingum River near Zanesville, Ohio, was 213-ft Hale" says "the Kanawha borings have educated and deep and furnished 80 bushels of salt daily. He says that sent forth a set of skillful borers all over the country, 95 gal of brine produced one bushel "worth on the spot who have bored for water for irrigation on the western

JANUARY, 1959 1'0 plains, for artesian wells for city, factory, or private use, and the other salt wells in the vicinity made even more, for salt water at various places, for oil all over the country, which was run out of the Kanawha River, so much that it for geological and mineralogical explorations, etc". came to be known among the boatmen as "Old Greasy". A few old salt well tools have been preserved and are Prof. Hildreth'· was naturally much interested in this illustrated in Price's report on the salt brines of West petroleum and has the following to say about it. Virginia". Bits, jars and clamps are easily recognizable. The forerunner of the temper screw is a sort of turnbuckle . Petroleum or Fossil Oil: Since the first settlement of the regions west of the Appalachian range, the hunters and with a lever and ratchet mounted on the center part at early pioneers have been acquainted with this oil. Rising right angles to its axis. The driller could thus turn the in a hidden and mysterious manner from the bowels of center part of the turnbuckle by swinging the lever back the earth, it soon arrested their attention, and acquired and forth, while the beam was going up and down, lower­ great value in the eyes of these simple sons of the forest. Like some miraculous gift from heaven, it was thought to ing the tools a little each time he moved it. be a sovereign remedy for nearly all the diseases common to those primeval days, and from its success in rheuma­ Petroleum in the Ohio River Valley tism, burns, coughs, sprains, etc., was justly entitled to all its celebrity. It acquired its name of Seneca oil, that The first oil seeps to be discovered in what is now the by which it is generally known, from having first been found in the vicinity of Seneca Lake, N. York. From its U. S. were in Western New York and Pennsylvania. Father being found in limited quantities, and its great and ex· Joseph de la Roche d'Allion travelled through what is now tensive demand, a small vial of it would sell for forty or Western New York in 1627 and reported "some very good fifty cents. It is, at this time (1826) in general use among oil". Other French missionaries also reported the oil the inhabitants of the country, for saddle bruises, and that complaint called the scratches, in h..orses. It seems to springs. They were prominently mentioned in several Eng­ be peculiarly adapted to the flesh of horses, and cures Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/11/01/14/2237157/spe-1195-g.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 lish accounts of the 1700's. The springs were exploited many of their ailments with wonderful certainty and by the Indians, who were great traders and who undoubt­ celerity. Flies and other insects have a natural antipathy edly sold the oil widely throughout the area. A map pub­ to its effiuvia, and it is used with much effect in prevent· lished in 1755 shows the word "petroleum" in Western ing the deposit of eggs by the "blowing fly", in the wounds of domestic animals during the summer months. Pennsylvania, and one printed in 1794 shows the word In neighborhoods where it is abundant, it is burned in "Oyl Creek". lamps in place of spermaceti oil, affording a brilliant In the valley of Oil Creek, near Titusville, Pa., the early light but filling the room with its own peculiar odor. By settlers found many pits, apparently dug for the purpose filtering it through charcoal much of this empyreumatic smell is destroyed and the oil greatly improved in quality of obtaining oil. They averaged 14 ft in diameter, and and appearance. It is also well adapted to prevent friction were dug 6 or 8 ft into the alluvium alongside the creek in machinery, for being free of gluten, so common to ani· bed. The Seneca Indians who frequented the area col­ mal and vegetable oils, it preserves the parts to which it lected the oil which rose to the surface of the water in is applied, for a long time, in free motion-where a heavy vertical shaft runs in a socket it is preferrable to all or the pits, but were ignorant of their origin. The Senecas any other articles. The oil rises to a greater or less abund· were comparative newcomers to the area. Titusville is near ance in most of the salt wells on the Kenhawa, and col· the limit of the Moundbuilder Indians' territory, but exca­ lecting as it rises, in the head on top of the water, is reo vations of a Hopewellian culture have been made about moved, from time to time, with a ladle, and put by for 50 miles northeast at Sugar Run, Pa. There very probably sale or use. The greater abundance of stone coal in this locality, than that of the Muskingum, gives it a decided was a complete cultural break after the abandonment of advantage in the elaboration of petroleum. On the latter the area by the Moundbuilders, which might explain the river, the wells afford but little oil, and that only during ignorance of the Senecas. the time the process of boring is going on; it ceases soon after the wells are completed; and yet all of them abound Two attempts have been made to excavate the pits by more or less in gas. A well on Duck Creek, about thirty archeologists in the employ of the State of Pennsylvania; miles north of Marietta, owned by Mr. McKee furnishes one by Donald A. Cadzow in 1934 and the other by A. C. the greatest quantity of any in this region. It was dug in Thompson in 1957. They succeeded in establishing the the year 1814, and is four hundred and seventy· five feet in depth. Salt water was reached at one hundred and fact that the pits are the work of man, but failed to find eighty· five feet, but not in sufficient quantity; however, any artifacts that might serve to date them. Inasmuch as no more water was found below this depth.... The oil the locality was famous for the presence of oil it seems from this well is discharg!'d periodically, at intervals of most probable that they were dug for the purpose of obtain­ from two to four days, and from three to six hours at ing it, but by whom or when they were dug, and how the each period. Great quantities of gas accompany the dis· charges of oil, which for the first few years amounted to oil was exploited remains a complete mystery. from thirty to sixty gallons at each eruption. Oil Seeps in Other Areas Among the salt wells producing oil were those in Penn­ Other oil seeps occur in the neighborhood. The most sylvania. In 1826 there were 35 salt works in Pennsylvania, famous is at Cuba, N. Y., and is the one mentioned by mostly along the Conemaugh and Kiskiminetas rivers, Father de la Roche. Pits have also been found at Hosmer centered around the towns of Saltsburg and Salina in Run, near Garland, Pa. Oil is said to have bubbled out Allegheny County, but a few were farther west in the in the middle of Oil Creek below Titusville, and near the valley of the Allegheny River near Tarentum. The 1860 Allegheny River at Franklin, Pa. None of these seeps are Census shows 11 salt works in Allegheny County with a active now, probably because the reservoir pressure has total value of product of $100,000 per year. been dissipated by the wells drilled almost 100 years ago. Stains and saturations can be noted in many places where Kier Expands Uses of Oil the oil sands crop out north of the oil fields. The seeps A certain Thomas Kier worked for many years at Salts­ exploited by the Indians, however, must have consisted of burg, but moved to Tarentum on the Allegheny River, 20 a fairly copious and steady flow of a light oil. miles north of Pittsburgh, and started a salt works there. Many of the salt wells produced oil; and sometimes in His son, Samuel Kier, was born in 1813 and became a very considerable quantities. On the whole, it was regarded as a successful business man and industrialist of Western Penn­ nuisance because special measures had to be taken to keep sylvania. Samuel Kier first started an express company, it from contaminating the salt. However, it was also used which failed. His reputation among the other business men around the plants for both illumination and lubrication. was such, however, that he got back in the transportation The Ruffner wells began to make some oil quite early, business, this time operating a line of canal boats plying

18 JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY the Pennsylvania Canal from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. The canal paralleled the Conemaugh River to near its head­ waters. For a time, until the Pennsylvania Railroad was Ta .....,;'fr;®~ built along the same route, the canal boats were hauled, IIB111c'ii. ~~ :::::::VIRTUES::=::: in sections, over the Allegheny Front on a cable railway. J>DGOy...... He was also active in the manufacture of fire brick, pottery ~l$ank on the ~l1tg1ttn!l *,ivtr,~ and steel, and participated with his father in the salt ___...... tf.LLEGHENy COUNTY. PENNS·...t.~ business". o&at PO'UR B1IlmJUID FEET ~ The story goes that Kier's wife was ill of consumption and that she was much helped by Seneca oil which gave Kier the idea of selling it for medicine. While this story is plausible it seems more likely that an imaginative busi­ ness man like Kier must have been thoroughly acquainted Fig. 3-Advertisement for Kier's Rock Oil, printed in with petroleum and had considered the possibilities of 1852. Note derricks and tank battery used in the manufac­ making money from this by-product of the salt works. It ture of salt from brine. was used at Saltsburg for lamps in the plant and at Taren­ tum for lubricants, as well as generally throughout the imported seepage oil from California across the Isthmus of area for medicine. At any rate, he started bottling it and Panama, and shale oil ("oil of schiste") from France. selling it for medicine. The U. S. Census of 1860 showed 64 establishments The handbill he circulated (Fig. 3) is of particular manufacturing "coal oil" with a product worth $4,254,987 interest. Printed in 1852, it shows two derricks and a tank per year. It also shows 14 manufacturing "kerosene oil" Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/11/01/14/2237157/spe-1195-g.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 battery, a familiar scene to an oil man-so familiar, indeed, worth $2,142,693. At a wholesale price of between 50 that one has to be reminded that the picture is of a salt cents and a dollar a gallon the oil would be worth from $20 works and was drawn seven years before the first oil well to $40/bbl. The output was therefore from 300,000 to was drilled. 600,000 bbljyr or well over 1,000 BID. The limited market for oil as a medicine did not satisfy Kier, and he sent a man to England to look into methods Oil Market Promising in 1859 of coal oil manufacture, which must, at that time, have In 1859, therefore, the following situation existed. There been in its infancy. The man returned unsuccessful'" which was: (1) a large and growing demand for kerosene which is not surprising considering the litigation in which James could not be satisfied with the existing raw materials; (2) Young was engaged about then. Kier then sent a sample of a high price of oil; and (3 Y a well-developed refining tech­ oil to James C. Booth, professor of "Chemistry Applied nology, based partly on oil shale and coal but to a con­ to the Arts" at the U. of Pennsylvania". Booth had been siderable extent on asphalt and crude oil. The growth in a chemist with the first geological survey of Pennsylvania, demand, which has continued to this day, was responsible and was particularly interested in mineralogy and metal­ for the sudden start and rapid growth of the oil industry. lurgy. He first suggested that it be used as a solvent for Besides the great demand there existed a well-developed gutta percha, but later recommended that it be distilled to drilling industry, and common knowledge that oil could make illuminating oil. be found in greatest quantity in wells drilled for salt in the Kier built a refinery containing a I-bbl still and com­ Ohio Valley. This was an explosive situation which required menced to refine oil in Pittsburgh. He later built a 5-bbl only the spark of enterprise in anyone of several places to still which has been preserved and is displayed in the Drake set off the conflagration which finally occurred in 1859. It Well Museum in Titusville. While it is of great interest, one seems curious that the first well to be drilled for oil was must remember that these were not the first stills used to not along the Kanawha, Conemaugh or Muskingum, where refine petroleum, for James Young had refined oil from it was well known that oil could be obtained by drilling. the Riddings colliery 10 years before. The spark finally was struck at the site of the ancient Kier modified the lamps built to burn "camphene" to Moundbuilders' oil works at Titusville, Pa. use his product, which suggests that it was light and highly flammable. The Pittsburgh City Council forced him to The First Oil Company move his plant outside the city at Lawrenceville, where he Westerners driving east for the first time often are continued to experiment with refining and lamp manu­ astonished at the great areas in Pennsylvania covered by facture. forest. The rich plains of Ohio rise imperceptably eastward Others Enter "Oil" Business until in Western Pennsylvania they become the Allegheny Apparently others joined Kier in the manufacture of Plateau. This tableland is largely held up by heavy sand­ illuminating oil, for in 1857 a New York capitalist, A. C. stones and is broken by deep canyons and gorges so that it Ferris, bought some from the Pittsburgh drug firm of is of little value for farming. In Northwestern Pennsylvania McKeown and Finley. They obtained their oil from the the boundary between the farmland and the forest closely salt works of Lewis Peterson, also at Tarentum, and in follows the farthest advance of the Pleistocene ice sheet. 2l 1858 they were supplying Ferris with 2,000 bbl a year • The glacier moved down from the north like a great sheet Ferris also purchased oil from Kier but pronounced it of sandpaper, smoothing out the topography and deposit­ inferior to McKeown and Finley's. Ferris started a very ing thick clay soils. Titusville lies a few miles southeast of active sales campaign for his illuminating oil in New the limit of glaciation in an area that in 1859 was largely York City, with the result that he was unable to keep up forest and sparsely inhabited. It is still wooded and thinly with the demand. populated, and the only important difference now is that In 1858 he visited Eniskillen, Canada and purchased 100 the great stands of white pine have long been gone and bbl of oil collected by J. Williams of Hamilton, Ontario. are replaced by birch, beech and maple. The oil was unduly detained by the U. S. customs authori­ The glacier had ar.other important effect on the aspect ties, who could not figure out how to classify it, during of this country. Formerly the drainage was northward which time much of it was lost by evaporation and leak­ towards Lake Erie. As the ice sheet advanced it formed age. When it was finally received it contained so much a barrier, damming the stre?ms and, at the same time, con­ sulfur that it could not be refined successfully. Ferris also tributing much additional water to them from the melting

JANUARY, 1959 19 ice. As the water piled up at the end of the glacier it to New York where Bissell and his partner, Jonathan G. formed lakes which spilled over to the south, creating new Eveleth, proceeded to organize a stock company. streams which combined to make what is now the Alleg­ Pennsylvania Rock Oil Co. heny River. Oil Creek was dammed in this manner and Bissell sent for 3 bbl of the oil, which was collected its valley is broad north of Titusville, but is a narrow by. Angier. It was shipped via horse an~ wagon to Erie, wooded gorge southwards from below Titusville 10 miles steamer to Buffalo and thence via the Ene Canal to New to its mouth in the Allegheny River where the backed-up York. The offices of Eveleth and Bissell were in the new stream, swollen by melting ice, cut itself a new channel. and elegant building of D. Appleton and Co., publishers. The city of Titusville itself is built at the site of the old The draymen unloaded the wooden barrels of ?il on the lake on thick deposits of gravel which partially filled the sidewalk in front of Appleton's store, filled With books, old valley. Erosion before and during the ice advance literary treasures and works of art. By this time the barrels breached several of the uppermost oil sands, and the gravel were leaking and the strong smelling and evil look~ng deposits had covered over their still bleeding outcrops liquid oozed out over the pavement, greatly offendmg (Fig. 1). The oil, therefore, seeped up to th~ surface at Appleton's distinguished clientele. The manager of the the edge of the lake where the stream enters Its gorge. store at once hired another drayman to carry them off The town of Titusville was founded in 1805, but located and it was some weeks more before Eveleth and Bissell as it was on the edge of the forest, it did not flourish like managed to locate them. the towns to the northwest on better farmland. In 1849 The promoters had little success in getting anyone inter­ the principal industry of the town was lumbering. The ested at first, but they finally succeeded in obtaining the firm of Brewer, Watson and Co. had a sawmill a few support of James M. Townsend, a prominent banker of hundred yards from the old oil pits at the head of the Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/11/01/14/2237157/spe-1195-g.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 New Haven, Conn., who was a successful and respected gorge. White pine from the adjacent hills was cut and business man. He advised the partners to have the oil rafted down to Pittsburgh. examined by some well-known experts. Accordingly they The senior partner, Ebenezer Brewer, had a son who sent samples to Luther Atwood of Boston and Prof. Benja­ was a graduate of Dartmouth College, and who was prac­ min Silliman, Jr., of Yale U. Atwood's report has not been ticing medicine in Vermont. His father sent him some of preserved, but it must have been favorable f?r he was the Seneca oil, which he used in his practice. In 1851 the himself engaged in the manufacture of coal 011 and had doctor, F. B. Brewer, returned to Titusville and became a been experimenting with various asphalts. The crude oil, member of the firm. He was still quite interested in the containing much more of the kerosene and lubricating oil oil, and arranged with a man called J. D. Angier to operate fractions, was obviously superior to any raw material the springs. Angier cleaned them out and dug trenches to Atwood had been able to obtain. convey the water to a central point where the oil was With the backing of Townsend, Eveleth and Bissell pro­ skimmed off. This materially increased the supply, but it ceeded to organize the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Co. which still amounted to only a few gallons per day. was incorporated in Albany Dec. 30, 1854. It was capital­ Crosby Sees "Golden Vision" ized at $250,000, divided into 10,000 shares. The farm on In the fall of 1853 Dr. Brewer went back ·to Dartmouth which the springs were located was deeded to the corpora­ on a trip, taking a bottle of the oil with him. He showed tion, but Eveleth and Bissell simply gave their notes for it, it to Dr. Dixi Crosby of the Medical School, and to Prof. so no cash changed hands. Strenuous efforts were made to O. P. Hubbard of the ,Chemistry Department. A few weeks sell the stock with little success. There was a business later another Dartmouth graduate, George H. Bissell, a recession and money was scarce. The promoters did not New York lawyer and promoter, saw a bottle of the oil in have reputations as sound and successful business men. Dr. Crosby's office. Bissell may have been familiar with Old Ebenezer Brewer wrote to his son on March 23, 1855, Ferris' kerosene sales campaign in New York; in any case, "I always told you that 1 had no confidence in the men, he saw its possibilities for the manufacture of illuminating from the very nature of the transaction, and that all that oil, if only it could be obtained in sufficient quantities. you would ever get would be what you received in the Bissell employed Dr. Crosby's son Albert to go to Titus­ sale .... Now mark well what 1 tell you, it is for your ville and report on the springs and the possibilities of interest alone that 1 now say it, you are associated with a exploiting them commercially. set of sharpers, and if they have not yet already ruined you, Dr. Brewer met Crosby on his arrival in Titusville and they will do so if you are foolish enough to let them do it." showed him around. They both became extremely enthuias­ tic. They rode on horseback down Oil Creek to the Mc­ The First Scientific Report on Petroleum Clintock farm where there was a live seep in the middle of the creek. "As we stood on the circle of rough logs", Professor Silliman's analysis was completed April 16, he wrote later, "and saw the oil bubbling up, spreading 1855, and was placed in the hands of a friend in New its bright and golden colors over the surface, it seemed like York to keep until the promoters had raised enough money a golden vision. Crosby at once proposed to purchase the to finish paying the bill", which amounted, in total, to whole farm, which we could have done for $7,000, but $526.08. As soon as possible they had the report printed as our pecuniary ability was limited to a much smaller and circulated, and such was the reputation of Prof. Silli­ sum, I was obliged to decline the tempting opportunity, man* that much more support was obtained for the com­ to find in the early future I had lost over a million dollars. pany and stock sold easily. When 1 told him we did not wish to take capital from The report describes petroleum obtained from other our lumber business to put into oil, he said 'damn lumber, localities, such as Russia, Burma, and Italy. It then goes 1 would rather have McClintock's farm than all the on to describe the Pennsylvania oil, noting that it differs lumber in Pennsylvania.' " from petroleum from these other places in that it does not Crosby arranged to purchase in fee the 100 acres on which the original springs lay, and to lease the oil rights "His father Benjamin Silliman, Sr., was a popular lecturer and did much to exp~nd the resources of Yale U. His son succeeded him as on the other lands of Brewer, Watson, and Co. He returned professor of chemistry and also contributed much to the University.

20 JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY By eontinued exposure from depth. Pig. 4 compares Silliman's distillation with to air become hard and that of a Hempel distillation made on a Titusville oil by resinous like mineral pitch or bitumen .... It the U. S. Bureau of Mines". Silliman's curve shows much is understood and rep· more low-boiling fractions than would be expected from resented that this prod· the gravity; more, even, than the fresh crude from depth.'" uct exists in great The 170° fraction especially is twice as large as it should abundance upon your property, that it can be be. gathered wherever a well Silliman then went on to discuss the chemical proper­ is sunk in the soil, over ties of the fractions, noting that they are composed solely a great number of acres, of carbon and hydrogen, "and probably have these ele­ and that it is unfailing ments in the same numerical relation". He describes their in its yield from year to year. The question natur­ reactions, or lack of them, with common chemical reagents. ally arises, of what value He showed that by ignition over carbon the crude could be it is in the arts, and for converted to a good gas, but decided that it was too what l'ses can it be em­ valuable for other purposes to consider making gas from ployed? To enable you to answer these inquiries it. He attempted to distill the oil at higher temperatures, has been the object of reaching 750°C, and obtaining a thick dark oil which, Benjamin Silliman, Jr. my researches. on cooling, produced crystallized paraffin. He recognized Yale University To determine what prod­ that this would be very valuable for candles, but supposed, ucts might be obtained in the oil, a portion of it was submitted to fractional erroneously, that the paraffin was formed by some chemical cracking process during the heating. distillation. The temperature of the fluid was constantly Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/11/01/14/2237157/spe-1195-g.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 regulated by a thermometer, the heat being applied first The result of this graduated distillation, at a high tem­ by a water bath, and then by a bath of linseed oil. This perature, is that we have obtained over 90 per cent of the experiment was founded upon the belief that the crude whole crude product in a series of oils, having valuable product contained several distinct oils, having different properties, although not all equally fitted for illumination boiling points. The quantity of material used in this EX­ and lubrication. periment, was 304 grammes. The thermometer indicated the degrees of the Centigrade scale, but, for convenience, Silliman also tried distillation with steam, a process the corresponding degrees of Fahrenheit's scale are added. then used in making "rosin oil" or "camphene". He then The water bath failed to distil any portion of the oil at constructed an improved photometer and showed that 100 e. (= 212° Fah.) only a small quantity of acid water came over. An oil bath (linseed oil) was then sub­ illuminating oil made from petroleum was superior to most stituted, and the temperature was regularly raised by slow other oils. degrees until distillation commenced. From that point the In conclusion, gentlemen, it appears to me that there is heat was successively raised by stages of ten degrees, much ground for encouragement in the belief that your allowing full time at each stage for complete distillation company have in their possession a raw material from of all that would rise at that temperature before advanc­ which, by simple and not expensive process, they may ing to the next stage. The results of this tedious process manufacture very valuable products. are given in the annexed table--304 Grammes of Crude It is worthy of note that my experiments prove that Oil, submitted to fractional distillation, gave: nearly the whole of the raw product may be manufactured Temperature Quantity without waste, and this solely by a well-directed process 1st Productatl00°e.=212°Fah. (Acid Water) 5 Gms. which is in practice, one of the most simple of all chem­ 2d "140°e.to150°e.=284°t0302°Fah.26 " ical processes. 3d " 150°e. to 160°e.=302° to 320°Fah. 29 " There are suggestions of a practical nature as to the 4th -, 160°e. to 170°e.=320° to 338° Fah. 38 " economy of your manufacture, when you are ready to 5th " 170°e. to 180°e.=338° to 356°Fah.17 " begin operations, which I shaH be happy to make, should 6th " 180°e. to 200°C.=356° to 392°Fah. 16 " the company require it-meanwhile I remain, gentlemen, 7th "200°e.t0220°e.=392°t0428°Fah.17 " Your ob't serv't 8th " 220°e. to 270°e.=428° to 518°Fah.12 " B. SILLIMAN, JR. Prof. of Chemistry in Yale College Whole quantity distilled by this method . 160 New Haven, April 16, 1855 Leaving residue in the retort . 144 The Silliman report was an important event in the Original quantity . . . 304 Gms. establishment of the company and of the oil business. Silliman then proceeds to describe the physical properties However, his foresight has been somewhat over-rated, for of the fractions. The distillation was arrested at 270 0 P it appears to have been generally known already that crude because of the limit of temperature for linseed oil. The oil was an excellent raw material for illuminating oil. The density of the crude oil was said to be 0.882, and the processes of fractional distillation, steam distillation and densities of the various fractions were tabulated, ranging thermal cracking (the latter at least in the case of coal from 0.733 to 0.854. Silliman then states: and oil shale) were not only well known but in commer­ To form an idea of the comparative density of these cial operation. His error in specific gravity and the appar­ several products, it may be well to state, that Sulphurio ent discrepancy in his amount of low-boiling components Ether, which is one of the lightest fluids known, has a cast some doubt on the accuracy of the professor's experi­ density of .736, and Alcohol, when absolutely pure, .815. ments. This statement is very curious, because ethyl ether, (for­ The Company Starts Work merly called sulfuric ether) has a density of 0.708, and absolute alcohol, 0.789. The values differ by 0.028 and The publication of the Silliman Report caused a much 0.026, respectively. Silliman should have known better, greater interest in the commercial possibilities of petroleum since in his Principles of Physics or Natural Philosophy, and in the new company formed to exploit it. However, first published in 1858 and revised in 1860" he describes most of the investors were New Haven people, influenced several methods of determining specific gravity and in a by Townsend and Anson Sheldon, a retired minister of that table shows that of ether as 0.72 and absolute alcohol 0.79. city. Besides, the shareholders of New York corporations The specific gravity of the crude was given as 0.882 which were, at that time, liable for the debts of the corporation. It therefore seemed desirable to reorganize the company corresponds to an API gravity of 28 0. If corrected by 0.026 it would be 33° API. The crude now produced from and incorporate it in the State of Connecticut. A number the field is 41 ° API. It would be expected that the seepage "In 1939 the author collected a sample of oil from a well drilling at 69 ft near the Drake sand. It was 28° API and in a Hempel distilla­ oil would be lower API gravity than the crude produced tion it resembled the heavy oil produced at Franklin. Pa.

JANUARY. 1959 21 '00 years he was a clerk in a dry goods store in New Haven. COMPARISON Of" SILLIMAN'S IDISTILLATION WITH HEMPEL I He then became an express agent on the Boston and ANALYSIS OF TITUSVILLE OIL Albany Railroad at Springfield, and finally was a con­ ductor on the New York and New Haven Railroad for nearly 10 years. His wife died in 1854, after which he liv.ed at the Tontine Hotel where he met Townsend and f---e S.LU"" N DISTILLATK>N 33-AC--e-- ~ some of his friends. He had been iII and in 1855 was y~ V unemployed. ~~ Drake appears to have been an undemonstrative sort of V person. Later on when he learned that his oil well, der­ tusVILLE THIRD SAND 41- AP £ ..-----~ rick, tanks, and everything had burned while he was in Erie, he asked simply if anyone had been hurt, and then V asked the wry question, "did the hole burn too?" Instead

'40 .eo .eo 200 220 240 of taking advantage of his success in drilling for oil he TEMPERATURE DEGREES CENT. settled down to pumping his little lease. However, he must Fig. 4-Distillation curve of Benjamin Silli­ have a great deal of personal charm for he made friends man, Jr., on Titusville seep oil and modern easily. Furthermore, he had an unusual ability to obtain Third sand oil from Titusville. their confidence. It seems curious that a successful busi­ ness man and banker like Townsend should employ a man of other successful New Haven business men agreed to with Drake's background to start a new venture involving purchase stock, including Prof. Silliman himself. The so many difficult problems of technology, logistics and eco­ Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/11/01/14/2237157/spe-1195-g.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 Pennsylvania Rock Oil Co. of Connecticut was incorporated nomics. When Drake arrived in Titusville he inspired the Sept. 18, 1855, with a capitalization of $300,000, divided same confidence among the business men of that village. into 12,000 shares. Eveleth and Bissell maintained their They encouraged him, gave him practical help and even control but the headquarters were in New Haven and Prof. loaned him money personally when his efforts must have Silliman was made president. appeared not only unsuccessful but impractical. When it came to the actual exploitation of the oil it was Drake went to Titusville in Dec., 1857. He stopped in hard to get work started. It is said that one hot summer Syracuse, N. Y. on the way to visit the salt works there, day Bissell stopped in a drug store in New York and which by this time used wells to obtain salt water. He went noticed the advertisement for Kier's oil showing the pictures on to ETie where he took the stage to Titusville. He quickly of the derricks. This gave him the idea that oil might cleared up the problems concerning the title and then vis­ be obtained in greater quantities by drilling, but apparently ited the springs with Dr. Brewer. In an account written they still seemed to be counting mainly on more extensive much later, he said: development of the springs. The company decided to commence operations by leas­ Within 10 minutes of my arrival upon the ground with Dr. Brewer I had made up my mind that (oil) could be ing the oil rights of their properties to some one who obtained in large quantities by boring as for salt water. would actually produce the oil, at a royalty of so much per I also determined that I should be the one to do it. But I barrel. They first made a lease with Lyman and Hayens, found that no one with whom I conversed on the subject a New York real estate firm. They got caught in the panic agreed with me, all maintaining that the oil was the drip. pings of an extensive coal field or bed, and if so there of 1857 and had to back out of the deal, claiming as a would be no use boring as the oil was near the surface. pretext that the titles were defective. The New Haven But I could not understand why it was under the creek stockholders then decided that they would themselves if it came from the hills as it is so much lighter than organize another company to lease the land and drill for water that it would he impossible for it to get down of oil. Hard feelings developed between the New York and its own accord. * New Haven stockholders, and it is not hard to see why. Drake also visited Pittsburgh and the salt works at Eveleth and Bissell had originally promoted the company, Tarentum and returned to New Haven very optimistic. probably investing most of their limited capital. The New Townsend then leased the properties of the Pennsyl­ Haven stockholders, on the other hand, had put up most vania Rock Oil Co. to E. L. Drake and E. B. Bowditch, of the money. who were to exploit them for a royalty of one-eighth of Edwin L. Drake Employed the oil. Eleveth and Bissell protested that they could have The New Haven people obtained better terms from Lyman and Havens, so the employed Edwin L. Drake royalty was changed to 12 cents/gal. The New Haven to go to Titusville, inspect stockholders then organized the Seneca Oil Co. to take the property, clear the title over the lease. Drake was employed by this company as and investigate the possi­ "general agent" at a salary of $1,000 per year. He was bilities of drilling for oil. advanced $1,000 for expenses and, having remarried, he Drake, born in 1819, had moved with his family to Titusville in the spring of 1858. lived on farms in New The company addressed mail to him as "Colonel" Edwin York and Vermont until L. Drake, apparently to enhance his prestige in the com­ he was 19. He appears to munity. He appears to have had no right to the title, but have had little formal edu­ has been known by it ever since. cation. However, his letters Drake's Many Problems and accounts preserved at Drake started cleaning out and redeveloping the old the Drake Well Park at Angier workings. Difficulties were many, for it was hard ~ Titusville show that he had obtain even the most elementary equipment. For example, learned enough to know he found a pick in Hydetown, three miles west of Titus- how to operate a business. Edwin L. Drake He had worked as a clerk "The theory that oil was derived from coal by heat and pressure was Superintendent on a Lake Erie steamer widely held by geologists of the period. This is the first example of an erroneous scientific hypothesis adversely affecting oil prospecting meth­ and in a hotel. For three ods, but unfortunately not the last.

22 JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY ville, spikes in another store in Pleasantville, six miles to The First Oil Well the east, a chain in another village, but had to send to In April, 1859, Peterson Erie, 40 miles away, to get shovels.* By July 1 he had wrote Drake advising him production up to about 10 galfD and was engaged in dig­ to hire W. A. Smith. Smith ging another pit. At first he employed water power to pump had been apprenticed to a the water carrying the oil, but later, deciding steam would blacksmith at the age of 10 be more practical, built a pump house and tanks. and when he was a young During all this time, however, he persisted in his plans man opened a shop in to drill for oil. On Aug. 16 he wrote: Pittsburgh. He moved to Salina, near Tarentum, where he made the drilling I rec'd on Saturday Aug. 14 at Erie a Pkg. said to eon· tools and salt plant equip­ tain $472.67 from the Treas. of the Seneca Oil Co. & give my receipt to the Express Co. for it. I shipped two barrels ment used by Peterson and of oil to Mr. Pierpont at New Haven as he said he had Kier. Smith also made spe­ made a 'market for it. In sinking our well last week we cial fishing tools when they struck a large vein of oil but the same thrust of the spade were required, and worked opened a vein of water that drove the men out of the well and I shall not try to dig by hand any more as I am on the rig floor while they satisfied that boring is the cheapest. I should have had my were being run in the hole. borer here but I wrote him on the first I was not ready W. A. Smith In later life he claimed to as I did not know that you could raise the money. But Driller be the inventor of jars, money we must have if we are to make anything. I have Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/11/01/14/2237157/spe-1195-g.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 abandoned the idea of boring and pumping by water as I which is unlikely. At any could not have the exclusive use of the power, but must rate, he was a very well qualified man, as Drake himself be subject to the sawyer the turner & the blacksmith; so later asserted. He agreed to come for $2.50 per day, which later consulting the best business men-that is salt and seems to have been pretty good wages. Brewer and Wat­ oil men-at Tarentum I have contracted for an engine to be ready for boring by the first of Sept. The engine will son's saw mill hands were paid $1 per day. cost five hundred dollars in Erie which is about one hun· Smith needed some time to wind up his affairs before dred dollars less than the sanie or one like it in the East. leaving. Peterson later said" that he was engaged in liti­ gation and that he had advised him to accept Drake's offer Drake's friends at Tarentum who were "salt and oil men" and get out of the country. Smith utilized this delay in were Lewis Peterson and his son, Lewis Peterson, Jr. Peter~ making a set of tools, which he was able to do better in son's wells were aeout 2 miles below Tarentum, or about his own shop. These tools have fortunately been preserved 20 miles above Pittsburgh on the Allegheny River. The and are displayed in the Drake Museum (Fig. 5). They consist of two bits, a set of jars and a sinker bar. The bit is place was called Salina, and an old atlas of Pennsylvania 19 3-in. wide and 28.5-in. long. A memorandum book kept by printed in 1872 shows a station on the railroad called Smith shows their cost as follows: "Peterson". 1. C. White in the Second Geological Survey Mr. Droke of Pennsylvania Report printed in 1878" says that the saIt May 14, 1859 wells were about 400~ft deep and obtained the brine from To making tools, the full set ...... $46.00 2 spear boxes...... 2.50 a sand about the same depth below the Upper Freeport 4 spear pins...... 4.00 Coal. Peterson is said to have supplied oil to the cotton 16 sucker joi nls, $1.50 24.00 factory in Pittsburgh which used it successfully for lubri­ $76.50 cating spindles for 10 years, unknown to any but the pro­ In May Drake sent a wagon to Tarentum to bring Smith, prietors". Peterson also sold substantial quantities of oil his 16-year old son Samuel and his 24-year old daughter to McKeown, Nevin, and Co. who sold it for lubricating Margaret, who was to keep house for her father and oil to carding mills in Baltimore'·. brother. They moved into the shack Drake had prepared During July Drake went to Pittsburgh and attempted to for the engine the previous summer, fixing it up enough to arrange for a drilling contractor. He had been told by the be habitable'·. Mrs. Smith and the other children came salt people that "many of the borers were thirsty souls and later in the summer. preferred whiskey to any other liquid for a steady drink, Digging the Conductor Pit and not infrequently a hole four or five hundred feet deep As was the custom, the conductor pit was dug by hand. had been spoiled by the unskillful management of a drun­ The location was only 150 ft from the creek in coarse ken borer, thereby causing a loss to the owner of not only gravel, so it was practically impossible to keep the water the amount paid for boring but also the time necessary for pumped out of the pit. The deeper they dug the worse the boring another well". The regular contract was 75 cents/ft, water came in, and their pumps could not keep ahead of but Drake finally settled with a man to drilI a thousand­ it. Smith welded some rods together and drove them down ahead to find out how far it was to bedrock, but he was foot hole, for $1/ft. The man, however, disappeared and still in gravel at 26 ft. Drake then drove to Erie and pur­ could not be located again. Drake then contracted with an­ chased three 1O-ft joints of cast iron pipe, 3 in. in diameter, other driller at Tarentum to start work Sept. 10. He did with O.5-in. wall thickness'·. Attempts were made to drive not show up on that date and Drake visited him twice. The the pipe through the gravel with an oak log, lifting it with second trip was on Nov. 17, when he found him engaged a hand winch and letting it drop on the pipe. The first at­ in a fishing job. "I found he had broke a bitt in the well tempts broke the pipe, but replacements were obtained and which then about 425 ft deep and he was trying to get rock was finally reached at about 31 ft. the piece out of the well". Peterson told Drake it was too Drake's accounts (Fig. 6) show a payment of $100 to late in the year to start work, so he decided to suspend Liddell, Hershey, & Co., of Erie, Pa., on the engine as operations until spring'·. early as Oct., 1858. In November he paid $200 more and another $100 in April, 1859. In June he paid Liddell, Her­ shey & Co. $4 for a machinist and in July another bill ':'The country storekeepers from whom he bought the pick and spikes later became oil millionaires. for "board for men putting out eng." He shows in July the

JANUARY, 1959 23 cost of a trip to Erie for "pipe & c". Thus, he probably did not get finally rigged up until about Aug. 1. The long distance to New Haven and the poor communi­ cations resulted in delays in receiving advances of money. On more than one occasion Drake had to get R. D. Fletcher and Peter Wilson, Titusville storekeepers, to endorse his personal note at a Meadville bank. Apparently these notes were' for personal needs. Furthermore, the company was getting pretty discouraged. They had already spent $2,000, and in April the stockholders voted to send him a final remittance of $500. He had $347 in cash on hand on that date. Townsend continued to advance him money but fi­ nally wrote him to pay all bills and return to New Haven. Tqis letter arrived a day or so after he had struck oil. The Titusville people later felt that the New Haven sharehold­ ers had failed to give Drake the necessary financial support. Once the pipe was driven and the surface water shut off, the drilling operation must have proceeded routinely. Sam­ uel Smith later remembered that his father had 200 or 300 ft of cable, and added that in order to bail the hole it was necessary to screw a copper sand pump on the roge socket Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/11/01/14/2237157/spe-1195-g.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 and lower it with the bull wheel, which was a slow process. Sand reels and lines for the bailer were introduced later. It is obvious that oil was not eX!lected for several hundred feet. The Discovery There are several differing versions of the circumstances under which the discovery was made, especially regarding the dates. In 1866 Drake returned to Titusville for a visit, and while there he was interviewed by a reporter for the Titusville Herald. In 1870 he wrote an incomplete account, the manuscript of which is preserved in the Drake Museum. In 1879 he was again interviewed at South Bethlehem, Pa. In Jan., 1880, W. A. Smith revisited Titusville and was in­ Fig. 6-Drake's aeeounts for the ,summer of ]859 while terviewed by a reporter from the Titusville Herald. Smith h e was drilling the first well. was elderly and loquacious, so that this account is by all odds the most colorful, but also appears to be the least re­ liable. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary in 1909 the Oil City Derrick reporters interviewed a number of other people still living who remembered the drilling of the well. These included two of Smith's sons, his daughter, three of the mill employees and R. D. Fletcher. All of these ac­ count's were collected by Giddens and reprinted in Penn­ sylvania Petroleum, 1750-1872'". Pieced together, the most likely story is as follows. Drill­ ing was always suspended on week-ends, and the rig was shut down on the afternoon of Saturday, Aug. 27, at a depth of 69.5 ft. Smith reported that he had hit a crevice at 69 ft and that the tools had dropped 6 in. This may have been imagination colored by later recollection, for during the 1860's it was believed that the oil was contained in crevices, and that unless the hole interce9ted a crevice the well would be dry. It was not until the 1870's that it was shown that the oil is present in the pores of the sand. On the other hand, crevices have been found in tunnels and other excavations at this shallow depth in the Pitts­ burgh area. As the tools were only 3 in. in diameter it is possible that they did fall into one. Early wells were drilled "wet", i.e., with a hole fuU of water. They were brought in by running tubing with a seed-bag packer and then pumping out the water in the hole. The hole was probably standing full of water to creek level, a few feet below the derrick floor, at the time the crew went off tour Saturday afternoon. Late Sunday _afternoon Smith dropped by the well and noticed oil standing near the top of the drive pipe. He im­ provised a bailer by plugging the end of a piece of tin tubing, and bailed out several gallons of oil. His boy, very Fig. 5-TooIs made by Smith and used by excited, rushed to the saw mill shouting "they've struck him to drill the Drake Well. oil!" The workmen hurried down and found Uncle Billy

JOIJ RCXAI. OF PETROLEUM TE(;H:-OOLOGY Dusily dipping out 011 and filling all the containers he could find. The news reached Titusville quickly, but apparently Drake did not get to the well until the next morning. He obtained an ordinary hand water-well pump which he ran into the well and pumped from a depth of about 20 ft. The well was later tubed to bottom with a seed-bag packer on copper tubing and pumped from near the bottom, af­ ter which it made about 10 BID for a year or more. Disposal of the oil was quite a problem. Drake scoured the countryside for whiskey barrels, which at first were quite plentiful. Oil at this time was worth about $1.25/gal, and the production of several hundred gallons per day im­ pressed everyone with this astonishing new source of wealth. The Oil Rush The news caused great interest in the community and Fig. 7-Urake Welt III Ibb;$. unCle tilHy ~mJlh IS seated large crowds visited the well. The more astute immediately in wheelbarrow. saw what to do and took off after leases. Jonathan Watson told the head sawyer to look after the saw mill as he was horizons, extending over a vertical interval of 300 ft. The going to be gone a few days. The sawyer figured out uppermost pay is called the First sand, two sands called Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/11/01/14/2237157/spe-1195-g.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 quickly what Watson's errand was and immediately turned the Lytle and Second fall about the middle of the interval the lumber business over to his chief assistant. He himself and the Third sand is the lowest and most prolific. The managed to get two leases before nightfall. In the mean­ Third sand, the principal pay at Titusville, is about 400 ft time Watson had galloped off down Oil Creek and leased below the Drake Well. the McClintock farm on which he had shown Crosby the Drake encountered a thin stray sand above the First live seep. George Bissell hurried to Titusville and purchased sand which is not found anywhere else in the area. This farms along the Allegheny River. All the moneyed people sand was generally encountered in the vicinity of the Drake in Titusville got the idea and began bidding for property, Well when the Watson's Flats pool was being redrilled for so that farms sold for fabulous prices within a very few air and gas repressuring in the 1930's. It is about 2-ft thick, days after the Drake discovery. and when the sand was penetrated the holes would fill to In a remarkably short time other drillers and tools were the surface with water carrying a scum of dark, heavy oil. obtained from the salt country and additional wells were A few months after Drake's discovery several wells started. Three more producers were completed before the reached the First sand at about 150 ft and were more pro­ end of 1859 and by the end of 1860 there were 74 pro­ ductive than the Drake Well. It was not until the drillers ducing wells with a production of 1,165 BID. reached the Third sand, about a year later, that large, flow­ Drake never took advantage of his discovery. While oth­ ing wells were obtained. ers were leasing property he settled down to pump his well and drill another nearby. He made a small amount of Later Oil Operations money and left Titusville in 1863 for New York where he traded in oil stocks. He lost all his money and later his A pamphlet by Thomas Gale" of Riceville was printed health failed. He moved to Long Branch, N. J., where he in 1860 which describes the oil operations a year after the became an almost complete invalid. His wife cared for him discovery. Land was leased on terms very similar to those and the children and took in sewing to support the fam­ of today. A lease, consisting of the right to exploit the oil, ily. He went to New York one day to try to find a job for was sold for a bonus plus a royalty. The farms were sub­ his boy and accidentally ran into an old friend from Titus­ divided into tracts as small as an acre or even less. The ville who was horrified to find him in such circumstances bonus and royalty depended on how highly the tracts were and without enough money even for supper. His friends in regarded, which in turn depended mainly on how far they Titusville raised $5,000 and later persuaded the legislature were from a good well. The bonus ranged from $1 to sev­ to grant him an annual pension. His health continued to eral hundred, and the royalty from one-tenth to one-third, deteriorate and he died in 1880. or rarely, one-half of the oil. The bonuses paid increased Blacksmiths, machinists and carpenters flocked to the to fabulous sums after the flowing wells were encountered area. At first the oil was all handled in wooden barrels, so in 1861. The leases were occasionally in perpetuity but the demand for coopers and teamsters was very great. Spec­ were usually for 10 or 20 year terms. They usually involved ulators and investors of all complexions from honest to drilling commitments, the lessor agreeing to commence crooked abounded. According to men who had witnessed drilling promptly and to pursue it with due diligence to both, the excitement exceeded that of the California gold a depth of 200 ft unless oil were encountered sooner. Only rush 10 years previously. It was fully comparable to the land along the valleys of Oil Creek and the Allegheny later oil booms in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Oklahoma. River was leased. Wildcatters of that day, like those of to­ day, looked for oil in places that resembled those in which it had previously been discovered. It was not until 1864 Geology of the Drake Well that a venturesome operator, doubtless contrary to the best The oil sands of the Titusville pool''' are Upper Devonian advice of the experts, drilled a discovery well on a hill­ in age and belong to the Chemung formation. They are top overlooking Oil Creek at Petroleum Center. very lenticular in shape and are hard and usually cemented Gale states that it was usual to dig to rock by hand and with secondary silica. The porosity averages around 15 per insert a square wooden conductor pipe. If too much water cent and the permeability is usually less than 100 md, ex­ was encountered, cast iron pipe, 6 in. in diameter, was cept that in some pebbly sands it becomes quite large. driven. The joints were lO-ft long and connected by shrink­ There are no anticlinal or other closed structures in the ing iron bands. The derrick was usually 35-ft tall, with area, and all pools are stratigraphic. There are several pay sills 14-ft long and plates 5 ft. The average cost was as

JANUARY, 1959 25 follows: tools, $75; derrick, materials and construction, 9. Oppler, Theodor: Handbuch der Fabrikation Mineralischer $20; digging above rock, $l/ft, $50; boring, $1.50/ft for Oele, Julius Springer, Berlin (1862) 8. 10. Morgan, Jerome J. and Soule, Roland P.: "Characteristics the first 50 ft, $2.12Y2 for the next 100 ft. The pumping of Low-Temperature Tar", Chem. and Met. Eng. (1922) 26, equipment cost $125, a steam engine and boiler $350 plus 923. $25 freight. The total cost of a completed well was thus 11. Giddens, Paul H.: The Birth of the Oil Industry, The Mac­ slightly over $1,000. Gale points out that "a tool breaks Millan Co., N. Y., 1938. 12 .. Hale, J. P.: Resources of West Virginia, chapter on salt, or a piece of machinery, and everything stops except the M. F. Maury and Wm. M. Fontaine, Wheeling, W. Va. (1876) wages of several men . . . A practical workman to super­ 274. intend the piping and drilling is very desirable." 13. Peckham, S. F.: "Production, Technology, and Uses of Petro­ It was not long before the new supply of oil far exceeded leum and its Products", House Miscellaneous Documents, No. 42. 47th Congress, 2d Session (Tenth Census) XIII, parf. 10, the capacity of the transportation and refining systems. The 1880. price dropped to 25 cents/gal, so that the Seneca Oil Co., 14. Van Rensselaer, Jeremiah: Essay on Salt, New York, 1823 which had to pay a royalty of 12 cents, could not continue (pamphlet in the collection of The American Philosophical in business and dissolved. In 1861, when the flowing wells Society, Philadelphia). 16. Hildreth, S. P.: "Observations on the Saliferous Rock Forma­ were struck, the price went as low as 10 cents/bbl. The tion in the Valley of the Ohio", American Journal of Science outbreak of the Civil War made men and materials scarce (July, 1833) XXIV, 50. and activity temporarily ceased. By 1862, however, the 17. Price, Paul H., Hare, C. E., McCue, J. B., and Hoskins, transportation, refining and marketing branches of the new Homer A.: "Salt Brines of West Virginia" West Virginia industry had caught up with the producing branches, and Geological Survey (1937) VII. 18. White, I. c.: "Geology of Beaver, Northern Allegheny, and while the price never again reached $1/gal, production in­ Southern Butler Counties, Pennsylvania", Second Geol. Sur­ Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/11/01/14/2237157/spe-1195-g.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 creased rapidly. Shipments of oil overseas provided the vey of Pa., Report Q, Harrisburg (1878) 147. Union with an important source of foreign exchange dur­ 19. Walling, Henry F. and Gray, O. N.: New Topographical Atlas ing the war. When the war was over the price hit a new of the State of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (1872) 29. This at­ las shows a railroad station called Peterson just south of high, speculators and investors flocked to the region, and Tarentum. the most fabulous booms of all occurred in the oil regions. 20. Mitman, Carl W.: "Samuel M. Kier", Dictionary of Ameri­ can Biography, Charles Scribners & Sons., N. Y. (1933) 10, Conclusiou 372. 21. Henry, James Dodd: History and Romance of the Petroleum There have been claims that other wells were drilled Industry, Bradbury, Agnew, and Co., London (1914) 107. for oil before the one drilled by Colonel Drake. It is not 22. Newell, Lyman c.: "James Curtis Booth", Dictionllry of the purpose of this paper to investigate or dispute these American Biography, 2, 450. 23. Giddens, Paul H.: Pennsylvania Petroleum, 1750-1872, A claims. No one is likely to question the fact that it was the Documentary History, Historical and Museum Commission, Drake Well at Titusville which started the industry on its Titusville (1947). spectacular career. 24. Silliman, Benjamin, Jr.: Report on the Rock Oil, or Petro­ leum, from Venango Co., Pennsylvania, pamphlet printed by Ref ere nee s* J. H. Benham, New Haven, Conn., 1855, facsimile reprinted by Paul H. Giddens, Meadville, Pa., 1949. 1. Clark, Victor S.: History of Manufacturers in the U. S. Mc· 25. Andrews, E. B.: "Rock Oil, its Geological Relations and Dis­ Graw·Hill Book Co., Inc., N. Y. (1929) 492. tribution", American Journal of Science (July, 1861) 32, 2. Lunge, Georg: "Gas Manufacture" Encyclopedia Britannica, No. 94, 85. 11th ed. (1909) 11,483. 26. Francis, Wilfrid: Coal, Edwin Arnold, London (1954) 473. 3. Brandt, Karl: Whale Oil, an Economic Analysis, Stanford, 27. Moore, E. S.: Coal, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., N. Y., 2d Cal., 1940. ed., 1940. 4. Eighth Census of the U. S.: "Manufacturers", Washington 28. Silliman, Benjamin, Jr.: Principles of Physics, or Natural (1865) 739. Philosophy, Theodore Bliss, Philadelphia, 2nd ed., 1870. 5. Martog, Philip Joseph: "James Young", Dictionary of Na· 29. Dickey, Parke A., Sherrill, R. E., and Matteson, L. S.: "Oil tional Biography, London, 1921. and Gas Geology of the Oil City Quadrangle, Pennsylvania", 6. Antisell, Thomas: The Manufacture of Photogenic or Hydro­ Bull., Pa. Topographic and Geologic Survey (1943) M 25. carbon Oils from Coal and other Bbtuminous Substances Ca­ 30. Giddens, Paul H.: op. cit. 25, 27, 67, 71, 82. pable of Supplying Burning Fluids", Appleton-Century-Crofts, 31. Dickey, Parke A.: "Oil Geology of the Titusville Quad· N. Y., 1866. rangle", Bull., Pa. Topographic and Geologic Survey (1940) 7. Gesner, Abraham: A Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum, M22. and other Distilled Oils", Bailliere Bros., N. Y., 1861. 32. Gale, Thomas A.: Rock Oil, Sloan and Griffeth, Erie, 1860. 8. Faulkner, Harold J.: "Joshua Merrill", American Dictionary Reprinted, with notes, by Ethyl Corp., N. Y., 1952. of Biography XII, 562. 33. Henry, J. T.: The Early and Later History of Petroleum, ·This bibliography includes only those items to which specific refer­ Philadelphia, 1873. ence is made in the text. For a complete bibliography see Giddens. 34. Henry, James Dodd: op. cit. ***

26 (JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY