World Struggle for Oil Began at Titusville, August 28, 1859

The gigantic struggle for oil began in Titusville, Pennsylvania, August 28, 1859, when Colonel Edwin L. Drake struck oil in the world’s first well.

This small hole drilled through the rock so peacefully opened the way to wealth hitherto unknown. It yielded about forty barrels per day, but the precious fuel was now produced in commercial quantities. It opened also the most important natural production of Pennsylvania, after iron and coal.

This first well was in Cherry Tree Township, on the Watson Flats, on the bank of Oil Creek, about two miles below the thrifty borough of Titusville.

Venango County seems to have been the native home for petroleum for although it has been found in large quantities in neighboring counties, it was first gathered there and its presence was known from the advent of man in that vast region.

The Indians gathered oil from a stream called Oil Creek, in this vicinity, which they used for medicinal purposes. It became well known all over the country as “Seneca Oil,” “British Oil” and other names. It was collected by digging out the place where it oozed out of the ground, and when oil and water had accumulated, blankets were thrown in, taking up the oil, when it was wrung out, and the process repeated.

A century since the product of Oil Creek Valley amounted to a dozen barrels a year. The first shipment in bulk was made by a man named Cary, who filled two five-gallon kegs and lashed them on either side of the horse he rode to the market at Pittsburgh. This supply stocked the market.

By the year 1865 Venango County shipped 13,000 barrels per day about the only oil produced in this country.

Petroleum was desired as an illuminator, but the small quantity obtainable made it too expensive.

According to the production records more than one billion barrels of oil were produced in 1923 for a world’s record in oil production—and yet the supply is far short of the world demand.

Fish oil is the earliest known illuminant and lubricant. “Coal oil,” however, still used erroneously as the name for kerosene, was discovered less than eighty years ago by Dr. Abraham Gesner, who, in 1846, obtained oil from coal. That was enough to ruin the fish oil industry, and soon more than fifty coal oil works were put in operation, distilling oil from bituminous, or soft coal.

592A man named Kier, at Tarentum, Pennsylvania, in 1847, bored for salt water and pumped up oil. He put it in barrels and sold it. A professor at Dartmouth College, using some of the oil, told George H. Bissell that in his opinion it could be used for illuminating purposes. Bissell investigated these claims and organized the Petroleum Oil Company—which was the first of its kind in the United States, and sent a quantity to Benjamin Silliman, Professor of Chemistry in Yale College, who reported that nearly the whole of the raw product could be treated so as to be used for illuminating and other purposes without any waste.

In December, 1857, Colonel Edwin L. Drake, one of the stockholders of this company, rode into Titusville on a mail coach from Erie. He carried with him $1,000 with which to begin boring for oil. He started immediately to his work, but met with many discouragements.

Well drillers were unknown and well drilling machinery almost unheard of in 1858. He built his “pump house” and derrick, and with the assistance of “Uncle Billy” Smith, began drilling.

The beginning was made in quicksand and clay, and as soon as the hole was made it filled up with water and caved in. Drake then hit upon the scheme of driving an iron pipe through to bedrock, and its success made the use of this method the standard practice of today in the oil fields everywhere.

After rock was reached they bored but three feet per day, but by Saturday, August 27, 1859, the well had reached the depth of sixty-nine feet and the drill was working in coarse sand. Smith and his sons, who were helping him, had finished for the week. As they were quitting the drill dropped six inches, apparently into a crevice, as was common in salt wells. No attention was paid to this circumstance, the tools were drawn out and all hands adjourned to Titusville.

Sunday morning Uncle Billy strolled out to the drill, and to his astonishment found the well filled within a few feet of the surface with a dark fluid. It was oil. The news soon spread to the village, and when Colonel-Drake appeared he found Uncle Billy guarding three barrels of petroleum. The pumping apparatus was adjusted, and by noon the well was producing at the rate of twenty barrels per day. The problem of the ages had been solved. The world’s first oil well was in production.

Then began what has been called the “oil fever.” People from all parts of the country flocked to western Pennsylvania. Oil companies were everywhere organized, whose stock was sold on the market. Land which for generations had been regarded as almost barren sold for fabulous prices.

“Coal Oil Johnnie,” an ignorant young man whose paternal acres had long brought only poverty and were now found to be located with wealth, appeared in Philadelphia, scattering ten dollar bills in all directions, and buying teams of horses on one day, only to give them to his 593coachman on the next. He built an opera house in Cincinnati and ended his career as its doorkeeper.

In 1860, near Rouseville, the oil flowed out of a well without the use of a pump, and other flowing wells in adjacent localities were soon found.

Oil was first transported in wagons and boats. The railroads were laid out to Oil City in 1865. In 1864 Samuel Van Syckel had constructed a pipe line four miles in length, and the result was a change in the entire method of transportation. A refinery was built at Corry in 1862.

The Pennsylvania grade of crude oil is the best lubricant that man has ever found. And since refineries can add nothing to an oil that was not present in its crude state, Pennsylvania grade of crude oil is still supreme.

In recent years the Standard Oil Company has controlled to a great extent the oil production of the country.

The largest individual fortune the world has ever seen is the outcome of the development of the business of securing and distributing coal oil.