USA > New York > Genesee County > History of the Genesee country (western New York) comprising the counties of Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Erie, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Ontario, Orleans, Schuyler, Steuben, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates, Volume II > Part 31
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CHAPTER XLIII OIL AND GAS IN THE GENESEE COUNTRY
BY LEWIS H. THORNTON,
President of New York State Oil Producers Association.
The oil fields of southwestern New York, the only ones in the state, covering an area of approximately 50,000 acres, pro- duced between five and six million dollars worth of petroleum in 1924. The total output and value promises to be greater in 1925.
Four hundred productive new wells were drilled in 1924. Production has approximately doubled in ten years since 1915, rising from three-quarters of a million barrels to about one and a half million barrels in 1924. This surprising revival of old fields, which had been producing since 1879, and had had their peak of 24,000 barrels a day in July, 1882, is largely the result of new methods of production from the same sands, known as “flooding."
Approximately seventy million barrels of oil had been mar- keted from the New York State fields up to 1924. Mr. C. A. Hartnagel, assistant State Geologist, estimates that recoverable reserves from present producing sands are at least ninety mil- lion barrels; in other words, that more oil will yet come from the same sands than they have produced by the old methods in the past forty-six years. This amount of oil would fill a lake six feet deep and three and a quarter square miles in area.
Being of the "Pennsylvania" paraffine type of crude oil, New York State petroleum is claimed to be the "highest grade oil in the world." It sells at the wells for the highest price paid for any crude petroleum, excepting a freak production of near- gasoline from single freak wells encountered now and then in the
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great western fields. New York oil and other "Pennsylvania" type petroleums provide special lubricants of such unexcelled superiority that they are used regularly on nearly all railroad locomotives and most steam engines. Though transcontinental railroads traverse the great oil fields of the West, from Okla- homa to California, their engines use cylinder oils made from New York State crude and from "Pennsylvania" oil produced only in the Appalachian fields. The name "Pennsylvania" oil includes the paraffine base oils from New York, Pennsylvania, southeastern Ohio and West Virginia. Superior lubricants for automobile cylinders as well as locomotives come from "Pennsyl- vania" oil and they are in great demand wherever motor cars run.
Most of the wells still produce by the old pumping methods. "Flooding" is only in its first stages in the greater part of the New York fields. Old wells are very small producers, pumping only from about .08 to about .25 of a barrel each. There are between 13,000 and 14,000 producing oil wells in the state. Their aver- age production, including the flood district, is between a quarter and a third of a barrel each. Some flood wells have started as high as 100 barrels each. Many of these wells do several barrels a day for several years. The average price paid for this oil at the wells during 1924 was $3.61 a barrel. The yearly prices of Pennsylvania oil from 1859 to date are given elsewhere in this history. Before the war New York State oil wells cost about $1,500 each, fully equipped; in 1920 from $3,000 to $3,500 each; and in 1925, $2,000 to $2,500, according to depth.
Borrowing an expression from the dairy industry which has been the mainstay of the southwestern New York farmers, the little old wells have aptly been called "strippers." Pennsylvania has 76,000 of them, doing an average of .27 of a barrel each. Of the 300,000 oil wells in the United States producing about 2,200,000 barrels a day, 250,000 of them pump less than six barrels a day each. Gusher wells doing thousands of barrels each are the most talked about, but without the small settled pro- duction of a multitude of small wells to help stabilize conditions, the present considerable fluctuations in the price of gasoline and the other products of petroleum would be very insignificant.
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SENECA INDIAN OIL SPRING-FIRST KNOWN PETROLEUM IN AMERICA.
The Seneca Indian oil spring, now nearly lost in the waste land of the uninhabited square mile of Indian reservation near the outlet of Cuba Lake, Cuba, Allegany County, New York, is a spot of historic oil interest.
So far as historians know, seepage oil from the surface water of this spring was the first petroleum in America to attract the Indians' attention, although there were other seepages through- out the Appalachian region. Oil from the Seneca Indian spring was the first petroleum in America to be mentioned by the early European explorers. The Indians believed it a medicinal cure- all. It was known far north of the Great Lakes, and the Iroquois tribes carried its fame to the red men of the east. It was a search for the famous oil of the Seneca Indians which brought the first white man into the Genesee Country.
American oil history is supposed to begin with the Drake well at Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859, from which began the commercial use of petroleum; but the historian must come to Allegany County, New York, for the actual discovery of petro- leum in America and its first mention by European writers. The quantity was not large enough to become commercially useful, nor did it lead directly to the development of the Allegany oil field, but it was gathered in small quantities, from the surface of the spring, through several centuries that we know of, and bar- tered by the Indians, and later sold in drug stores as "Seneca Oil" to be used for medicine, good for both external and internal use. And so it really was. Refined mineral oil is much pre- scribed by modern physicians as an internal lubricant, and every well-appointed barber shop of today uses crude oil at times for the hair. A Franciscan friar, Joseph de la Roche d'Allion, is said to have described in a letter written in 1627 his visit to the Seneca Indian oil spring. One of the authorities for this is Victor Ziegler, professor of Geology in the Colorado School of Mines. In his well known book entitled "Popular Oil Geology," Professor Ziegler said: "The first record of oil in America dates back to 1627, when the Franciscan friar, Joseph de la Roche d'Allion, described in a letter the oil spring of Allegany County, New York, which was highly prized by the Indians."
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Roche d'Allion is said to have come down from north of the Lakes to the Seneca oil spring in 1627 on an expedition arranged especially to explore it. Mr. J. S. Minard, Allegany County historian, is authority for the statement that a map published in 1677 located the spring and described it by the words: "Fon- taine de bitume." In 1700 an English officer was instructed to explore the spring; a report by Vanuxem in 1837 refers to the spring and Doctor Beck's report on the Mineralogy of New York mentions it in 1842. Thus historians concede this spring as a source of the discovery of petroleum in America.
Father Charlevoix, who passed along the shore of Lake Ontario in 1721, writing from Fort Niagara, said that he had it from an officer worthy of credit that he had seen a fountain of the Indians which the savages used to appease all manner of pains. The officer to whom Charlevoix alluded was probably Joncaire, a Frenchman who had been adopted by the Indians. It is recorded that he made a number of trips up what is now the Genesee River, to Belvidere, and over the divide to Oil Creek. George H. Har- ris, Esq., of Rochester, N. Y., in an address before the Livingston County Historical Society in 1886, said: "The fountain men- tioned was undoubtedly the petroleum oil spring near Cuba, New York, and there was another one in Venango County, Pennsylvania."
The Allegany County Centennial Memorial History of 1895 said, "The famous oil spring near Cuba is a muddy circular pool of water thirty feet in diameter, the ground low and marshy immediately surrounding it, and the pool without apparent out- let or bottom."
"A tradition of the Senecas thus ascribes its origin. A very big, fat squaw was one day observing the pool, and becoming quite curious in her investigations, she ventured too near, fell in, and disappeared forever. Since this time, which, it is said, was many centuries ago, oil has risen from the spring. Curative properties of a high order have been ascribed to it, and the Indians made use of it 'to appease all manner of pains.'"
Under date of Albany, September 3, 1700, Lord Belmont, in his letter of instructions to Colonel Romer, "His Majesty's Chief Engineer of America," used these words, "You are to go and visit the well, or spring, which is eight miles beyond the Seneca's
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further Castle, which it is said blazes up in a flame when a lighted coal is put into it."
The Indians for years gathered the oil by spreading blankets over the surface of the spring. These readily absorbed the oil as it floated on top of the water, and the oil was rung out of the blankets, caught in a vessel, put up in vials and labeled "Seneca Oil."
The New York State Oil Producers Association is encour- aging a substantial and enduring marking of the location of the Seneca Indian Oil Spring, and the building of a road to it from the highway about half a mile distant. Mr. R. H. Bartlett, of Cuba, is chairman of the committee for this purpose. The spring is said to have been damaged by the drilling of a test well for oil, which, though destitute of oil in paying quantites, may have encountered the same sand which had for centuries been seeping a small quantity of oil into the spring, and thus stopped its flow. By tapping the same vein of water which fed the spring the water supply also seemed to have been affected.
FIRST REAL TESTS FOR OIL.
Within seven years of the Drake discovery of oil in paying quantities in Pennsylvania, the first test well drilled for oil in Allegany County, New York, and possibly the first test for oil in the State of New York, was completed in 1866 in the village of Whitesville. Being the first test for oil this well is of historic interest. It encountered a small show of oil at a shallow depth but was abandoned as unproductive of oil in paying quantities. It was located near Cryder Creek in about the center of the village of Whitesville, 1,200 or 1,500 feet south of the central Main Street bridge on Lot 51, town of Independence. Among those financially interested in the well were Levi Quimby, Lewis Horton and Levias Bartlett. Several years later Tadder & Co. completed a well on the far east side of the same lot 51, Inde- pendence, which had a much better showing of oil, and is said to have flowed some petroleum down the creek. In spite of its brave show it was soon abandoned as unproductive of petroleum in paying quantities.
Other tests were made near Whitesville, but it was not until
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many years after Taylor's Triangle No. 1 at Petrolia was drilled in 1879, that paying oil was found near Whitesville. This was about two miles north of the original test well, where a productive field of several hundred acres was later developed.
Acting upon the old theory of the 45-degree line for develop- ment of oil fields, from northeast to southwest, several unsuc- cessful tests were made before 1879 at Eleven Mile, Shingle House and Genesee Forks, Pennsylvania. Practically all the early drilling was founded on the "degree" theory. In a large way this had a foundation in fact. The far-flung Appalachian oil fields as later developed followed the general direction of the Appalachian mountains. But the degree theory proved entirely inapplicable to purely local developments.
CATTARAUGUS COUNTY'S EARLY EFFORTS.
Statements have been made which are doubtless reliable, but remain unverified by the writer, that a test well for oil was drilled near Limestone, Cattaraugus County, New York, in 1865 or 1866. This well, and the Whitesville, Allegany County, well of 1866 were the first tests for oil in the State of New York.
Along about the time of the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876 the eyes of Bradford oil men were turned to the territory to the north and within a few years production began to be developed in New York State, near Knapp's Creek and the Rock City region, just north of the Pennsylvania state line. Among the early successful operators there was the oil pioneer, Mr. John Coast, of Olean.
TAYLOR'S DISCOVERY WELL, TRIANGLE NO. 1.
A practical oil shrine is the location of Taylor's Triangle Well No. 1. This promises soon to be permanently marked by a native boulder and a bronze tablet. The New York State Oil Producers Association is doing this through a committee of which W. J. Richardson, of Wellsville, N. Y., is chairman. Triangle No. 1 was the first paying well, the first flowing well and the well which began the commercial development of the Allegany County field. Triangle No. 1 was completed June 12, 1879. Although in 1925
O. P. TAYLOR'S TRIANGLE No. I
The Discovery Well of the Allegany County oil field. Photograph taken June, 1879.
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it is still pumping, as it has been doing for forty-six years, its life from now on is a more precarious one. Hit by the flood, as it may sometime be, water having been introduced in the sand in that region, the oil left in the rock will eventually be washed out and the well abandoned. Although the Taylor brothers, Charles and William O., sons of O. P. Taylor, have retained nearly all their father's oil production in this field, and added more of their own, the old Triangle wells were sold many years ago to Macken & Breckenridge and by them to H. B. Sutfin, who, in turn, sold them a few years ago to Piper & Wilson, of Bradford, Pa. The latter have a successful flood, but it has not yet reached Triangle No. 1.
WILDCAT TESTS BEFORE TRIANGLE.
It is the discoveries which lead to actual, useful results by definitely proving something and encouraging further develop- ment that go down in history. Thus it was with O. P. Taylor's three Triangle wells. But previous to Triangle No. 1 in 1879, seven or eight test wells had been drilled in Allegany County, several showing oil in small quantities, and Pikeville No. 1, drilled by Ben Thomas, of the "Bottom Dollar Oil Co.," organized by James Thornton, George Howard and others, of Wellsville, an interest in which was later purchased by O. P. Taylor, had a good thick sand and would have made a two-barrel well. This was not large enough to pay at that time and the well was aban- doned.
There are some living oil men who remember the old Alma or Honeoye wildcat, on the Itaii J. Elliott farm, Lot 26, South Alma, which was drilled in 1877 by Ben Thomas for the "Wells- ville and Alma Oil Co." It was not completed until 1878, the rig catching fire from an unexpected flow of gas encountered at from 400 to 500 feet. This was a very expensive well for the time, costing several thousand dollars, and many public-spirited Wells- villians helped foot the bill. The rig was rebuilt and a small show of oil found in a sand at 1,050 feet.
The next important venture was O. P. Taylor's Wyckoff well on the north middle of Lot 36, Alma, at the head of the north branch of Ford's Brook, about 2 1-2 miles from the Pikeville well. This discovered considerable sand but only a very small
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quantity of oil. It was high gravity oil and light green, which greatly pleased Mr. Taylor, and he thereupon located Triangle No. 1 on the Crandall farm, Lot 4, Scio. He believed that Pike- ville No. 1 and the Wyckoff well betokened that the Triangle No. 1 location was a good one. He was right. A good oil sand was found from 1,126 to 1,153 feet and the well finished at 1,177. When the tools were run after the shot the hole had filled 700 feet. It was tubed and flowed freely a first head of 8 or 10 barrels. Great headlines in the local papers called it "Taylor's Triangle Triumph," and indeed it was a triumph. Mr. Taylor had demon- strated great courage and perseverance. Like most pioneers he was not burdened with much capital. The fickle public had tired of his wildcatting, and greatly disappointed at the Pikeville and Wyckoff failures, people began a bitter criticism, charging him with keeping things back and failing purposely to make a well of the Pikeville venture. According to the newspapers of that day the public seemed to think he was in some way to blame for not at once developing a successful field. Before the Triangle well came in he evidently felt this, contributing a defensive signed article for the press early in 1879. All was immediately changed with the advent of the Triangle well. Adulation then took the place of criticism. But as usual the people overestimated the caliber of Triangle No. 1. Soon they were disappointed that after a few weeks it was not much more than a 5-barrel well. Three dry holes followed Triangle No. 1. When the next three test wells drilled in the field came in dry, or so near it that they were abandoned, there came a deep gloom in the atmosphere of Wellsville oildom. Not so with O. P. Taylor himself. He felt positive of the field after Triangle No. 1. The Longabaugh dry hole about a mile north of Triangle No. 1, the Brimmer Brook duster, and Mr. Taylor's own dry well on the Williams farm, Bolivar, never affected the optimism of the man who "knew there was a great field in Allegany County." Neither did the salt water in the Triangle well, which seemed to discourage many early in 1880. He saw the Shoff well, south of Pikeville, drilled by the Bradford Oil Co., come in with a fair show of oil, a small producer. At that time he was at work on Triangle No. 2, 800 feet south of No. 1. It came in in the spring of 1880, a little better well than No. 1.
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TRIANGLE No. 3, 25 BARRELS.
Triangle No. 3, Lot 4, Alma, near the Scio-Alma line, about 2,500 feet south of Triangle No. 1, completed July 4, 1880, was reported by the veteran oil editor, P. C. Boyle, as a 25-barrel well. The actual amount of oil which was saved in tankage during the first 30 days was 301.65 barrels. This was ascer- tained by a dependable gauge to settle a bet. It was estimated that the entire production, lost and saved, approximated 400 barrels the first month. Again O. P. Taylor's star was in the ascendant, and from that time on he was acknowledged the Colonel Drake of the Allegany field.
It is interesting to observe the origin of the name "Triangle," as applied to O. P. Taylor's discovery well. It was used not in any relation to the two later wells called Triangle numbers 2 and 3, but from the triangle district embraced within the lines drawn from the old Pikeville well to the Wyckoff well, and thence to the Triangle well No. 1, and back to the Pikeville well. The Wellsville Reporter said in June, 1879: "Unquestionably all this is productive oil territory." But it did not prove so, for the entire Wyckoff end of the triangle was condemned and is still unproductive. Some day, perhaps, with high oil prices, produc- tion may be found there at a much greater depth.
MARKET DECLINED TO 96 CENTS.
There was a lower market for oil in the summer of 1879 than there had been in 1878, and following the completion of Triangle No. 1, the local newspaper comment of the day betokens a feeling that Bradford oil men were jealous of the development of a new field, the production of which might drive the oil market still lower. There has always been either under or over-production of crude oil, and in the very nature of the business, in spite of every effort to stabilize it, there always will be.
How familiar to our ears during every period of over-produc- tion sounds this sarcastic comment from the Wellsville Reporter of June, 1879 :
"Doubtless there is an overproduction of oil now, and people are fools to ruin their interests by running the. drill and all that, etc .; but doubtless they will all do it, and we may as well have some of the 'fools' operating here for the benefit of Wellsville, as to leave them all for the benefit of Bradford."
The Wellsville Democrat of July 20, 1880, had a big headline
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on its story of Triangle No. 3: "Flowing at the rate of 265 barrels a day." It had apparently calculated this from a head which the well had flowed in twelve minutes, noted by an observer. The Democrat also had the following interesting items :
"The excitement in Wellsville is intense. Nothing has equalled it since the Demo- cratic nomination of Hancock for President, and by a happy thought Taylor may change the name of this glorious well from Triangle No. 3 to Hancock, 'the hero of Gettysburg.'
"In six months the Wellsville oil district will be dotted with a thousand derricks, and our village will march on to a degree of prosperity unparalleled in the history of any town in this part of the Union."
The Wellsville Reporter in July, 1880, said all hotels were crowded to utmost capacity and were doing a rushing business. Among those registered in Wellsville at that time were Lyman Stewart, later president of the great Union Oil Co. of California, K. H. McBride and James Amm, who became multimillionaires, and Charles Collins, Joseph Evans, James Leonard, and scores of men who became leaders in the oil business.
The Duke and Norton well on the southeast corner of Lot 23, Alma, about 1 1-2 miles southeast of the Triangle wells, came in for a paying well soon after Triangle No. 3, and the Campbell well in Bolivar was a good one.
Mr. Taylor and other Wellsville oil men all had had great hopes of the oil field crossing the Genesee River valley south of Wellsville, and accordingly this territory had been pretty well leased, and Mr. Taylor and associates planned to drill tests in both Fulmer Valley and Trapping Brook. But as the trend of development made the field extension appear to go west and south, he gave more attention to that direction.
Triangle City, now Petrolia, was becoming an oil town, lots were bought and sold, a hotel projected, and restaurants, stores and houses built. The field was leaving Wellsville. Allentown, named after the active, vigorous and successful Riley Allen, was soon to boom, and Richburg and Bolivar were to become the oil meccas.
RICHBURG GUSHER A REAL WELL.
Mr. Crandall Lester of Richburg, with some personal knowl- edge of the Pithole oil excitement, and encouraged by the Brad- ford field and the Triangle wells, and by a persistent dream of
1
BURNING OIL TANK Near Wellsville, in the late '80s.
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a big well near Richburg, enlisted the assistance of Edward Bliss and A. B. Cottrell, of Richburg, and leased a big block of land just east of Richburg. He induced Herman and Ward Rice of Friendship to join him, and Riley Allen, who divided his interest with O. P. Taylor. Mr. Lester located on the Read farm, about one mile east of Richburg Village. The result was the famous old Richburg gusher, variously estimated from 300 to 400 barrels, completed April 27, 1881. This took the heart of the Allegany field definitely to Richburg and Bolivar, particularly so when another big well soon came in on the Ransom Fuller farm a little north of Richburg. This farm is now the Cartwright place, operated in part by F. L. Putnam and in part by Frank Brown. The latter recently struck a flood well there with a head of 100 barrels. This flood well is said to have done about 25 barrels a. day at two months old. Another large well of the early days was that of Dr. Pitts, associated with Miner & Wellman, of Friend- ship. This was in Richburg Village and was credited with a head of several hundred barrels.
Mr. Crandall Lester, who conceived the first Richburg loca- tion, described above, lives at Richburg this year of 1925 at the age of 85 years. His memory is good and he has been recently a successful pioneer in flooding as he was in the early develop- ment of the field. On his homestead lot in Richburg, next to the post office, he has a number of excellent flood wells, one of them in the front yard starting at 40 barrels a day.
Another of the pioneers interested in the old Richburg gusher is also well and prosperous, Mr. Riley Allen, living at his pleasant old homestead in Allentown.
Details of the exciting story of the field's further develop- ment, the mushroom rise of Richburg in a year from a few people to eight or ten thousand temporary inhabitants will be found herein under another heading. Bolivar had substantial progress. Six hundred wells were drilled in Allegany County in 1881; and 1,600 wells in 1882, with an average production of about 18,000 barrels daily for the year.
TRIANGLE CITY-PETROLIA.
In the summer of 1880 a settlement, near the then famous: Triangle wells, began to rapidly build up and was named
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Triangle City. The Wellsville Reporter of March 17, 1881, had the following relative to changing the name of this lively oil town :
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