USA > Ohio > Wood County > Commemorative historical and biographical record of Wood County, Ohio : its past and present : early settlement and development biographies and portraits of early settlers and representative citizens, etc. V. 1 > Part 44
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It is worthy of notice that the Territories which have been organized and afterward ad- initted as States subsequent to the admission of Ohio, were also granted the Section No. 16 in each township for school purposes, until the organization of the Territory of Oregon. in 1848, when Senator Stephen A. Douglass, of Illinois. inserted in the Act an additional grant for school purposes of Section No. 36 in each township. making the reservation for school purposes of the 16th and 36th Sections, or 1,280 acres in each township, of six miles square. Each of the States admitted since that time has had granted to it both of these sections.
Miscellaneous Grants. - Besides the various grants of land made by Congress to the several States and Territories, many special grants and donations of land have been made to private in- dividuals for services rendered, a few of which we shall notice, none, however, being within the lin- its of Wood county, except, that under an Act passed June 4, 1832, directing that a patent or patents issue to Dr. Eliakim Crosby, for a quan- tity of land equal to two sections, which might be located on any of the unappropriated lands of the United States, subject to entry; a portion of the land selected lies within said county, consist- ing of eighty acres, in Section 17. in Webster township, and eighty acres, in Section 26, Plain township.
The first grant was an Act of the Continental Congress, August 14, 1776, offering to receive, and make citizens of, deserters from the British army, and tendering to each deserter, or his heirs, absolutely, fifty acres of unappropriated land in some one of the States. Another Act was an appropriation of one township of land. in Ohio, to Arnold Henry Dorhinan, an agent for the United States at the Court of Lisbon, during the Revolutionary war. This land was located
in the Steubenville land district. During the Revolutionary war there was a force of Canadian officers and men in the army of the United States, known as " Refugees from Canada." To these were reserved three townships in Ohio, on the shores of Lake Erie, but, afterward, other lands were appropriated, in lieu thereof. In 1803. Congress directed the Secretary of War to issue land warrants to Gen. LaFayette for 11, 520 acres. The land was to be located, surveyed or patented at his option, or the warrants could be received in payment for lands, within the State of Ohio. In 1804, Congress ordered that the warrants, above granted, might be located by Gen. La- Fayette, in Orleans Territory. In 1824, on the occasion of La Fayette's last visit to this country, Congress directed that $200,000 be paid to him. and also granted to him, or his heirs, a township of land in Florida.
In closing this chapter, we deem it of inter- est to mention that not a few of the men. who have been prominent in National and State affairs, have held title to lands in Wood county, and some of them are yet living. Of these, we find the names of President R. B. Hayes: of the Governors of Ohio-Joseph Vance, Reuben Wood, Seabury Ford, David Tod and Charles Foster; of the Governors of Michigan-Alphens Felch, Austin Blair and H. H. Crapo; Hon. Caleb Smith, Secretary of the Interior. under President Lincoln; Hon. M. R. Waite, Chief Justice of the United States; Senators Joshua K. Giddings and Benjamin F. Wade: Judge Joseph R. Swan; Gen. Thomas M. Keys; Hon. James Wadsworth, of Geneseo, N. Y., and his sons. Gen. James S. Wadsworth and William W. Wadsworth; Aristarchus Champion, a capitalist and banker of Rochester, N. Y .: Jesse Stone and Sumner Stone, of the State of New York: An- drew D. White, ex-president of Cornell Uni- versity, and ex-minister to Germany: Lyne Star- ling, the founder of the City of Columbus, Ohio, besides numerous others.
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CHAPTER XXV.
GAS AND OH. FIELD-GEOLOGY AND PHENOMENA OF THE WOOD COUNTY FIELD -- WELL DRILLING -VARIOUS RESULTS-PROF. ORTON ON PETROLEUM, ETC .- HISTORY OF THE INDUSTRY- DISCOVERY OF GAS-OIL WELLS-COMPANIES AND SYNDICATES-PEN SKETCH OF THE On. BUSINESS IN WOOD COUNTY, BY JAMES O. TROUP.
T HE story of the gas and oil reservoirs of Wood county, though opened only about ten years ago, is interesting to the econo- mist as well as to the geologist of to-day. Why Nature closed in these reservoirs and kept them hidden from the oil operator for so many years, and why she continues to keep the chemist in ignorance of her oil manufacturing methods. are questions as new now as they were in 1885. Then the men of Bowling Green drilled deep into the earth to find light and heat. In 1886, the inen of North Baltimore drilled deeper in search of oil. Each reaped rewards for their searches subterranean - they know they got more gas and oil than were expected, and continue to receive these presents from mother earth; but, here, knowledge ends. The enterprise of the oil man and the work of the driller tell us that oil may exist in the Trenton rock of Ohio, as it does in the sands of Pennsylvania, but whence it comes, the location of the laboratory, the substances from which it is expressed or distilled, its share in gas making, the period required for renewing the reservoirs, and many other points men desire to know, are left untold -- surrendered to the spec- ulators or guessers. In this chapter what is known of Wood county gas and oil is related, and references are made to the great wells of the county.
Throughout this field, the Trenton limestone is found, generally at the depth of 1, 150 feet or about 440 below tide level. In 1886, in the North Baltimore well, No. 1. it was ascertained to be 360 feet; at Bairdstown, 315; in the Simon's well, at Bairdstown, 301 feet, and in the Bloom - dale, No. 1. 360 feet below that level. The ob- served rock pressure in the Godsend well of Bloom township was 465 pounds to the square inch, and the calculated pressure, 473 pounds, while the specific gravity of the oil on entering the tank, was 42", proving superior to that found in the upper fields, such as Findlay and Lima. The dead or unproductive line, as determined in
1886, was 500 feet below tide level, but there have been some exceptions to this general rule. It would not be an oil field unless the exceptions balanced or outstripped the general rule. Some of the phenomena of the field are hereafter de- scribed. In the mechanical and scientific work of . converting the crude into commercial oil almost everything has been accomplished. In addition to what the Standard had done, in November, 188. the Bradner refinery forwarded the first carload of oil refined under the Yargan process, and. within the last six years, further advances have been made toward rendering this oil very nearly equal to any on the market.
The 2,293-feet test well, on the Hager farm in Webster township, two miles cast of Sugar Ridge, was drilled 735 feet, through the Trenton rock, to the salt water of the ocean. Three miles north of the Hager, a Chicago syndicate drilled a test well, finding only seven feet of Trenton rock resting on black limestone shale. hundreds of feet in thickness. In each case the god of commerce was not propitious, but the god of science was. Against such failures may be opposed the Ducat well, in Liberty township. the Foltz-farm weil, near Cygnet, the Denver well, on the Chase farm, and many others, where the drillers' hopes were based on uncertainty, or the great gasser which is said to have produced hundreds of tons of gas every twenty-four hours where the drillers sought for oil.
Again, almost on the west line of the county, the oil basin proved that the drill may ouh locate it, and confirmed the law of uncertainty which rules. The report, speaking of the devel- opment of that field, says: During the year I 804 there were 3,001 wells completed in Ohio. it being the banner year of the field. The larg- est well completed during that period was that of the Kirkbride Bros., on the Jones farm, in Mali- son township. Sandusky county. The daily out- put was said to have been 20,000 barrels, but it never produced it. The well yielded 310 barrels
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of oil an hour, which is equivalent to 7,440 bar- rels in a day of 24 hours. It was completed in October, and is said to have produced 500 barrels a day for some months after. The same firm completed a 1, 200-barrel producer on the same farm. The territory where the gusher was struck had for years been considered worthless, and the wells caused much excitement.
The well drilled by C. S. Wade for S. E. Niece, on the Chase farm in Henry township, a mile and a half west of North Baltimore, known as No. 1, and one drilled 150 feet distant made a race for the oil rock, the second well striking it first, when oil answered the drill at the rate of 2,000 barrels a day, and held up a record of 1, 400 bar- rels for 19 consecutive days. Well No. I then struck oil at twenty-nine feet in the Trenton, and assumed control of the production, but soon after its neighbor enticed the oil away. Then No. I was drilled seven feet deeper and tor- pedoed, when a great body of oil responded and No. 2 slept as a producer for a time. This al- ternate production was observed for some weeks. until No. I settled down at 400, and No. 2 at 300, barrels.
"A second answer, and the one to which, as I have stated, all properly qualified students come, is that petroleum is the result of the decomposi- tion of living matter, either vegetable or animal. The arguments in support of this view are con- vincing and unanswerable. Organic substances, both in nature and under artificial conditions, pass readily into the hydro-carbon series in which petroleum belongs. Vegetable matter, wood and leaves, for example, when decaying, out of the reach of air at the bottom of ponds or lakes, or buried in the earth, give rise, as every one knows, to fire damp, or light carbureted hydrogen. Also organic substances, when subjected in closed ves- The drill, not the geologist, told us that oil and gas underlies large sections of Henry, Lib- erty, Plain, Middleton, Washington, Perrysburg, Bloom, Portage, Webster, Center, Lake, Troy, Freedom, Montgomery and Perry townships. What it may yet accomplish in its subterranean research, no man knows. Gushers and gassers. as great as any recorded, may yet answer to it, to reward enterprise and labor. sels to high temperature, generate gaseous and liquid products closely allied to petroleum in its derivatives. Fish oil can be made to pass, by very slight modifications, induced by heat, into petroleum proper. The manufacture of coal gas is one of the most familiar illustrations of the possibilities in this line. Seeing that the mate- rials for this production are so abundant in nature, and that the processes for generating at least some "The questions in regard to petroleum," says Prof. Ortou, "have been answered in different ways, but one line of answers commends itself to us on so many grounds that it is generally ac- cepted by all those who have the knowledge that entitles them to form an opinion. An answer that may be named only to be rejected is that petroleum and the gas derived from it are results of chemical action alone. The conditions necessary for their production, it is argued, are the presence of metallic iron, potassium and member of the series, are so readily brought into play, there is no necessity whatever for abandon- ing these explanations and inventing a far-fetched and unverifiable theory to account for the origin of gas and oil. But while all geologists accept this view of the derivation of petroleum and gas from organic substances, they entertain different notions, to some extent, upon the important ques- tion whether the change is effected by chemical decomposition at ordinary temperature, or at high temperature, arising from the invasion of sodium, at some considerable depth within the ' sedimentary beds by dikes of molten inatter from the interior of the earth, or from the mechanical strain to which strata have been subjected while being bent into mountains."
earth, and at a white heat, and yet reached by the percolation of water derived from the atmos- phere, and, therefore, holding in solution car- bonic acid. It is held that chemical combination would result between the substances thus brought together by which certain compounds of the petroliferous series would be formed. It is proba- bly true that some such results would follow under the conditions supposed, but to propose this ex- planation of the origin of petroleum is, to the
last degree, preposterous. Contrary to a com- monly received opinion, petroleum is an abund- ant and very widely distributed substance. It is found, for example, in every stratum of the Ohio scale, without exception: in the shales and lime- stones, in a disseminated condition, sometimes recognizable only with difficulty, and in the sand- stones and conglomerates in larger or smaller accumulations. All the facts point to a local origin of this series. The process must be wide- spread and everywhere active.
History .-- The Drake well of Pennsylvania, drilled in 1859, must be considered the beginning of the petroleum industry, as it is known to-day. Nevins & Me Keown were the first to drill express- ly for oil in Pennsylvania; Colonel Drake was the first to drill for it successfully. A few years later, farmers examined every creek and well for
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signs of the black grease, and, from the Susque- hanna to the Maumee. echoes of oil discoveries were heard. In April, 1861, J. L. Russell brought to Perrysburg, from Rocky Ford, in Bloom township, samples of petroleum. He re- ported to the editor of the Journal that an east- ern company was drilling in that vicinity. Sim- ilar reports were brought in from Middleton township; but the whole business resulted in fail- ure, as the Pennsylvanians could not find the oil sands with which they were familiar, and had no idea of the Trenton being an oil reservoir. Ex- citement was not altogether quieted, for a preacher named Miller, residing where Hatton village now is, mortgaged his farm in 1862 or 1863, and moved to Pennsylvania to invest in oil lands.
Early in 1865 new ventures were made. leases recorded, and some work accomplished with the drill; but the workers did not yet com- prehend the value of the Trenton, and surren- dered their ideas to circumstances.
The lease of the N. 3 of the N. W. { of the east part of Sec. 30, T. 3, R. 11, was made January 16, 1865, to Andrew Klingensmith by David Wiley. That of the undivided one-half of the S. W. } of the S. E. { of the N. E. + of Sec. 19, T. 3, R. 11, was made January 16, 1865, by Samuel Bartlett to Klingensmith, and, on the same date, the S. E. & of the N. E. }, Sec, 30, T. 3. R. IT, was leased by the same from John M. Wiley. Reason Whitacre states that a well was drilled on this lease, and a little gas found. Wiley placed an old gun barrel in the hole, from which gas flowed for a few years.
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One of the first oil leases recorded in this county was that from Julian Bartlett to Audrew Klingensmith, on January 18, 1865. The terri- tory leased was in Sec. 19, T. 3, R. 11, known as eighteen acres set off as a dowry to the grantor, except the house, garden and orchard thereon. On this tract, Klingensmith was enipowered to explore, mine, dig, drill, or bore, for oil, salt- water and minerals until January 18, 1945, the word " minerals " meaning coal, iron, lead and every mineral of value, as an article of use or trade. Mrs. Julian Bartlett required of the grantee exact account of the products of mines or wells, but what her share of the profits or royalty was to be is not specifically given. The record shows, however, that she bound Klingensmith to be diligent in his work, the penalty for negligence or unnecessary delays being the cancellation of the lease. Before the close of January, 1865, Klingensmith assigned these leases to Michael Sarver, and, for alnost twenty years, the enter-
prise of the oil mien slept, so far as the Ohio field was concerned.
The lease from B. L. Peters to Wm. H. Ijams & Co. concerned the N. & of the N. W. } of N. E. 1, Sec. 35, T. 3, R. 10. and the E. ] of N. E. ], same section, was made January 25. . 1865. Jacob Blasser leased, on January 25, 1865, : to W. H. Ijams & Co., the S. { of W. 1 of N. E. }, Sec. 35, T. 3. R. 10, and the W. ! of the S. E. } in the same township.
The lease made by Henry Carrel to Parley Carlin and W. H. Ijams, January 28, 1865. con- cerning the S. E. } of the S. W. 1, Sec. 35, T. 3. R. 10; the S. E. } of the S. E. { of Sec. 34; the W. ] of the S. W. }, Sec. 35; and the N. E. I .of the S. W. 1, Sec. 35, provided that the lessees should mine and excavate for petroleum. coal, rock or carbon oil or other valuable mineri or volatile substance, giving to the first party one-eighth of minerals found.
The Perrysburg Petroleum Company was or- ganized October 3. 1865, with the following members: W. V. Way, F. R Miller. Jonathan Perrin, John A. Shannon, A. G. Williams, Asher Cools, Edwin Tuller, George N. Parsons, J. W. Ross and E. D. Peck. The object of the com- pany was " to bore and dig for oil, salt and other vegetable, medicinal and mineral fluids in the earth, and for refining and purifying the same." In later years, another company was organized to develop the gas field, references to which are made in the chapter on Perrysburg village.
In the eastern part of the county a few of the more enterprising inen of Freeport thought they would brave the cynics of the village by drilling for oil, and, with Austin Beck as president, J. B. Lockhart, Richard Angus, Louis Riley, David Phister and Younker, directors, and Henry Carey, driller, did explore the earth down 150 feet. Carey having gone so deep without finding oil. his partners considered further work useless and withdrew.
An editorial notice of oil development. in Wood county, appears in the Perrysburg Jour- mal of June 7. 1865, in the following words: " The oil fever in this vicinity seems to be revis - ing, and is again in its ascendant. We are re- liably informed that the lands at the mouth of Grassy creek have been leased to parties from Pennsylvania, who propose boring for oil." In July following. N. L. Besanson, of Portage, while sinking a well for his steam sawuull at Milton center, discovered oil at seventy feet This vil burned readily, and had all the characteristics of petroleum. In October, the Journal warned its readers against the od fever, in this manner
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" To every poor man we say, stand from under this humbug, it will soon fall and illustrate the old adage of fools and their money are soon parted.' A word to the wise is sufficient." Hall, Worman & Co. then had 400 acres in Troy, and a large acreage round Perrysburg; but the idea of clines and anti-clines, of oil channels and gas reservoirs, was not possessed by the master drill- ers. Below Waterville, on Ballou's farm, wells were drilled and a show of oil found.
In July, 1875, some persons discovered. in the . northwestern sections of Bloom township, quan- tities of crude petroleum floating on the waters of a spring, and, reporting this, a number of the fariners agreed to " bore " 100 feet until the "oil spring would be struck." The result of their strong resolutions was zero; for a full decade elapsed before the true oil inen drilled to the true sand.
. The Bradner Natural Gas Co. was incorpo- rated later, and drilled a well on the stave factory lot. A show of oil was found, but, like other early ventures in the field, the enterprise fell through. Messrs. Edmonds, Wise, Bort, et al. formed the B. &. O. Refining Co., and to them the factory lot and equipment of the Bradner Gas Co. were donated; but the enterprise of the part- ners did not meet with success.
Gas was discovered at a depth of 242 feet, while the well at the infirmary was being drilled, in August, 1884. Enough gas was supplied for. one stove, and continues down to the present time. The drillers were Andrew Byers and M. O. Ladd. Before sunrise one morning they heard the water bubbling in the well, and ran to inform Edwin Farmer of the fact. When daylight ar- rived, Farmer visited the well and declared it was gas, and shortly after they succeeded in lighting it and pumping from it one barrel of oil. In De- cember, 1884, the Bowling Green Natural Gas Company was formally organized, and on Janu- ary 5, 1885, organized with S. Case, J. O. Troup, R. W. McMahan, W. M. Tuller, G. C. Phelps, Earl W. Merry and C. W. Evers, directors. The last named was chosen president, with S. Case, secretary. Martin and Brownyear, who com- pleted the Findlay well, were present, and a week or two afterward contracted for drilling, on a lot west side of Summit, and ten rods south of Clough, street, the well to be commenced by Feb- rnary 5. On February 9 a depth of ninety feet was reached, on the night of the 10th, 105 feet, and on the 25th, 270 feet. The Sentinel, noticing the gas produced at that depth, declared the smell of it would stop a clock. On Friday, March 6. 1885. the gas reservoir was struck at a depth of 1, 130
feet. The well was shot at 1, 250 feet on Marcii 21, when a flow of about 400,000 feet was ob- served. On April 23. the second well was drilled- in, and, on May 12, shot at 1, 192 feet, but con- sumed itself. On July 16, 1885. while Superin- tendent D. E. Sanger was packing the cap of well No. 1, he struck the cap (then pressed by 375 pounds of gas to the square inch), when splinters of it struck his face, tearing away the flesh and causing his deathi. The company issued an address to the citizens April 2. 1885. in which reference is made to the first well, then produc- ing about 400,000 feet of gas at 400 pounds pressure, and to the new well at the north end of town, then drilling on a lot of Earl W. Merry. On March 31 gas was brought, through 475 feet of pipe, to the furnace of Hankey's planing mil !. and proved its value as fuel. Later it was con- ducted to C. W. Evers' house, and on April i introduced into the mill office, where it proved its value as a heating and lighting quantity. That evening of April 1, 1885, the people of Bowling Green knew that they had entered upon a new era; but did not dreamn then that extravagance or waste would be punished by want. or that the natural reservoirs would be exhausted.
In the North Baltimore field, from Bairds- town. to Hoytville and northward, oil men were busy leasing and drilling for oil and gas in June. 1886. . On July 26, the well at Bairdstown was drilled-in, and proved a paying one.
The Simon well, four miles northeast of North Baltimore, on the Simon heirs farm, eight feet beyond Levi Simon's line, answered the drill of the Parmer Oil Company on July 30, 1886, when a strong flow of gas was struck at a depth of 1,010 feet, or twenty feet in the Trenton. The drill was kept at work some time longer, when the gas, being fired, formed a blaze seventy-five feet in height above the well's mouth. The roar of the escaping gas could be heard five miles away. Prof. Orton measured the well on August 6, 1886. and declared it to be producing 12. 451. - 968 feet a day, or 341.968 feet more than the Findlay or Karg well. The "Godsend," in Perry. was then yielding 2, 500,000, the Bairdstown 3,000,000, and the Bloomdale about 3.000.000 cubic feet a day. Think of it, 12.451.968 cubic feet of gas a day, or 275 tons weight of fuel!
On August 26, 1885, gas well No. 3, at Bou - ling Green, was completed, and by October. well No. 4, was finished. By the beginning of February, 1886, there were five gas wells au.l . sixth drilling, the five in operation yielding about 1, 500,000 feet a day. The Weston well reach. ! a depth of 1,571 lect on March 6, isso, when a
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supply of oil and gas answered the drill. It was reported that the well yielded from 50 to 80 barrels of oil, and a great quantity of gas, but in a little while it became an artesian well, producing excellent water. The R. W. McMahan well at Portage was completed March 10, 1886, when the supply was estimated at 2,000, 000 cubic feet a day. The Tom Brandeberry was credited with 8, 640,000 feet. The pioneer gas well on the Walter De Witt farm, just north of Mermill, three miles from Bowling Green, was the tenth great gasser of the field. On April 7, 1887, this well was yielding about ten million cubic feet per diem, the gas reservoir being opened by the drill at a depth of 1, 130 fect.
The ten-million-feet gas well, on the Johnson Campbell farmi, three miles northeast of North Baltimore, was completed December 27, 1887. The burning Vandergrift well at Cygnet, on the Tank farm, was under control on December I, 1887. It was drilled-in on November 24. and : promised to be a 4.000-barrel. gusher. That evening the gas caught fire from the engine of a , north-bound passenger train. Three explosions followed, the engineer of the train received some : burns, the derrick was quickly reduced to cinders und the flames from the well-mouth made sum- mer in the neighborhood for a week. This well ceased to be a producer of oil at once, became a great gasser and is yet one.
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