USA > Pennsylvania > Crawford County > Our country and its people. A historical and memorial record of Crawford County, Pennsylvania. > Part 38
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in improving the machinery for collecting the oil. But the company failed to furnish the requisite funds, and Pierpont seems to have accomplished nothing. Disagreement among directors checked practical operations. An- gier with the rude appliances continued to gather a few gallons of oil each day. Dr. Brewer, though having no stock in the company, felt an interest in the success of the undertaking, and wrote to the managers that by a judicious expenditure of five hundred dollars, from fifty to one hundred gallons of oil a day could be collected. But the expenditure was not made. Mr. Angier was discharged from service, and the company's affairs con- tinued to drag.
In the previous transfer of the property care had not in all cases been exercised to have conveyed a perfect title as to dowry interests, and this fact caused some delay in starting operations. Under an excuse to correct the neglect of the purchasers to get from those who had sold the Willard farm the signatures of their wives to the deed, Colonel E. L. Drake was sent to Titusville, but, as may be believed, for the real purpose of inspecting artesian wells, and investigate the feasibility of boring a well on the property of the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company. Accordingly, Drake, on his way from New Haven to Titusville, stopped at Syracuse, New York, to examine the salt wells there, and learn something of the mode of boring and pumping them. He arrived in Titusville in December, 1857. After completing the legal business of his mission, so far as could be done at Titusville, and study- ing briefly the oil indications there, he went to Pittsburg to secure the signa- tures of Mrs. Brewer and Mrs. Rynd, whose husbands had joined in a deed of the Willard farm, as already stated, and on the trip he inspected the salt wells of Tarentum, from which Kier got the oil, which for about ten years he had been selling as a medicine. On his return to New Haven Drake made such an encouraging report of his investigations that the three New Haven directors, who were a majority of the governing board, executed on the 30th day of December a lease to Edwin E. Bowditch and E. L. Drake for a term of fifteen years, the lessees binding themselves to pay to the Penn- sylvania Rock Oil Company a royalty of five and a half cents a gallon for all the oil produced by them on the lease during its term. The other two directors, Bissell, of New York, and Jonathan Watson, of Titusville, who together represented a majority of the total stock of the company, refused,
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their consent to the contract. But at the annual meeting in January follow- ing, 1858, the lease was ratified over the protests of Bissell and Watson.
After, however, Bissell and Watson had withdrawn from the meeting, the consideration was changed from five and a half cents a gallon to one- eighth in kind of all the oil, salt or paint produced. Bissell threatened sum- mary resistance in the courts, but finally there was a compromise. The time of the lease was extended to forty-five years, and the royalty was fixed at twelve cents a gallon, giving to the lessees one year in which to prepare for beginning operations. Thie lessees and some others organized themselves into the "Seneca Oil Company." Drake was made to appear as the main stockholder. He had been for several years a railroad conductor, and had not much experience as a business man. He was now employed by the Seneca Oil Company as superintendent on a salary of one thousand dollars a year. He had little or no means of his own. He moved to Titusville with his family in May, 1858, bringing a thousand dollars which had been pro- vided for him to begin work with. His first work here was to revive the old works which had been abandoned by Angier, and he began to dig a well, at the same time making preparations for boring one on the same spot. He contracted for an engine to be ready by the first of the coming September. He engaged a driller. The engine was slow in coming and there were other delays, so that the driller, upon some excuse, got employment elsewhere. Summer and fall wore away. The company became remiss in sending money, and Drake was obliged to suspend active work until the next spring.
A Mr. Peterson, who had salt wells near Tarentum, recommended Drake to employ Mr. William Smith and his sons, practical drillers, who had worked for him, and accordingly Drake engaged them. Mr. Smith, with his young- est son, Samuel, came to Titusville about the middle of May, 1859, bringing a full set of tools, which had been made in Mr. Smith's shop at Salina, near Tarentum.
In the district where Smith had operated the soil was only a few feet above the rock, so that the first thing to do in starting an artesian well was to dig a pit down to the rock. After this had been done, the drill, suspended at one end of the walking beam, began to cut its way vertically into the rock. But at the Drake well Smith found a deeper soil, which was porous and filled with water. Smith, as had been his method on the Allegheny River, began to crib the pit with timbers, to prevent the dirt from coming in. But he had
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gone down only a few feet in the ground, when the water came in so rapidly that he was forced to stop. (Drake then resorted to an expedient which is said to have been his invention. He doubtless consulted Smith before making the experiment. He had cut a soil pipe, with an interior diameter of about six inches, which he attempted to drive vertically into the ground. The shell of the first pipe which he tried proved to be too light, as it broke easily. He then increased the thickness of the shell, and the new pipe withstood the blows of the battering ram, as the block, which was dropped on the end of the vertical pipe, was called. Smith used four joints of this cast iron driving pipe, each joint ten feet long, before striking the rock. From the upper end of the last joint to the derrick floor the distance was seven feet. This space was supplied with a wooden conductor. The drill descended into the rock, before striking oil, twenty-two and one-half feet, making tlie total depth of the well sixty- nine and one-half feet.
The use of cast iron pipe, which Drake originated and made a practical success, for penetrating the soil down to the rock, continued in sinking oil wells many years. It is reported that in driving a soil pipe near East Titus- ville, in 1865, a hemlock log, imbedded at a depth of one hundred and fifty feet below the surface of the ground, was cut in two. In later years a wrought iron soil pipe is used. This has at the lower end of the first joint a steel shoe. The drill goes down inside the pipe and cuts away boulders and other obstruc- tions, while the pipe, as fast as the drill clears the way, is pushed, or driven, down to the rock.
After the pipe had been driven in the Drake well, the drill was lowered into the hole, and set to work on Thursday, August 25. At about four o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday, the 27th, following, the drill dropped into a crevice of the rock. The tools were then drawn from the well, the measure- ment showing a depth of sixty-nine and one-half feet below the surface. Mr. Smith and his family lived in a shanty built for their temporary use, adjoint- ing the derrick. On going to the well the next morning, Sunday, Mr. Smith found that the oil had risen in the driving pipe and wooden conductor to the derrick floor, and, in fact, both oil and water flowed out of the top of the conductor.
Although it was Sunday, the news of the discovery spread rapidly through the village of Titusville and the surrounding country. Large crowds of people rushed to the well, and they continued to surround the spot for sev-
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eral days afterward. The community was naturally excited upon the subject and little else was talked of. Eager, however, as was their curiosity, the people scarcely dreamed of the momentous results which were to follow the sinking of this first small oil well.
On Monday morning a temporary pumping apparatus was rigged. A tin pipe, attached to a pitcher pump, was let down into the hole. Then by a lever attachment with the engine, the pump was worked. The process was continued from ten days to two weeks, the well yielding from twenty to thirty barrels of oil a day, until tubing and a working barrel could be got from Pittsburg. Then after the well had been tubed, and the tubing seed-bagged, the pumping was done by sucker-rods, connected to the walking beam, as at the present time, lifting the oil from a working barrel placed at the bottom of the well. At first a large hogshead was used for receiving the oil and water. The oil was drawn from the hogshead into barrels, and the water discharged from an opening near the bottom of the hogshead, and carried away in a ditch. Every kind of a barrel which would hold oil was brought into service. Finally, a wooden tank, a rectangular box, like a vat, was substituted for the hogshead, and a cooper a few miles away, who manufactured white oak butter tubs, supplied Drake with new barrels made from the same material.
At this point a brief rest may be taken, and the attention of readers directed to the immeasurable results achieved by the experiment which Drake executed at Titusville less than forty years ago. An industry, which for more than a generation has furnished light for the nations, had its begin- ning here. Chemical skill and mechanical invention since Drake's discovery have drawn from the parts of petroleum a large number of highly interesting products of great practical utility and convenience. Upon a conservative . estimate, it may be said that since the sinking of the Drake well the total sales of petroleum products of the United States have yielded more than one thousand millions of dollars, and perhaps more than double that sum. It is submitted that the man, who for more than a year was regarded by many of the citizens of Titusville and vicinity as a lunatic for his persistence in clinging to his experiment of boring for oil into the rock, who submitted patiently to derision, exhausting his means, not only for carrying on his undertaking, but for the support of his family, and experiencing as he did the pangs of poverty, the company that had employed him losing confidence in the mode undertaken and stopping his supply of funds-it is submitted
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that the man, whose dogged perseverance succeeded in accomplishing a work of such infinite importance in its results, is entitled to a monument erected to his memory at the spot where the achievement was wrought.
It costs no effort to use an invention after it has been made. Many an inventor, while engaged in studying a theory and making experiments to test its mechanical merits, has been an object of ridicule. Until he achieves success, his efforts are regarded as visionary. For a long time Edwin L. Drake struggled against obstacles large and small of a most discouraging character. His associates in the East, who had agreed to supply him with necessary funds, evidently lost faith in the experiment which he was making and finally ceased altogether to send him money. Most of the people at Titusville distrusted the success of his undertaking. He had no financial credit in the community. He could scarcely buy a pound of tea, a sack of flour or a pound of nails solely on his promise to pay. Deserted by his back- ers and derided by inany of the inhabitants of the locality where he was strug- gling with his experiment, with constant uncertainty as to its fate overhanging him, it may be imagined that Drake suffered a mental strain which did actually break down his constitution.
There were, however, a few citizens of Titusville, who in his sore dis- tress stood by him, aiding him throughout his trials until his triumph came. Two merchants, R. D. Fletcher and Peter Wilson, were especially his stead- fast friends. They endorsed his paper and helped him in other ways. But for such assistance Drake must have failed. Some years afterward when on a visit to Titusville, while referring in particular to Mr. Fletcher, Drake said: "There was the friend of my life. He it was that saved me." He had not forgotten Wilson, his other benefactor, when he asked him years later to stand with him in front of the old well for a picture. He would have the photograph tell positively what was due to his friend in need. What a debt does the world owe R. D. Fletcher and Peter Wilson, as well as E. L. Drake! Both Drake and Wilson have long since crossed the dividing river. Fletcher still survives, managing the same mercantile establishment which he founded in Titusville more than forty years ago.
It has been urged that Drake ought to have followed up the opportunities created by his discovery in leasing oil territory and seizing upon other advan- tages, connected with the oil development within his reach. On the contrary, it is said, he permitted others to reap all the benefits of his successful experi-
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ment in boring for oil. In reply, it may be offered that, when Drake finished his well and saw the pump lifting and pouring the liquid treasure into a tank, he was covered with debts. His opportunities for leasing land were no better than those of any other man. He did not patent his method of boring for oil. His invention brought him no royalty. It is quite possible that Drake was not a good business man. Few inventors are. If he succeeded in paying all the debts, which he was owing when he finished his well-as undoubtedly he did-he spent nearly all the rest of his life in straitened circumstances, and at one time in ruined health he suffered with his family extreme poverty, until, when his condition became known, the oil men collectively raised him a few thousand dollars. In 1873 the Legislature of Pennsylvania voted hin an annual pension of $1.500, the pension to last until the death of both him- self and his wife. When he moved away from Titusville in the early sixties, he took with him perhaps $20,000, and perhaps more. But if he had carried away $100,000, he might easily have lost it all in unfortunate investments. It was not his fault that nature had not created him a financier. He did stand patiently and heroically on guard until he gave to the world a discovery of infinite value, and for his fidelity to a theory he deserves the honor and grati- tude of mankind.
The following biographical sketch, from the pen of Mr. John A. Mather, in his published work of original photographic views, taken by himself, in the early years of petroleum development, accompanied by explanatory notes and observations, is quoted here because of its supposed accuracy :
"E. L. Drake, otherwise known as Colonel E. L. Drake, was born at Greenville. Greene County, New York, March 29. 1819. His parents were respectable farmers, and gave their son a common school education. At the age of nineteen he left home to seek his fortune, which meant go west. At Buffalo he obtained the position as night clerk on the steamer "Wisconsin," running between Buffalo and Detroit, Michigan, and remained with it until the season closed. He then went to Ann Arbor and worked upon a farm about a year. He then obtained a situation as clerk in a hotel at Tecumseh for two years, when he returned to his parents in Vermont. He next went to New Haven, Connecticut, where he served as dry goods clerk for three years, and, hoping to better his prospects, accepted a similar position with a retail dry goods store on Broadway, New York City. Next he got a job as ex- press agent on the Boston and Albany Railroad, at a salary of $50 per month,
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and resigned in 1849 to accept another position as conductor on the New York and New Haven Railroad, which he held to the entire satisfaction of his superior officers of that corporation, and only resigned to take charge of the developments on Oil Creek, in Pennsylvania. His friend, James M. Town- send, New Haven, induced him to purchase five hundred shares in the Penn- sylvania Rock Oil Company. This was the beginning of his connection with the business that has rendered his name famous. About this time he married Laura Dow, of New Haven, a young woman of most excellent character, who was ever to him a friend and guide. In 1857, he moved to Titusville to be paid a salary of $1,000 a year by the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, to put down the first artesian oil well, called, after his name, the Drake well. In 1860 he was elected justice of the peace for three years. In 1863 he sold his entire property in the oil regions for a fraction of what it was worth, realizing about $20,000, and went into Wall Street speculations, which financially and speedily swamped him. He removed with his wife and family to Vermont and thence to a cottage on the highlands of Navesink, New Jersey. Having had serious attacks of neuralgia of the spine and partial paralysis of the lower limbs, here he suffered for many years, his wife supplying the wants of him and family by her needle. He visited New York ostensibly to obtain a position for one of his sons, where he met and recognized Mr. Z. Martin, of Titusville, who noticed his wretched appearance, donated him a dinner and $20, and cheered him with the hope of getting further help. His dis- tressed condition became known in Titusville, and a subscription was raised of $4.200 by friends and oil producers with a generosity for which they have ever been famed. This fund was committed to the care of Mrs. Drake, who frugally hoarded it. and yet continued to meet a part of the family expenses with the wages of her needle. In 1873 the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a law granting him a pension of $1.500 a year, which he enjoyed up to the time of his death, which occurred on or about November 20, 1880, in the sixty-second year of his age."
Mr. Mather, the author of the foregoing sketch, was an intimate personal friend of Colonel Drake. from whom by word of mouth he received verbatim the entire first part of the above narrative, down to the removal to Vermont, following the disastrous speculations in Wall Street. Of the remaining part of the biography, Mr. Mather speaks with assurance, because of the general knowledge of the rest of Colonel Drake's life. It should be added that the
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widow with four children moved in 1895 from Bethlehem to New England, where at last accounts she still resides.
The office of Justice of the Peace in Titusville when Drake held it was lucrative, because of the acknowledgment of deeds, when a great deal of property changed hands, following the discovery of oil. Drake probably wrote many conveyances himself, for which he received fees. During this time he purchased from Jonathan Watson twenty-five acres of land in the borough of Titusville. He subsequently sold the same to Dr. A. D. Atkinson, realizing several thousand dollars on the investment. He was also employed for. a time by Schieffelin Brothers, of New York, in buying oil for the firm.
In the papers left by Thaddeus Stevens at his death, in 1868, was found the draft of a bill. prepared by himself, which he intended to present to Congress, providing for an appropriation of $250,000 for the Pennsyl- vanian, who had made one of the great discoveries in the history of the world. But Stevens went to his grave. and the national government has done nothing in recognition of Drake's remarkable achievement.
It is proper now to speak of those who, so far as their names can be ascertained, were employed upon the first oil well. Coryden Redfield had helped Angier in getting oil from the trenches at the oil spring, and he gave some assistance to Mr. Smith.
William A. Smith, who superintended the entire operation of sinking the Drake well, was especially well qualified for the work. He was a good mechanic and a man of character. He had gained experience at Tarentum and Salina, where he lived, in drilling artesian wells. Drake was very for- tunate in procuring the services of so good a man. When the inflow of water drove him from the pit which he and his men were digging toward the rock, he undoubtedly concurred with Drake as to the use of a soil pipe for overcom- ing the difficulty. They used the best pipe they could find; but, as previously stated, it was too light. Then Smith constructed a pattern for casting a heav- ier pipe. A thicker pipe was cast, and it answered the purpose. After drilling several wells in different parts of the oil region, he retired to his farm in But- ler County, where he continued to reside the remainder of his life. He was born in Butler County in 1812. He died July 27, 1890.
His three sons, James P., William B. and Samuel B., assisted in drilling the Drake well. They were all born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, respectively in 1837, 1839 and 1843. The second son, William B., now lives in Rochester,
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New York. The other two continue to reside in Titusville. James lives on West Elm Street, between First and Second streets, and Samuel at the corner of Elm and Third.
One day, while pumping the Drake well, William Smith, the father, lighted a match, which ignited the gas in the atmosphere, causing an explosion and conflagration, which destroyed everything combustible on the premises. A piece of timber fell upon the safety valve, and the result was an explosion of the boiler. A flying missile struck James upon the back, severely laming him, and leaving a bunch as large as a hen's egg between his shoulders, which he carries at the present time.
When Mr. Smith and his son James came out of their shanty at the well on the Sunday morning, August 28th, and saw the oil bubbling over the mouth of the conductor, he said to James: "Jimmy, run up to town and tell Mr. Drake to hurry down and see the oil." James made haste in going to Drake's house and delivering the message. He found Drake sitting down to his breakfast. He told James to take a chair and wait till he was through with his meal, when he would harness his horse and carry him back to the well. As soon as he had finished breakfast, he hurriedly hitched his horse to a carriage and rapidly drove with James to the well. James says that when Drake arrived, and saw the oil actually flowing from the hole, he was like one inspired. That anxious, weary, painful look, which for months his coun- tenance had worn, suddenly disappeared, and he walked erect, his stature seemingly two feet higher than it had ever appeared before.
The following entries in Mr. Smith's own handwriting are copied from a small account book, which he carried in his pocket while employed on the Drake well. Because they were in his pocket, they escaped the fire above spoken of. In this fire, James, the son, lost a diary which he was then keep- ing. The records copied from Mr. Smith's book are as follows :
May 14, 1859.
Mr. Drake,
To making boring tools the full set, $46.00
2 spear boxes, 2.50
4 spear pins, 4.00
16 sucker joints, $1.50, 24.00
$76.50
25
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On the next page is the following :
"May the 20, 1859. Commenced work for Mr. Drake."
And then follows an entry for each day's work done continuously for the next several months, at $2.50 per diem. On another page are found credits, without dates, as follows :
Cash from Drake. 20 in cash. 20 in cash. 25 in cash. Io in cash. 20 in cash
95.00 50.00 in cash. 50.00 in cash. 200.00 in cash. 232.00 in cash.
627.00
Another name deserves mention. Samuel Silliman, a landmark, who spent the greater part of his life in Titusville, a highly respected citizen, built the derrick, engine house, the shanty which the Smith family temporarily occupied as a residence, the walking beam and other parts of the wooden structure of the Drake well. Mr. Silliman a few years ago went West, and he is now living with his wife at Spokane, Washington State. Both he and his wife are octogenarians, he having reached the age of eighty-six, and his wife eighty-two.
Jonathan Locke, of whom subsequent inention will be made in these pages, had a turning lathe in a saw mill near the Drake well. He repaired tools and some other work in his shop for the drillers.
The general excitement which followed the success of Drake's experi- ment may, in a measure, be imagined. The wonderful discovery became almost the universal subject of conversation. Mr. Smith, who had skimmed a few gallons of oil a week from salt water at Salina and Tarentum, was astonished to see thirty barrels a day from a single artesian well. Mr. Angier had succeeded in dipping half a dozen gallons a day from his trenches. But Drake had tapped the fountain of supply in the rock. Noth- ing like it had ever before been known. There was then no end to speculation
1
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as to the limit of the product. At this point, with only one well sunk, the location of oil below the surface was a question of uncertainty. It was not doubted that in the Oil Creek valley the product existed in abundance. Sur- face manifestation at the first was the guide in selecting the spot for sinking an oil well. Drake very naturally had located his oil well at the oil spring on the Willard farm. The practice of following surface indications for locat- ing wells continued several years. But now for a long time past the omni- present "wild-catter" has blazed the path leading to the oil producing terri- tory. At first certain kinds of rock upon the ground, as well as oil upon the surface, were thought to indicate the existence of oil below. But in time it came to be known that no kind of surface evidence was to be relied on. The test is the drill sunk hundreds of feet into the earth.
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