Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 32

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

USA > Pennsylvania > Venango County > Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1) > Part 32

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NATURAL GAS

THE CLEANEST, HANDIEST FUEL IN EXISTENCE IS CLOSELY ALLIED TO PETROLEUM AND NOT RESTRICTED TO NAR- ROW BOUNDS

"Natural gas, right bower of crude petroleum and Nature's legal tender for the comfort and convenience of mankind, is the one and only fuel which mines and transports itself, without digging every iota and shoveling into stove or furnace. You bore a hole to the vital spot. lay a pipe to home or factory, turn a stop- cock to let out the vapor, touch off a match and there is the brightest, cleanest, steadiest, hottest fire on earth, devoid of dust, smoke. cinder or ashes, lighted or extinguished in a twinkling. It melts iron, fuses glass, heats and illumines, broils and bakes to perfection, adds to the joy of living and is something to prize and be thankful for. At Fredonia, N. Y .. three miles from Lake Erie, natural gas was

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first used for illuminating. Opinions vary as to the exact date of its utilization, ranging from 1821 to 1824, when workmen tearing down an old mill on Canodonay creek observed inflammable bubbles on the water. Boring a small hole a few feet into the rock, the gas left its regular channel, lighted a new mill, and was piped to a hundred houses in the village at a cost of $1.50 a year each. The flame was strong and for years Fredonia was the only town in America illumined by 'nature-gas.' When LaFayette spent a night there, in 1824, on his triumphal tour of the United States, 'the inn was lighted with gas that came from the ground,' a novelty that 'greatly pleased and in- terested the illustrious visitor.' Undoubtedly The Fredonia Gas Light and Water Works Company, chartered in 1865, was the first nat- ural-gas corporation in the world. Its object was, 'by boring down through the slate-rock and sinking wells to a sufficient depth to pene- trate the manufactories of nature, and thus collect from her laboratories the natural gas and purify it, to furnish the citizens with good cheap light.' The tiny stream of vapor first adopted at the mill yielded its mite forty years. Efforts to convey it to the lighthouse at Dun- kirk failed as the gas would not descend to the lower elevation. Natural gas lighted a lighthouse at Erie in 1831, 'the Burning Spring,' a sheet of water through which it bubbled, furnishing the supply. A tower over the spring held the gas that accumulated dur- ing the day, wooden pipes conveying it at night to the lighthouse.

"Gas was used as fuel at wells on Oil creek and in one house at Petroleum Center in 1862. It was first collected in 'gas barrels,' one pipe leading from the well to the receptacle and another from the barrel to the boiler. often causing fires from the flame running back. when the pressure was low, and wrecking the outfit. D. G. Stilwell in 1867 drilled a gasser at Oil City, near the north end of the Relief Bridge, and piped the product into a dozen houses, but the danger from constant changes of pressure soon resulted in its abandonment. The Oil City Fuel Supply Company in 1883 laid a six-inch line to wells at McPherson's Corners, Pinegrove township, eight miles dis- tant. piping gas from the second and third sands at nine hundred to one thousand one hundred feet. Samuel Speechly, on his farm near McPherson's, in 1885 started to drill three thousand feet in search of the Bradford sand, believing it existed far below the ordi- nary third sand in Venango county. On April 13. at one thousand nine hundred feet, the drill

penetrated what has since been termed the 'Speechly sand,' the most remarkable in gase- ous annals. At three feet the heavy pressure prevented further drilling, and the gas com- pany, leasing the well, turned the volume into the lines to Oil City. The second was larger, supplying enough gas for Oil City and branch lines to Titusville and Franklin. Hundreds of wells in a district thirty miles long by four miles wide found the Speechly sand from fifty to one hundred feet thick, making the territory unusually permanent.

GASOLINE

"The enormous demand for gasoline has led to many experiments to increase the percent- age obtainable from crude oil and the patent- ing of a variety of processes, such as the Ritt- man. Burton, Snelling. Wells, Kelsey, Wash- burn and Seeger, some of which are in use on a large scale. Science has gone far toward overcoming the mechanical difficulties in the way of accomplishing thermal decompositions, commonly termed 'cracking,' obtained by ex- cessive temperature alone or in combination with pressure. A recognized authority says: "'The new theory of increased extraction of gasoline from crude oil is that oil is made up of molecules ; and the smaller molecules are the lighter products and the larger constitute the heavier products ; that cracking or break -. ing these up runs the heavier product down to the lighter products and gas is formed; when kerosene molecules are broken up, gasoline is formed ; when lubricating molecules are broken up, kerosene is formed; and when residuum molecules are broken up. they are converted into lubricating oil. The theory has been am- ply proved, hence the study of science has taught the nature of petroleum and the pur- poses scientifically of cracking. This is some- thing entirely new in the treatment of crude petroleum, although chemists thirty years ago had hit upon its possibility.'

"Hundreds of operators have installed ap- paratus to manufacture 'casing-head gasoline,' turning to profitable account much material heretofore wasted. The presence of gasoline in gas pipe-lines, noted decades ago, suggested extracting 'motor-spirits' from natural gas. A. Fasenmeyer made four thousand gallons of gasoline from the gas of oil-wells near Titus- ville in the fall of 1904. about the date Thomp- sett Brothers operated a small plant at Tidi- oute. The industry assumed commercial im- portance in 1909, by 1914 reaching an output of forty-three million gallons annually, and

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one hundred four million, two hundred twelve thousand eight hundred and nine gallons in 1916, valued at $14,408,201, the product of five hundred and ninety-four plants. The gasoline output in 1916 approximated one billion eight hundred million gallons, and was much larger in 1917."

VALUE OF NATURAL GAS AND OIL IN THE UNITED STATES

By the end of 1906 all the petroleum States had been exploited for gas, the value of Penn- sylvania's output surpassing oil, an interest- ing and suggestive fact. Here are the figures for that year of the United States Geological Survey, some of the fields then appearing for the first time :

Value of Value of

FIELDS

Natural Gas Petroleum

Total

Pennsylvania

$18,558,245 $16,596,943

$35,155,188 29,905,636

West Virginia

13,735,343 16,170,293

Ohio

7,145,809

16,997,000

24,142,809

Kansas and Okla- homa

4,270,848

9,615,198

13,886,046

Louisiana, Alabama

and Texas

150,695

10,123,416

10,274,11I

California

134,560

9,553,430

9,687,990

Indiana

1,750,715

6,770,066

8,520,781

Illinois

87,211

3,274,818

3,362,029

New York

672,795

1,995,377

2,668,172

Kentucky and Ten- nessee

287,801

1,031,629

1,319,430

Colorado

22,800

262,675

285,475

Wyoming and

Arkansas

34,500

49,000

83,500

South Dakota

15,400

...

15,400

Missouri and

Michigan

7,210

4,890

12,100

Total

$46,873,932 $92,444,735 $139,318,667

The same authority gives $473,619,138 as the total value of gas marketed in the United States from 1882 to Dec. 31, 1906, the latter year contributing $46,873,932 to this impres- sive showing, while the ten years succeeding have doubled over and over. Fifty thousand miles of two-inch to three-foot pipes transport

the volatile fuel to countless towns, factories. farms and homes, employing hosts of skilled workers and hundreds of millions of capital.

COAL

Coal underlies many of the townships of the county in seams from thirty inches to four feet in thickness. This is particularly the case in Cranberry township, in Scrubgrass, Clinton and Rockland townships, where the veins were worked for a number of years and where they are still worked to supply local demands. In the middle sixties a number of veins along Oil creek in different townships were exhausted to supply the needs of the wells drilling along the creek. The output sold readily for one dollar a bushel, and it was poor coal at that. The Cranberry coal banks were the most important of any yet worked. Veins four feet in thick- ness were opened near the head of Sage run, and a tramway was built from the coal banks to South Oil City following the course of Sage run. This was replaced by a railway, which was used for a number of years and changed ownership several times. It finally came into the possession of the Western New York & Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Early in 1883 a train loaded with coal became unman- ageable upon the steep grade coming down into Oil City and ran away, killing several men and damaging the rolling stock and the roadbed. The railroad company decided that repairing the road would be more expensive than it was worth and abandoned the line. Their decision was doubtless due to the fact that natural gas was piped into the city and was generally used. Gas was also used at the oil wells, much of it being produced by the wells themselves. New burners were invent- ed, taking care of the gas output, and their adoption did away to some large extent with the flaming gas torches which were once a fea- ture of the oil country.

The coal is still here, and if the flow of gas continues to diminish, the coal may be again profitably developed.

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CHAPTER XIV MANUFACTURING

JOHN FRAZIER, GUNSMITH-EARLY SAWMILLS-IRON MANUFACTURE-GRISTMILLS-OTHER AC- TIVITIES AT FRANKLIN-THE OIL INDUSTRY AND ALLIED INTERESTS-ACTIVITIES OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD-OIL CITY ENTERPRISES-EMLENTON

JOHN FRAZIER, GUNSMITH

The first skilled mechanic noted in Venan- go county came here probably in 1748. The Indians in 1749, at several points along the river, implored DeCeloron, when he expressed his purpose of driving out the English trad- ers, to spare them their gunsmith at Venan- go, saying they could not get through the win- ter without his aid. He made their guns new again after they had become useless. His name was John Frazier, the gunsmith, of Venango. He was certainly a manufacturer, for he could make and replace those parts whose absence made a gun useless, and thus cause the Indian's dead gun to recover life and speech and the long arm to capture the deer and the turkey. The natives thought him a magician, and his tools mysterious help- ers, which worked wonders as he moved his hands and fingers. He had penetrated the northwestern frontier farther than any other trader or gunsmith, and had the earliest in- formation of the attempt of the French to drive out the English, and seize the country. In 1753 he sent a letter to all traders inform- ing them of the military activities of the French at Le Boeuf ; later he informed them of the presence of a considerable party of French bringing gifts for the natives from the governor of Canada. His last letter, written from Braddock, reveals the influence of the French upon the Indians in the neighborhood. He says of one of his men who was left at the trading post: "Custaloga stole all his corn, and eight bucks all that he had received for goods," when he was escaping in the night. He had built a log cabin in which he lived. Joncaire, when he came to build his fort, found this cabin comfortable and commodious enough for his headquarters by exchanging the English colors for the flag of France, upon the ridge pole. In Frazier's cabin, as already

noted, Washington met Joncaire. Frazier, it seems, should be considered a notable manu- facturer. He was also a most timely assistant of the English settlers, in giving early infor- mation of the French attempt, and the result- ant attitude of the savages. The scene and the period flood him with highlight. He shall never vanish.

EARLY SAWMILLS

The first manufacturing establishment lo- cated in Franklin, and therefore the earliest in the county, was a sawmill situated about sev- enty yards from the Allegheny, and the same distance below the mouth of French creek. It is so indicated on the oldest map of Fort Machault. This mill was perhaps built by the French to aid in the construction of their fortress. If so, the machinery was brought from Canada or (more likely) from France. Some years ago chestnut timbers forming a part of the dam were dug out on Elk street, still in a good state of preservation. It is possible that this mill was repaired and used by the English in building Fort Venango, dur- ing the year after the departure of the French. Venango was larger, better and more complete in every way than Machault, and was built in much less time. Even the earthworks, the banks and the ditches, were more extensive. Surely the builders of Venango who produced a result which even now, with all the modern appliances, would be thought to be a large un- dertaking, had need of a mill in preparing their timbers. But what their instruments were, or who planned and formed this work, or how numerous they were, we do not know. We can only admire them for the magnitude and excellence of their building, and for its timely completion. Had the care of this for- tress been worthy of its builders, one of Pon- tiac's horrors would have missed Venango.

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IRON MANUFACTURE

It was nearly seventy-five years after the first sawmill before the next attempt to es- tablish domestic manufactures in Franklin. In the year 1825 Samuel Hays, always jolly and enterprising, built a forge to supply the demand for iron, which the early settlers ob- tained at great expense from Pittsburgh and points farther east. Bog ore was used, ob- tained in the neighborhood, and charcoal was the fuel. As the ore was melted in the " 'ell fire," the slag was drawn off by mixing with lime, and the metal, at this stage known as "hoop-iron," was successively heated and ham- mered to produce the desired coherence. The location was on French creek a mile from the river, a wing dam furnishing power for the hammers and blast. A hamlet was formed about the forge by the houses built for the workmen. The ironmaster was A. M. Lewis. By the construction of slackwater. navigation the place was made untenable, and was de- serted early in the thirties.

Shortly before this, a quarter of a mile above the upper bridge, a plant was arranged by Alexander McCalmont. After several ex- periments he replaced the old forge in 1832- 33 by a quarter-stack blast furnace twenty . feet high, bosh diameter six or seven feet. He conducted it, with twenty employes, till 1834, when Samuel F. Dale bought it, carrying it on for several years. During this time it was the only manufacturing concern of the borough.

In 1842 Edward Nock, James Dangerfield and Edward Pratt became the members of a new firm in the town, aiming to establish The Franklin Iron Works, on a more extensive scale than any like concern hitherto found in the region. These men had formerly belonged to the Great Western Iron Works at Pittsburgh, of which Edward Nock was general manager. Their coming was considered to mark the be- ginning of a forward industrial movement, and was attended with pleasing circumstances. The Great Western Band, made up from Mr. Nock's former employes, came with him on the steamer "Ida," and furnished music for the new firm's advent. A score of skilled workmen came with them, and began at once the erection of the needed buildings. A frame building one hundred feet square was erected upon the site of McCalmont's furnace, which was still standing, though out of use for sev- xral years. Two well built wing dams were arranged to furnish the necessary power. The concern started large, with one set each of muck, bar, sheet and finishing rolls, four pud-

dling and two heating furnaces, and eleven nail machines. The fuel was obtained from Singleton's coal bank in Sandy Creek town- ship, while pig iron was bought at furnaces in this and nearby counties. The management of the company seems to have been arranged with due regard to the former experience of the men placed in control. Edward Nock was general superintendent, William Nock, fore- man of the furnaces, and the rolling mills were in charge of James Dangerfield and Thomas Cooper, with sixty operatives. The wages were good, six dollars a ton for pud- dling, rollers two and one half to three dollars per day. For a time the works were run at full capacity, when, as one writer politely says, "lack of harmony among the members of the firm prevented the business from being profitable." H. Coulter & Co. became propri- etors. Next the workmen formed a coopera- tive company agreeing to contribute half their wages to purchase the property, Coulter to furnish the raw material and act as agent for the sale of the product. By this plan the workmen would pay for the works in three years. But Coulter became insolvent, the co- operative company went to pieces, and the op- eratives departed. A number of changes in the ownership followed, but the works were dismantled several years before the Civil war. This was the most promising attempt to es- tablish iron manufacturing in Venango coun- ty made during the ante-oil period. Its pro- jectors were experienced, had been successful elsewhere, and possessed capital to make a fair start. Why did it fail? Probably the "lack of harmony" mentioned was due to deficits, which like the worm in the bud devastated the flower of promise. Supplies of pigiron fluc- tuated as the bog ore and wood for charcoal decreased near the furnaces, and were sought in other spots. The man at the primitive blast furnace found the cost of his output increased by the search for the nearest bogs, or tiniber for charcoal, along the stream upon which he was situated. Change of location meant dismantling one furnace and building another. For this cost increase, there was no remedy; the pigs did not rise in price. The markets were not satisfactory. There were times dur- ing the iron age of Venango when neither the products of the mills nor the raw iron of the furnaces would sell for enough in Pittsburgh or Erie to pay cost of production and freight; but Pittsburgh's finer coal and ores made man- ufacturing easy and cheap, while the canal to Erie ran uphill. These causes closed the big concern of Nock and Dangerfield in

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Franklin and were equally effective against others later.

In 1847 Edmund Evans built a foundry, near an outlet lock. This was sold in 1849 to William Elliott and W. M. Epley, who were succeeded by Dempsey, Hunter and McKen- zie in 1856, but within a few years the busi- ness was discontinued. The production of mill castings, stoves, plows and plow points, and general repairing, were the objects here. One by one the fires went out, the stacks were deserted, and they remain to-day along the valleys, crumbling monuments of the energy that did not die with the furnace fires.

The earlier forges and iron manufactories enjoyed a longer prosperity than those estab- lished later. In 1824, William Kinnear, Mat- thias Stockberger and Richard Noyes became partners in the erection of an iron foundry, furnace and mill with houses, steamboat land- ing and warehouses on the east side of the mouth of Oil creek. William Kinnear & Com- pany thus made the first settlement here. It was known as the Oil Creek Furnace. On Sept. 19, 1825, William and Frederick G. Crary took over the business, which they conducted for the next ten years with vigor. This busi- ness was a prominent feature of the region. It will be remembered that the first steamboat ascending to Franklin took on an excursion there to visit the Oil Creek Furnace as a note- worthy place. This was in 1828. But in 1835 the property was sold by the sheriff, Andrew McCaslin, to William Bell. For ;fourteen years the Bells-William W. Bell and son, and finally Samuel Bell-operated the furnace, employing forty men most of the time. In 1849 the richer ores from Lake Superior caused them to close the furnace. The same cause, operating throughout the county, closed all its furnaces in a few years. It was thought by some that a change in the tariff law was responsible ; but no law could have helped Venango, unless it should shut out Pittsburgh iron from Venango's markets.

GRISTMILLS

The mills of Franklin may be noticed in this connection. George Power is first here as in other matters relating to the town. He brought with him a small cast iron mill with which he and his neighbors ground their meal and flour. Alexander McDowell's mill, on the Allegheny, is mentioned in early records, but its location is not known. John Hulings built the first mill on the creek, nearly opposite West Park. Abraham Selders, a brother-in-law of Hulings.

built the second mill, on the south side of the creek, just west of the city limits. Alexander McCalmont had a grist mill and saw mill at his furnace, which passed to Nock and Danger- field with that property. The mill was burned, but was rebuilt by Robert Lamberton.

The Venango Mills, situated at the outlet lock, were built in 1859 by Otis Hall, of War- ren, and Samuel F. Dale, who operated them for a number of years. Johnson & Company became . proprietors, and in 1882 the modern roller process was introduced. "Johnson and Company" are still named as the owners in 1918, and under manager H. W. Bostwick the wheels are still turning out "flour and feed." Mills gather interest as they withstand the years, particularly the gristmills. These are close to the primary needs of life in the homes. Children are fond of their dusty. clean-smelling compartments. The old boys, when in after years they return and visit the mills, find suggestions of the past clinging to the walls even as the white dust sticks to the cobwebs of the corners. As they regard the festoons of "the spider who taketh hold with her hands and is in" mills as well as "king's palaces," memory brings back boyhood's mates. They catch fish again under the dam, lose the big ones, and the whole panorama of the val- ley unrolls.

OTHER ACTIVITIES AT FRANKLIN

In 1832 Charles W. Mackey opened a wagon shop on Elk street below South Park, but soon removed it to the site on Liberty street, where he continued the business for about thirty years. His wagons were superior in material and workmanship to any that came to this market. He made more than the home market demanded. but the surplus sold readily in towns farther east.

J. B. Myers began manufacturing carriages and wagons in 1859. J. D. Myers became a partner several years later. In 1885 the firm name was changed to Myers, Humphrey & Company. At the present time, 1918, the Myers Carriage Company, J. D. Myers, presi- dent, H. A. Myers manager, are manufactur- ers of carriages and auto bodies, at Buffalo and Thirteenth streets.

During the decade 1850-60 many manufac- turing enterprises were started, but usually soon abandoned. This was true generally throughout the county. Dry ditches may be traced along the streams, which once supplied life currents to mills now traceable only by crumbling, disarranged foundations. Mills of

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many kinds were started by the settlers to sup- ply their pressing needs,-lumber mills, grist- mills, woolen mills, carding, weaving and cloth dressing, even flax mills to fit the raw product for domestic use, and stills to dispose of the surplus grain, which found a ready market in concentrated forms-these were in- disputable evidence that the people were gain- ing in their conflict with primitive conditions. These machines, erected with thought and much effort, must have been regarded with satisfaction by the people. They were neces- sary, they were time-savers, and added to the people's productive power. Their almost si- multaneous development over the county dem- onstrated a corresponding advance on the set- tlers' part. Their rapid increase was fine and good, but their sudden abandonment was even better and finer.

THE OIL INDUSTRY-ALLIED INTERESTS

Consider a few of the first items of the fol- lowing table, which furnishes the reader an approximate basis of the growth, value and extent of the petroleum development in Venan- go county from 1859 to 1888:

wells were drilled in one year, producing 2,130,000 barrels, at an average price of $9.87 a barrel. Such a flood of wealth was probably never poured out before upon any community. All efforts would now be turned to the pro- duction of this amazing new element. Tools and all the machinery for drilling and storing and transporting the oil had to be invented and constructed. For example, the second productive well in the county, and the first pro- ductive well outside the Oil creek valley, was drilled in Franklin in a water well which had shown bubbles of gas and oil, by a blacksmith named James Evans, with tools manufactured in his own shop. He kept the tools in order himself and with the assistance of his sons he drilled to a depth of seventy-two feet, when he struck a sand rock which produced freely. This caused great excitement in Franklin, and even before the well began to produce a num- ber of companies were formed to drill for oil. As early as April, 1860, a shipment of 427 barrels of oil was sent from Franklin to Pitts- burgh by the steamboat "Venango." It is noted that from this time forward all the en- ergies of the people were practically domi-

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Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 32

Author: Babcock, Charles A. Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: