Morning journal and courier., 1880-11-11
Colonel B. l.. Drake.

The Story of His TGventful Career-HoHv He Discovered Of1-NInkfng Large Fortune, but Dying in Comparative Poverty.
 From the New York Times.l S The death of Colonel B. l.. Drake the l first man to sink a well in Pennsylvania in search of oil, and the pioneer in the petro- leum business of that State, Is announced as l having occurred in New Bethlehem, Penn, on Monday last. Like the majority of the ! early operators in oil, he made fortune, lost 1 it, and in his declining years found himself in poverty. Unlike many of the same class, l however he was not reduced to abject want for the State of Pennsylvania, recognizing the benefits which she had derived from his ingenuity and enterprise, granted him pen sion, which has been the support of himself and family now for several years.
 It was by the merest accident that Col Drake's attention was first directed to the value of petroleum, in 1858. Half century before that date, old Nat Carey had peddled the peculiar oil which was skinned in small quantities from the waters of Oil Creek, and had paraded its virtues as a purgative and liniment. He called it Seneca oil, from the fact that Red Jacket, the Seneca chief had imparted to the whites the secret of it's pow CTS. Its fame as medicinal agent pure ly local, when Carey, with vials of the stuff, plodded from hamlet to hamlet and estab- lished demand for it that brought him no small profit An attempt by Gen. Franklin to introduce this "great natural medicine" to a southern market later on ended disastrous ly the Baltimore merchant to whom a wagon load of it was consigned dumping 1t into the Chesapeake Bay, unable to endure the odor which it sent forth, and unwilling to believe that his southern customers could accustom themselves to the remedy, no matter what the nature of their ailments Northern pa tients however, took more kindly to 1t, but among them even it was known more as Hniment than medicine.
 For several years, until 1858, firm in this city, Twelfth & Bissell, had received from
 Titusville, Penn, about gallon of this oil a
 day, which, mixed with other ingredients,
 they sold as the then celebrated Mustang
 Eminent" Their supply of oil was gathered
 in the very primitive method of dipping
 blankets in a spring permeated with the arti-
 cle and wringing them into pans. This spring
 was owned by the firm and when they were
 unable to meet their indebtedness to persons
 in New Haven, Conn.,, the latter took the
 Titusville property in payment. This was 1n
 1858. Col. Drake was then conductor on
 the New York and New Haven railroad whose
 shrewdness had already attracted the atten-
 tion of the owners of the newly acquired
 property. They sent him to Pennsylvania to
 perfect their title to 1t. He became satisfied from his observations that Seneca oil was possessed of more properties than had ever been credited to it. and that a fortune
 
 secure it in any quantity He suggested the idea that the oil could be obtained in paying quantities by sinking well. He was laughed at as a lunatic by the Pennsylva- nians. Returning to New Haven he succeed ed in interesting some capitalists in the novel theory, and in organizing the Seneca Oil company, of which he was appointed man. ager. In the spring of 1859 he commenced sinking well on Watson's Flat, at a spot about a mile below Titusville. The move was considered so ridiculous that it was only with the greatest difficulty that he could hire assistance in the work. He finally secured the services of old salt -borer named Will liam A. Smith and his two sons. The bor- ing of the first petroleum well was begun on the 1st of July, 1859. When the three men quit work at sundown on the 29th of August they had drilled to depth of 69 feet 6 the hole the following morning, and to his astonishment it was filled with oil A barrel of it waf dipped out in 8 few minutes, and the news of Colonel Drake's sanity ran like wildfire up Oil Creek Valley. The discovery was flashed over the country, and then began the ever memorable oil excitement, which made and beggared men before it subsided. To-day the oil region is shoneycombed with wells, the SUD- ply of petroleum far exceeds the demand, and farmers who own no oil stock are sklm- ming from the waters of the same creeks over which oId Nat Carey laDoreo hunureos of gallons of stuff which is running to waste.
 Col. Drake continued his operations in Pe- troleum until 1864, when, broken in health and ruined in pocket, although at one time he had amassed a princely fortune, he aban- doned the oil fields In 1873 the State grant ed him pension of $1, 800 year, payable to his wife in the event of her surviving him. He settled in New Bethlehem, where hespent the last years of his life 8 confirmed invalid. His co-pioneer, Smith, still lives in Butler county, destitute and with large family on his hands. A statue to Col. Drake's memory is to be erected on the new Oil Exchangenow being built in TitusYille.