River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1881-01-06
THE ORIGINAL OIL MAN.
Death of Col. Drake. who sank the
First Oil Well
From the New York Time

Death of Col. Drake. who sank the
First Oil Well.
From the New York Times
The death of Col. E L. Drake, the
first man TO sink we'll in Pennsylvan-
ia in search of oil, and the pioneer in
the petroleum business of that state, is
announced as having occurred il New
Bethlehem, Pa, on Monday last. Like
the majority of the early operators in
oil, he made a fortune, lost it, and in
his declining years found himself in
poverty. Unlike many of the same
class, however, he was not reduced to
abiect want, for the State of Pennsyl-
vania. recognizing the benefits which
she had derived from his ingenuity and
enterprise, granted him a pension,
which mas been The support of himself
and family now for several years.
1t was by the merest accident that
Col brakes attention was first directed
90 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 Greek, ana had
paraded its virtues as n purgatlve and
hniment He called it Seneca oil, from
the fact that Red Jacket, the Seneca
chief, had impaired to the whites the
secret OF its powers. Its fame as a
medicinal agent was purely local, when
Carey, with walls of the staff, plOdded
from ham let to hamlet and established
a demand fer it that brought him no
small profit An attempt by Gen
Franklin to introduce this great natu-
70, IL
er on ended disastrously, the Baltimore
merchant to whom a wagon load of it
was consigned dumping it 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 rem
edy, no matter what the nature of their
ailments Northern patients, however,
took more kindly to it, but among them
even it was known more as liniment
than as medicine.
For several years, until 1858, a firm
in this city, Evelith q Bissell, had re-
ceived from Titusville, Pa, about gal
Ion of this oil a day, which, mixed with
other ingredients, they sold rs the then
celebrated Mustang Liniment." Their
supply of oil was gathered in the very
primitive method of dipping blankets
in spring permeated with the article
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 in
1868. Col. Drake was then a conductor
on the New York and New Haven rail
road, whose shrcwdness had already
attracted the attention of the owners of
the newly acquired property. They
sent him to Pennsylvania to perfect
their title to it. He became satisfied
from his observation that Seneca oil
was possessed of more properties than
had ever been credited to it, and that
Il fortune was in store for the man
who could secure it in any quantity.
He suggested the idea that the oil
could be obtained in paying quantities
by sinking we'll He was laughed
at as a lunatic by the Pennsylvanians
Returning to New Haven he succeeded
in interesting some capitalist in the
novel theory, and in organizing the
Seneca Oil company, of which he was
appointed manager. In the spring of
1859 he commenced sinking well on
WatsOn's flat, at spot about mile
below Titurville. The move was con-
sidered so ridiculous that it was only
with the greatest difficulty that he
could hire assistance III the work. He
finally secured the services of an old
salt-bOrer named William A. Smith,
and his two sons. The boring of the
first petroleum well was begun on the
LIST of July, 1859. When the three men
quit work at shutdown ON the Goth of
August they had drilled to a depth of
siXty-nine feet six inches. The elder
Smith was first at the hole the follow
ing morning, and to his establishment
it was filled with oil. A barrel of it was
dipped out in a few minutes, and the
news of Col brakes sanity ran like
wild-hre up Oil Creek valley. The dis
covery flashed over the country and
then began the ever memorial oil eX-
element, which made the beggared
men before it subsidized. To-day the
oil region is hOney-combed with wells,
the supply of petroleum far exceeds
the demand, and farmers who own
no oil stocks are skimming from The
same creeks over which old Nat Carey
labored hundreds of gallons of the stuff
which is running to waste.
Col Drake continued his operations
N petroleum unill 1864, when, broken
IL health and ruined in pocket, although
at one time he had amassed princely
fortune, he abandoned the old fields.
In 1873 the state granted him pen
sion of 81 500 year, payable to mis-
wife in the event of her surviving him.
lie settled in New Bethlehem, where
he spent the last years of his life con
firmed invalid. Ills co-pioneer, Smith,
still lives in Butler county, Pennsyl-
vnnie destitute, and with large fam
lily on his hands. A statue to Col.
brakes memory is to be erected on
the new oil exchange now being built
in TituSvi1lp