Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-31
PART i.


.1 .1-SS54 e A==4f1 Ell 4 less driven by the
force of genius,
would naturally creep along the straight
lines of truth, unwilling to risk deviation
into one boundary or the other.
Thus. the very hazard of the writer's task
becomes the curb upon his journalistic
temptations, and the narrative here set
forth is essentially true. 1t is bare tran
script of facts, unvarnished and unadorned.
If. upon its conclusion, the reader decides
that it is either dramatic or romantic, the
writer has no right to any of the praise, for
it is the actual occurrences that will have
made it such, and any penny-a-liner may
have ''vritten them up" once he was in
possession of the facts.
The Movement for q Monument.
There had been more or less talk for sew
eral wears of building monument to the
memory of E. L. Drake, the man who gets
the credit generally all over the world for
discovering petroleum in Pennsylvania
The proposition never amounted to any,
thing more than talk. Once it did assume
the more definite suggestion that every oil
producer donate one barrel of oil toward q
fund for the erection of such monument
But frequently recurring shutdown"
movements reduced production, and the
philanthropic scheme dropped back into
apathy.
This apathy about an object SEEM
ingly so worthy always impressed me as
strange Somehow, got the idea that fate
had voice in the delay, and tn at for some
mysterious reason Colonel d rake's tomb
was to remain unmarked by an y imposing
marble This vague idea excited my Curl
ositv, SO that when a friend in the upper
oil country, year or so ago, proposed news
paper agitation of a monumental fund for
tardv honor to Drake, was ready to first
enter into some historical researches. IT
Colonel Drake was entitled to monument
as 1.-THE discoverer of petroleum in Pennsvl-
vania'' | wanted to be sure OF it before aid
ing in the agitation In the course OF this
investigation L interviewed manv people,
and the result of it all was that gath
cred much information, which convinced me
that there was indeed something of Fate's
intervening influence between the monu-
ment for ''the discoverer" of petroleum and
the grave of Z. L. Drake.
Clearing Up the History.
Recently have been accommodating other
"reminiscences along the same line, and
curious reason, at length, induces me to
publish this batch of strange stories Two
incidents appear 10 me to indicate that the
time is now ripe for clearing up history.
one of these is the sudden appearance of oil
in the waters of the lower Allegheny,
which couple of weeks ago annoyed Pitts
burgers so much, and which has ever since
been fruitful theme for conversation and
alarm. The second circumstance is the
leasing of ., 400 acres of land back of Spring
dale, Allegheny county, last week by an in
experienced oil prospector whose dlvining-
rod tells him to bore there, and upon which
"wild-catting" will be commenced at once
Just what either OF these commonplace in
cidents have to do with the main subject
will better appear in the sequel.
The group of men who figure in this mar
rative are all living. They are residents of
Allegheny county. The statements they
make are about the enterprises in which
four other persons, now dead, had set on
foot These four individuals were Samuel
NJ. Kier, OF Pittsburg; Louis Peterson, Sr.,
OF Tarentum; Thomas Donnelly, the late
Pittsburg banker, and E L. Drake, of
Titusyillc The group of gentlemen first
mentioned Will be permitted to tell their
own stories, the only Interruptions 1 ven-
ture being to break their recollections into
two or more parts, occasionally, so that
natural sequence may be observed in the
whole.
sam Kier Used Oil a Medicine.
By this plan a wealth of details appears
in print for the first time upon a subject
of the utmost Importance to Allegheny
county. L am aware that Samuel NJ Kier
has by no means passed out of the recoIlec-
items of Pittsburg business circles, in which
he moved as late as 1873. l am also fully
aware that whenever you mention, in the
presence Of some of the older residents of
this county, the fact of Drake's oil we'll
near Tltusyille, in 1859, you will be told:
"Pshawl Why, Sam Kier found oil up
here at Tarentum long before that Why,
he used it as medicine!'
That much has been a threadbare histo-
rical fact known in Pittsburg for all these
wears, aud it is for the reason that SO little
else has ever been told, beyond that terse
boast, that the excuse exists for this article.
Fuller details might have entitled the fact
to place in general history.
These strange stories tell considerably
more than that. They picture a unique
community using Kier's petroleum for IL
Illuminating purposes before he began selling
it for medicine-describe the old accident
which demonstrated its combustible nature
make public for the first time the inward |
ness of two visits which Z. L. Drake made
to Tarentum-proye how Allegheny county
genius alone made it possible for Drake to
bore that celebrated we'll in the upper coun-
try-recount the pioneer experiments In re-
fning the oil at Pittsburg-fnally, they
tell of shaft in Allegheny county which |
was dug hundreds of feet into the earth in
search of oil
After OF With Pick and Shovel.
Digging for petroleum with pick and |
shovell How fabulous that sounds today |
Yet it was the actual climax to o chain of |
remarkable events which began with the |
boring of a saltwater well by means of a |
:oot-tread, right here in Allegheny county, |