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

of cloth pouch filled with fiaxseed, which
was let down along the wall OF the hole to
shut or the fresh water from the salt water.
| The other contrivance was for wells in
which there was an Offset. 1t was q bag
| about four feet long made out of muslin,
wrapping paper or rags, and we'll CREASED
| with tsllow.
Where the Salt Wells Were.
Mr. James Kennedy, of Tarentum, a son
above, fixes the location of the Tarentum
wells little more definitely. He says:
j The Thomas Donnelly y well on the Humes
property, the two wells on Thomas Kier's
place, and the Louis Peterson salt well were
all on strip of land above the canal (now
mile below Tarentum station. Less than
half q mile included all the wells. The site
of the Kier wells is now occupied by the ma
chine snop or blacksmith shop of the Pitts
burg Plate Glass Company at Creighton.
Thomas Donnelly. who, as President of
the Fourth National lin Pittsburg,
salt with Thomas Kier up along the Kiski.
minetas river, which was the great salt
basin of those days. Getting the idea that
doWe he ssared IN apoes
the same time as Louis Peterson, Sr., father
OF the ex- Mayor of Allegheny City.
Grandfather" Kennedy had a whole
week in which to stimulate his memory
before went back to him. Rubbing his
eyes, as though waking up from pleasant
dream, he smiled, and said:
A Mysterious Fluid Appears.
Bye and bye, that salt well of Louis Peter
sons, over which built the derrick aston.
ished everybody BY bringing up a dark
colored greasy stuff. 1t had never been seen
in salt wells up the Kiskimineeas, they said,
and they were afraid that it might ruin the
salt works here. 1t just came right up out
of the ground along with the salt water as it
was pumped by the engine. 1t got to be a
nuisance, for We we're after salt water then,
and didn't want anything else. Yes, this
fluid appeared several years after the well
had been pumping salt water uninterrupt-
edly. Bye and bye the other wells here also
got to throwing this ugly grease. 1t was
called 'srock oil"
Mr. f. n. Humes is one of the best
known citizens of Tarentum. He is hale
and hearty, and, oddly enough, is still
active in oil and gas prospecting business.
He says;
1t was in 1874 or 1s45 before petroleum ap.
peared in the product of the Peterson salt
well. I was working down at the salt works
remained there for several years. The
dirty grease that thus came up from the
well with the salt water annoyed us for q
into a tank, and there the oil would gather
on the top, enabling us to draw OF the water
underneath. But after a wilhelm the
L
"rock oil'' as we only knew it then, got into
the salt watts and threatened to injure our
apparatus as well as the finished salt ana
over the next @ time time 50 that the I oil oil could @ not
possibly get into the watts. We did this and
The oil, which in that way flowed over the
sides Of the tank, ran into the canal.
Canal Men Complained of the Oil.
1t would be anticipating to introduce at
this point the story of absorbing interest
which ex-Mayor Peterson related to me in
Allegheny the other day, but one brief
clause of what he said is apropos just here.
He observed:
When this petroleum was first found in my
fathers salt well along about ~ or AS he
had no idea OF its commercial value, nor in
deed did any of the people hereabouts until
year or SO afterward. They at first called
it crock oil" It was q worthless grease in
their eyes, but it was great curiosity also.
Grease is a fat, and that the rocks down in
the earth could throw of fat seemed incom-
prehensible to many. Indeed petroleum has
been well named "the fat of the land"
Father let the stuff go to waste, running it
off into tho old canal and sometimes into an
old cistern below the canal, from which the
oil overflowed into an ancient pond, lea wing
us the salt water.
John V. Humes, of Tarentum, is brother
of the other gentleman of that name quoted
above. He says:
The oil was wasted for q long time and
when the Kier salt WELL a year after the ap-
pearance Of oil in the Peterson we'll, also
began to produce OIL the quantity of grease
flowing into the canal was quite large. The
boatnen got to complaining about it, have
heard them myself. They said it creased
their tow-liDes, making the ropes hard to
handle, besides sotling the sides and decks
OF their canal boats.
4 Cotf .gration and Its Results
About this time startling episode created
much excitement about the salt works of
Tarentum. 1t is well described in the fol.
lowing statements:
F. N. HUMEs-one day the boys in the
neighborhood threw a burning brand into
the old canal, and there was an astonishing
result The whole canal, for a distance of
half mile or more seemed to burst into
flames. 1t was very odd sight-looked like
the water burning, you know. But we
quickly understood the trouble: IL was the
oil that we had allowed to run into the canal
that had taken fire. 1t burned furiousiy, 1
uer it well, for we were afraid that a
cooper shop along the side of the canal, In
which the Kiers made barrels for salt would
be ignited from the flames. Most OF the
people in the vicinity came running down
to the canal We could do nothing but Just
let 1t burn itself out, protecting adiacs mt
properly. But, sir, tt demonstrated one