The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-16

other wells had sent the prices of land So high that it was too late for him to secure anything within the zone of productive territory.
 Edwin L. Drake was born at Green vile, N. Y, March Il, 1819 At eigh- teen he was night clerk on a boat run ming between Buffalo and Detroit. Later he worked on a farm in Illinois, clerked two years in a hotel in Michi- gan, returned east and entered a dry goods store at New Haven as a clerk, clerked in New York city, removed to Massachusetts, and was express agent on the Boston & Albany railroad, and resigned that position in 1859 to become conductor on the New York and New Haven railroad. In 1851 he married Miss Laura Dow in New York city. Following the completion of the Drake well he was, in 1860, elected justice .of the peace at Titusville, a position paying g ,500 per year, and later bought oil on commission for New York deal- CTS, He met many ups and downs dur ing the four years following the strik- ing of the first oil well, and in the summer of 1863, with about $1 ,5O0 in his possession, he left the oil country forever and entered into q partnership win broker in Wall sreet, New York.
 Speculation in oil stocks soon dissi- pated Drake's small savings, and then ill health overlook him. He went, with his wife, 10 Long Branch in the hope that the sea air would benefit his health, and there they were soon with out funds. While Drake was in New York one day in 1869, seeking a posi- ton for his twelve-year-old son, he met "Zeb" Martin, of Titusville, who, learning his straitened circumstances, helped him temporarily and promised To raise q fund for his benefit. Mr.. Martin placed the matter before the people of the oil region and at a mass meeting at TItUsvile $4,200 was raised and forwarded to Mrs. Drake. The re- cital of the distressing conditions to which the Drakes had been reduced led the Pennsylvania legislature in 1873, to grant an annuity of $1 300, payable dur ing the life of himself and wife. Among the papers of ThaGdtus Stevens, found after his death, was @ bill which he had prepared to present to congress asking for an appropriation of $250,00a for Drake. The Drake family moved to Bethlehem, Pa, in 1870, and it was at that place, November g, 1881, that Drake died. He was affable, genial. and kindly; was of pronounced individual ty, and had few superiors as a story teller. He always dressed well, liked a good horse, and was of unblemished character.
 John J. McLaurln, in his Sketches in Crude Oil" issued ten years ago, says of Uncle Billy" Smith; William A. Smith, born in Butler county in 1872, at the age of twelve years was appren- ticed at Freeport to learn blacksmith ing. In 1927 he went to Plttsburg, and in 1S42 opened a blacksmith shop at Salina, below Tarentum. Samuel M. Kier employed him to drill salt wells and manufacture drilling tools. Af- ter finishing the Drake well, he drilled in various sections of the oil regions, retiring to his farm in Butler a few years prior to his death, on october 23, 1890. Uncle Billy as the boys affec- tionately called him, was no small fac, tor in giving to mankind the illumina- tor that enlightens ever quarter of the globe. The farm he owned in 1859 and on which he died, proved to be good oil territory" L, J. M.