The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-16
Some History Recalled By Pioneers Death at
 Titusville.
SOME NEW HAVEN MEN
And Their Identification With "Oceans of Oil" in
 Pennsylvania.

struck oil on August 2S, 1859. While Edwin l.. Drake was the manager and moving spirit in the company which drilled the first well, William A. Smith
 known throughout the oil country as
 Uncle Billy" and his two sons, James
 F. and s. E. Smith, were The men be-
 hind the drill. Of these three s. 5.
 smith of Titusville, Pa, is the only one
 living who assisted in the work and
 was present when oil was discovered oozing from the first hole drilled on Watson's Flats, near Titusyille,
 In the summer of 1856 George II. Bis
 sell of Eveeth & Bissen, attorneys, of
 New York city, n0riced bottle of pe-
 troleum in the window of Broadway
 drug store. Scanning the label closely,
 he learned that the fluid, which was
 sold as a medicine was procured from
 salt wells at Tarenum, near Pittsburg.
 Tho sight of the derricks on the label
 save Bissol the Idea of boring ar
 tesiau wells for oil Eveleth, his part
 ner, approved the theory, and they set
 to work at once to restore the Pennsyl-
 vauIa Rock oil Co.,, in which, besides
 themselves, James N. Townsend, Will
 liam A. Ives, and Ashael Piorpont of
 New Haven, Conn, were interested.
 The company was reorganizel and
 Edwin L. Drake conductor on the New York and New Haven railroad,
 whom illness had forced to quit that
 kind of work, was employed to manage
 the test of the new theory of drilling
 .,,. }-a I1l
 chased some of the stock in the old
 company in his more prosperous days,
 and gladly accepted the opportunity
 for q change of air and scene, in the hope that 1t would benefit his health.
 1t took many months to get the stockholders and officers of the Penn-
 syvanta Rock oil company working
 harmoniously, and consequently 1t was
 not until the fall of 1857 that Drake
 made his first visit to Titusyille. Af-
 ter visiting the salt wells at Tarentum
 Drake returned to New Haven with q
 scheme for operating the property on Watson's Flats In March, 1858, the
 Seneca oil company was organized, with Drake as president and owner of uuo-fortieth of the stock, and this com
 
 plny agreed to pay the Pennsylvania Rock oil company one-eighth of all oil, salt, or paint which was produced, in return for a forty-hye year lease of the property at Titusyille. Equipped with this lease and $l ,0OO to start work with, Drake and his family left for Titusyille early in May lS5S.
 Drake underwent many trials in his endeavors to get started on the plan of drilling a weu. In February, 1S59 he went t0 Taren,um and engaged a drill
 or. but the driller failed to report at Tlmsyille, and in March he drove to Tarentum in a sleigh to search for an- other Finally William A, smith ac- ceptcd the contract to manufacture the tools and drill, the well, and on May 20, Smith, his two sons, and the drilling apparatus arrived at the point select ed for the test. A derrick and pump house were buil,, and soon the start was made, but in digging the pit or well hole smith encountered so much water that he was compelled to stop work. After several weeks delay Drake solved the problem by driving a pipe thirty-six feet to the rock, and on August II the drill was started,
 During all the yeXatious delays and trials Drakes funds were gradually
 growing less, but R, ID. Fletcher and Peter Wilson, Titusville merchants, en-
 dorse1 his paper for $16O0 at the crisis
 of his financial affairs, and the drill continued its downward course. Smith and his sons averaged three feet per
 day, resting nights and Sunday and
 indications of oil were met as the tools | pierced the rock.
 As Smith and his sons were about to 1 quit work on Saturday afternoon, Aug
 ust 2S, 1859, the drill dropped half a ! foot into a crevice, But as such l half foot into @ crevice. But as such
 crevices were frequently found in salt wells nothing was thought of this, and l all hands left for Titusville to spend l Sunday. The well had reached a depth
 of sixty-nine feet and was passing | through coarse sand. Sunday afternoon l Uncle Billy" Smith strolled to the well l to inspect 1t and see that none of the apparatus had been tempered with. l Looking into the hole, from WhoCh the 1 tools had been drawn, he was astonish-
 ed to see a fluid within six feet of the mouth. Quickly securing a piece of Fin spoutng he plugged one end of it and
 ran it down into the hole and pulled l tt up. It was filled with petroleum. Smith ran the spout down again and | again, and each time it came 10 the | surface filled with the precious fluid. A 1 stranger passing the well was dis | patched to Titusville with the news, and the Smith boys broke all records 1 sprinting to the scene. When Colonel Drake arrived early the next morning l Smith and his sons were guarding 1 three barrels of oil The pumping out 1 it was soon put in operation and by noon the well was producing oil at the | rate of twenty barrels per day.
 1 The news of the oil strike spread l with the rapidity of a cyclone and 1 hundreds were soon at the we'll "Un- cle Billy" Smith wrote 10 his former i employer, at Tarenum, "There's oceans l of oil; come quick" George II. Bissell, l Jonathan Watson, William BarnsdalL and many others leased the land in all | directions. Soon both sides of the creek on which the Drake well was located | were under lease for many miles in both directions People poured into l Titusvlle from New York Buffalo
 and Pittsburg, almost everybody intent
 on securing d lease on a piece of land | large enough 10 hold a drilling outfit. | During all the excitement, however,
 Drake remained strangely inactive. He
 seemed flo think that paying territory
 would not be found outside of his own
 laa8e and faue7 to grasp the im- ] t-t.ta rna oE Ln. discovery he hlL mada-