![]() ![]() Until this time, the primary lamp fuel had been whale oil. They created the company after catching wind of reports that petroleum collected from an oil spring in Titusville, Pennsylvania was suitable for use as lamp fuel. Seneca Oil, originally called the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, was founded by George Bissell and Jonathan Eveleth. Along with a new lamp to burn Kier's product a new market to replace whale oil as a lamp oil began to develop. He was the first person in the United States to refine crude oil into lamp oil (kerosene). Samuel Martin Kier is credited with founding the first American oil refinery in Pittsburgh. While petroleum oil was known prior to this, there was no appreciable market for it. By 1858, the Drake family found themselves living in Titusville, Pennsylvania. He retained the privileges of a train conductor, including free travel on the railroads. During this summer, illness prevented Drake from carrying on with his job. Drake re-married three years later to Laura Dowd, sixteen years his junior, in 1857. During this time he married Philena Adams who died while giving birth to their second child in 1854. ![]() He spent the early parts of his life working the railways around New Haven, Connecticut as a clerk, express agent and conductor. He grew up on family farms around New York State and Castleton, Rutland County, Vermont before leaving home at the age of 19. ![]() The museum proudly houses some of the industry’s most unique collectibles, including Drake’s toothbrush.Edwin Laurentine Drake (Ma– November 9, 1880), also known as Colonel Drake, was an American oil driller, popularly credited with being the first to drill for oil in the United States.Įdwin Drake was born in Greenville, Greene County, New York on March 29, 1819, the son of Lyman and Laura (née Lee) Drake. The Drake Well still stands and is now part of the Drake Well Museum. At its peak, the well was producing nearly 400 gallons of oil every twenty-four hours. The next morning, as Drake arrived at the site, he discovered a pool of oil had welled up from his drill. With the help of a local blacksmith and working at a pace of three feet per day, the well reached 69 feet on August 27, 1859. The structure later became known as simply the Drake Well. The people of the town named the first drill “ Drake’s Folly ” in connection with their opinions of Edwin’s work. He changed his strategy to mimic the current salt mining approaches and discovered that iron pipes, what he called “drive pipes,” could be used to break up the shale and reach the oil deposits. ![]() His attempts failed when his mine shafts filled with water. Edwin Drake assumed oil could be dug from the ground using ordinary mining techniques. Prior to that time, oil companies collected oil by gathering it from oil seep locations where it welled up naturally through the ground. It is rumored he became part of the oil industry by chance when he met two Seneca Oil Company founders while staying at the same hotel (). The man credited with the invention was an out-of-work railroad conductor named Edwin L. The first modern oil well was built and used in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859, over 150 years prior to the Marcellus Shale oil rush. ![]()
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