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 This replica of Drake oil well housing stands on the same spot as the original.
Edwin Drake is an example of the latter. He was a railroad man who suffered the ill winds of misfortune for much of his life. He lost a wife in childbirth in 1854. He became ill in 1857 and had to quit his railroad job.
The owners of a company called Seneca Oil became acquainted with Drake (the oil had come to be called Seneca oil after the Seneca Indians who had lived in the area). Drake, who owned stock in the company, was hired to attempt to get more oil out of the ground. Drake had no expertise in this field, but, as a railroad man, he could travel for free on the rails.
Crude oil had been seeping from the ground for centuries along a stream called Oil Creek, which is located in the rolling hills of northwest Pennsylvania, near what is now Titusville. For centuries, Indians had collected and used it for medicinal purposes. Later settlers used it for medicine as well as to lubricate textile machinery.
Two developments helped to spike interest in that black liquid that bubbled up from the ground -a decrease in supplies of whale oil, which was used as lamp fuel, and the development of a process to turn crude oil into kerosene.
Drake began to drill along Oil Creek. Although other attempts had been made at drilling in other regions, they had failed due to shaft collapse. Drake’s innovation, which proved crucial, was to drive a pipe down to the bedrock and then run the drill through the pipe, providing a reinforcement for the borehole, thus keeping it from collapsing.
As various problems hampered the operation, the project became known locally as “Drake’s Folly.” Despite the taunts from the people who would gather to ridicule him, he persevered and, on August 27, 1859, he and his crew struck a pool of subterranean oil. A steam engine was used to pump the oil to the surface. No longer would man have to be satisfied with the trickle of oil that escaped on its own to the surface - the oil drilling industry was born.
In just a few years several boomtowns sprung up around the region, with thousands of workers. One of the towns, nearby Pithole City, had a population of 15,000 by September 1865. A little over a year later the population had dwindled to 2,000 after the oil began to dry up. What exists today cannot even be classified as a ghost town. All that remains are a few cellar holes to indicate that anyone ever lived there.
Not only did Drake neglect to patent his innovation, to make matters worse, he lost what little money he had on oil speculation a few years later. In 1872, in his impoverished old age, he was voted a yearly stipend by the state for his contribution to society.
My long day of traveling was starting to wind down, but I still planned to visit the Drake Oil Well Museum before I settled in for the night. I had left the motel at Parkersburg before 6:00 a.m. that morning and had traveled north along the Ohio River all the way to Niles, Ohio before cutting east toward Grove City, Pennsylvania.
After leaving Grove City, I headed north toward Titusville. I knew I wouldn’t have much time to tour the museum before it closed, and I was right. I finally got there at about 4:30. The museum closed at 5:00. Since 1 arrived so late and had so little time to tour the museum, the counter attendant did not charge me any admission.
I managed to do a quick, self-guided tour, with still a few minutes to spare. To sufficiently take in all of the displays would have taken at least an hour and a half.
Since the park itself didn’t close until dark, I had more time to tour the grounds and outbuildings. While 1 strolled the grounds my ears were treated to the constant repetition of machinery -”Chitty, chitty, chitty, chitty, chitty, chitty. . . Bang!” Well, something like that, anyway.
There was a long stretch of tubing joined together at various angles which led to a 55-gallon metal drum. Looking inside, I saw that oil was trickling into the drum! Actually, it was more than a trickle, but less than a gush. I found it fascinating that oil was still being pumped there after a century and a half.
At about that time a member of the staff walked by me, heading to the outbuildings to shut down the machinery and lock up the buildings for the day. He asked me if I had had an opportunity yet to look inside the pumphouse. I told him that I hadn’t and he asked me to accompany him so that he could give me a quick tour of the pump and pulley system.
After he locked up that building we walked over to the building that housed the replica of the original drill rig. Even though the time was past 5:00 p.m., he graciously stayed for a few extra minutes to answer my questions.
Imagine my disappointment when, after I remarked how surprised I was that oil was still being pumped there after all those years, he replied that the whole set-up is a closed system designed merely to show how such a drill and pump assembly would have worked. The oil that I had seen pouring into the drum had actually been drilled several miles away and transported there. He also informed me, however, that there still was oil in the ground beneath where we stood. The reason that they did not drill there was because the mineral rights were owned by someone else who had not yet seen fit to give permission to extract the oil.
When I ran out of questions I thanked the man and headed to my destination for the night - the city of Erie.
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Next installment – George Washington in a British Uniform
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