The book includes little-known details about Drake, a share holder of the Seneca Oil Company of New Haven, Connecticut, which acquired the Titusville leases of the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company before the drilling attempt along Oil Creek. Drake and the Early Oil Industry is a well-written account of Drake and his times - and the history and significance of his 1859 discovery,” Wells noted. Flaherty.Īsked by the publisher for commentary, Bruce Wells of the American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) praised Brice’s extensive research, oilfield technical knowledge, and skill at providing an historical context.
“Bill dug through the history related to Drake as no one has before, and the result is a much more complete picture of the man, his family and his accomplishments,” proclaimed geologist and editor of the Oilfield Journal Kathy J. It includes more than 200 pages of reference material and dozens of rare images. The book was part of “Oil 150,” the 2009 sesquicentennial of the petroleum industry pioneer who successfully drilled a well specifically to find oil. And so began the modern petroleum industry.”Ĭommissioned in 2007 by the Oil Region Alliance in Oil City, Pennsylvania, to write a new Drake biography, the professor emeritus in geology and planetary science at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, in 2009 published his 661-page biography of Edwin Laurentine Drake. “for Drake had shown that large quantities of oil could be found by drilling into the earth. The following afternoon, driller “Uncle Billy” Smith visited the site, “and noticed a very dark liquid floating on top of the water in the hole, which, when sampled, turned out to be oil.”ĭrake’s Folly, as it was known to locals, was not such a folly after all. On Saturday afternoon on August 27, at a depth of 69.5 feet, Drake’s cable-tool drill bit dropped into a crevice. Seneca Oil Company executives, determined to find oil for refining into kerosene for lamps, wanted to impress stockholders and local businessmen, so they often referred to Drake as “Colonel” in company correspondence. “Fortunately that letter was not delivered until after they found oil.” “As far as the company was concerned, the project was finished,” noted William Brice, PhD, in his 2009 biography of the former railroad conductor. A letter was on its way from the company that had hired him to drill for oil near in remote Titusville, Pennsylvania. The man who would create the American petroleum industry was down to his last few pennies in August 1859.
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