Book Recognizes W.Va.'s Role in Oil-Gas Industry

Charleston Gazette
23 October 2011
By McClatchy Newspapers

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — West Virginia may finally get its overdue place in early oil and gas history, thanks to a book penned by a nationally prominent industry expert.

In "Myth Legend Reality, Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry," William R. Brice acknowledges the leading role West Virginia and Parkersburg played in the early oil and gas industry. The book borrows photos, maps and stories contained in "Where it All Began," by Dave McKain, founder and curator of the Oil and Gas Museum in Parkersburg.

"I almost fell out of my chair when I started reading his book. I felt it really vindicates what we've been saying all along. It's the reason I wrote my book and why I started the museum. I wanted this area to get the credit it deserved for the major role it played," McKain said.

The local author and oil/gas historian was contacted several times by Brice, ultimately giving him free rein to make reference to his book and borrow photos and maps.

"He re-researched a lot of the information from my book himself. This will now become a reference document for future researchers. While he says the jury is still out, and it is, he notes property here was purchased months before the Pennsylvania Drake well. We don't know exactly when they started. There's no record. They say it was before Drake, but there is no documentation. There is still so much more to be discovered. I know it's all there; somewhere there are records," McKain said.

"He admits wells in the area were drilled before the Drake well. What he didn't know, and I did, is the guy who bought that property 30 days before the Drake well was actually one of Drake's friends/partners, Samuel Kier, who later is known for inventing the kerosene lamp. We still have so much more to learn. We're always finding new information. I've been working on a sequel to my original book. I know there is more information to uncover," McKain said.

S.P. Hildreth, a renaissance man and scientist, came to the Parkersburg area around 1803-1806.

"He sent samples of the oil and gas he found to be analyzed and he wrote articles in the American Journal of Science. He said even then it was being used here in manufacturing. That was the biggest single point of reference I had for uses of the oils in the early days. It proved there was a commercial oil industry going on here way before the Drake well, before the big happenings in Titusville and Oil City, Pa."

Brice is a professor emeritus in geology and planetary science at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. His 661-page book is part of the 2009 celebration of the 150th anniversary of the nation's petroleum industry. Brice was a visiting professor in earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University from 1976 to 2002, and received the Distinguished Service Award from the History of Geology Division of the Geological Society of America in 2008.

He is editor of the Petroleum History Institute journal Oil-Industry History.

McKain's 476-page publication took Pennsylvania's long-standing claim as the birthplace of the oil industry to task, chronicling the discovery of oil and gas and development of the industry in West Virginia and southeastern Ohio from the mid-18th century.

As early as the 1820s oil drilled in wells in West Virginia was used as a light source and industrial lubricant, making it the first documented commercial use of oil in the country, he noted.

The Drake well was drilled in August 1859 in Pennsylvania.

"The drillers of the Drake well used West Virginia drilling tools, they were from West Virginia, and they used West Virginia lubricating oil on their drilling machinery," McKain said.

"Around 1860-61, there was a Boston native who came here with plans to build a big refinery, he ended up going to Pennsylvania, and the entire town there was a refinery for many years. He was making kerosene out of coal shale, so he wanted to be close to the source. We found a deed where he bought the property here to build on, but when the Civil War started, he sold it and left," McKain said.

Robert Hazlett traveled around what was then western Virginia searching for oil and coal prospects. Near Petroleum Station in Ritchie County, he found a location and by Jan. 27, 1859, he and three partners had purchased acreage, including a large part of Oil Spring Run. They were making their purchase while Drake was still in New Haven waiting for the weather to improve so he could leave for Titusville.

In 1825 near the Hughes River in Wirt County sand pits were dug to obtain medicinal petroleum used as liniment.

"The first really commercial well in North America appears to have been drilled by George S. Lemon of Hughes River, (now West Virginia) in the mid-1840s — and not by Edwin Drake in 1859, but as with other early wells, Lemon was after saltwater and not oil," according to Brice's book.

About the time Lemon was skimming oil, the Rathbone brothers were putting down brine wells along Burning Spring Run near Parkersburg. The first brine well was drilled in 1835 along the Little Kanawha River, near the mouth of Burning Springs Run. The well was produced a mixture of saltwater and oil, the oil was bottled and sold under the name "Rathbone's Rock Oil — Nature's Wonder Cure."