America had been altogether forgotten, when, in 1826, salt-workers who were engaged in boring brine-shafts in Ohio were amazed to find that they had struck oil as well as brine.
Certainly it was known to the Seneca Indians of Pennsylvania that oil flowed from the rocks at various points in the Alleghany Mountains; and a French traveler has recorded a curious incident which he witnessed in 1750, when the tribe assembled for a religious ceremony, at the junction of a small stream with the Alleghany River. The stream was covered with a thick, oily scum, to which, after a solemn oration, the chief applied a lighted torch. Immediately the flames spread over the surface of the water, amid shouts of the red warriors.
In the same district, at the spot now known as Titusville, was a well on the surface of which oil habitually floated; and the Indians, who had long known its healing properties (now so fully recognized in its refined form as vaseline), were in the habit of collecting it by laying their blankets on the glassy surface of both well and stream, thus absorbing the oil, which they then wrung out and stored for the use of the tribe. So early as 1833 an account was published in "The American Journal of Science," describing how certain persons made a living by skimming this dirty-looking and most unfragrant grease with their boards, and then purified it by heating and straining it through flannel, when it was sold under the name of Seneca-oil, as an excellent specific for healing sores of man and beast, and curing sprains and rheumatism.
In 1853 it occurred to Dr. Brewer that this natural oil might be turned to account for lamps, and the Pennsylvania Rock-Oil Company was formed to develop the idea, with very small result, however, till, in the year 1859, Colonel Drake's attention was attracted by the oil which oozed from fissures of the rock all along the stream now known as Oil Creek. He bethought him that since the rock was apparently saturated with this oil, there must surely be a reservoir which, if it could be found and tapped, would yield a far larger supply than that which was so carefully collected by the company. Little, however, did he dream when he first communicated to them his idea, and was by them empowered to work it on their account, what amazing results would attend his experiment.
He commenced sinking a shaft on the artesian-well principle, and had bored to a depth of six hundred feet, when, to his unspeakable delight, he found that he had indeed reached the main supply, and oil was henceforth pumped up at the rate of from four hundred to one thousand gallons daily. Very soon he was able to rejoice his employers with about two thousand barrels of crude petroleum. New shafts were quickly sunk in every direction, and in the following year five hundred thousand barrels rewarded the lucky borers. This strike proved magical in another sense, for at once the price of crude petroleum fell from twenty-three cents per gallon to twelve cents, and that
