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Edwin Laurentine Drake (March 29, 1819 – 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. Edwin Drake was born in Greenville, Greene County, New York, on March 29, 1819, the son of Lyman and Laura (née Lee) Drake. He grew up on family farms around New York State and Castleton, Rutland County, Vermont, before leaving home at the age of 13. He spent the early parts of his life working the railways around New Haven, Connecticut, as a clerk, express agent and conductor. During this time he married Philena Adams who died while giving birth to their second child in 1854. Drake re-married three years later to Laura Dowd, sixteen years his junior, in 1857. During this summer, illness prevented Drake from carrying on with his job. He retained the privileges of a train conductor, including free travel on the railroads. By 1858, the Drake family found themselves living in Titusville, Pennsylvania. While petroleum oil was known prior to this, there was no appreciable market for it. Samuel Martin Kier is credited with founding the first American oil refinery in Pittsburgh. He was the first person in the United States to refine crude oil into lamp oil (kerosene). Along with a new lamp to burn Kier's product a new market to replace whale oil as a lamp oil began to develop. Seneca Oil, originally called the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, was founded by George Bissell and Jonathan Eveleth. 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. Until this time, the primary lamp fuel
had been whale oil. Bissell found that the "rock oil" would be a
practical alternative if a method could be devised to extract the oil
from the ground. Interest in the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company was
initially low until a report commissioned by Bissell and Eveleth showed
that there was significant economic value in petroleum. Due to a
disagreement between the shareholders and the pair, the company was
split and Seneca Oil was formed in 1858. Before being offered a job by
Bissell and Eveleth, Drake bought stock in Seneca Oil. But his job
opportunity with the company arose because both parties were staying in
the same hotel in Titusville. He was hired on a salary of $1,000 a year
to investigate the oil seeps on land owned by Seneca Oil. Edwin
Drake was hired by the Seneca Oil Company to investigate suspected oil
deposits in Titusville, Pennsylvania. James Townsend, President of the
Seneca Oil Company, sent Drake to the site in the spring of 1858. The
oil company chose the retired railway man partly because he had free
use of the rail. Drake decided to drill in the manner of salt well
drillers. He purchased a steam engine in Erie, Pennsylvania, to power the drill. The well was dug on an island on the Oil Creek.
It took some time for the drillers to get through the layers of gravel.
At 16 feet the sides of the hole began to collapse. Those helping him
began to despair, but not Drake. It was at this point that he devised
the idea of a drive pipe. This cast iron pipe consisted of 10 foot long
(3.0 m) joints. The pipe was driven down into the ground. At 32
feet they struck bedrock.
The drilling tools were now lowered through the pipe and steam was used
to drill through the bedrock. The going, however, was slow. Progress
was made at the rate of just three feet per day. After initial
difficulty locating the necessary parts to build the well, which
resulted in his well being nicknamed "Drake's Folly," Drake proved
successful. Meanwhile
crowds of people began to gather to jeer at the apparently unproductive
operation. Drake was also running out of money. Amazingly, the Seneca
Oil Company had abandoned their man, and Drake had to rely on friends
to back the enterprise. On August 27 Drake had persevered and his drill
bit had reached a total depth of 69.5 feet (21 m). At that point the
bit hit a crevice. The men packed up for the day. The next morning
Drake’s driller, Billy Smith, looked into the hole in preparation for
another day’s work. He was surprised and delighted to see crude oil
rising up. Drake was summoned and the oil was brought to the surface
with a hand pitcher pump. The oil was collected in a bath tub. Drake
is famous for pioneering a new method for producing oil from the
ground. He drilled using piping to prevent borehole collapse, allowing
for the drill to penetrate further and further into the ground.
Previous methods for collecting oil had been limited. Ground collection
of oil consisted of gathering it from where it occurred naturally, such
as from oil seeps or shallow holes dug into the ground. Drake tried the
latter method initially when looking for oil in Titusville. However, it
failed to produce economically viable amounts of oil. Alternative
methods of digging large shafts into the ground also failed, as
collapse from water seepage almost always occurred. The significant
step that Drake took was to drive a 32-foot iron pipe through the
ground into the bedrock below. This allowed Drake to drill inside the
pipe, without the hole collapsing from the water seepage. The principle
behind this idea is still employed today by many companies drilling for
hydrocarbons. While some claims of prior art do exist (e.g., Bóbrka, Poland, in 1854, Wietze, Germany, in 1857, Oil Springs, Ontario, Canada in 1858), the Drake Well at Titusville was the first well to be widely copied. Within
a day of Drake's striking oil, Drake’s methods were being imitated by
others along Oil Creek and in the immediate area. This culminated with
the establishment of several oil boom towns along the creek. Drake's
well produced 25 barrels (4.0 m3) of oil a day. By 1871, the entire area was producing 15.9 thousand barrels (2,530 m3) a day. Drake
set up a stock company to extract and market the oil. But, while his
pioneering work led to the growth of an oil industry that made many
people fabulously rich, for Drake riches proved elusive. Drake did not
possess good business acumen. He failed to patent his drilling
invention. Then he lost all of his savings in oil speculation in 1863.
He was to end up as an impoverished old man. In 1872, Pennsylvania
voted an annuity of $1,500 to the "crazy man" whose determination
founded the oil industry. He died on November 9, 1880 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he had lived since 1874. He and his wife are buried at Titusville, next to a memorial built in his honor.
Drake and Billy Smith appear in À l'ombre des derricks ("In the Shadow of the Oil Rigs"), an episode of the Franco - Belgian comics Western series Lucky Luke, published in 1960, written by René Goscinny (co-creator of Asterix) and drawn by Morris. The action takes place at Titusville where the black gold rush also
attracts a crooked lawyer called Barry Blunt. He and his gang take over
the town and the oilfields. Drake, Smith and Luke are the only ones who
stand up to Blunt and (be it by hook and by crook) put an end to his
reign of terror. Drake and Smith also appear in the TV animated version
of the story made in the early 1980s. |