Who was Edwin Drake?

On August 28th, 1859 former railroad conductor Edwin Drake struck oil. Using techniques used in drilling salt wells, Drake had drilled down sixty nine feet on a patch of land in Titusville, Pennsylvania. He produced a steady flow of twenty five barrels of oil per day. Drake began marketing his oil for heating and lighting.

Since their first arrival on North American soil, the Europeans had seen evidence of oil. It seeped from the ground and was quickly put to use. Settlers first used it as a medicine to cure blindness. It was also believed to have healing properties to combat the effects of rheumatism, coughs, colds, sprains and even baldness. The oil was skimmed from creeks in its crudest form. Apart from serving as a curative, the crude oil proved a good source of lighting. An unpleasant side effect, though, was that it gave off an unpleasant smelly odor. The oil was distilled into a satisfactory lighting fuel by a chemist.

Then, in the late 1850’s Edwin Drake was hired by the Seneca Oil Company to investigate suspected oil deposits in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The oil company chose the retired railway man partly because he had free use of the rail. Drake decided that the best way to find oil was to dig for it. He used an old steam engine to power the drill. In 1857 and again in 1858 Drake searched for oil in and around Titusville. He had limited success, but was only able to extract a maximum of ten barrels per day. This was not enough to make a commercial yield sustainable. When attempts to dig huge shafts in the ground failed due to water seepage, Drake decided to drill in the manner of salt drillers. The well was dug on an artificial island on the Oil Creek. It took some time for the drillers to get through the layers of gravel. At sixteen 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 ten foot long joints. The pipe was driven down into the ground. At thirty two 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.

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 27th Drake had persevered and his drill bit had reached a total depth of sixty nine and a half feet. 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 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. Eventually he was granted an annuity by the State of Pennsylvania. He died in 1880 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.