Jack Bermingham

Introduction  Petroleum has been used by humans for millennia, but the first oil well was drilled in northwestern Pennsylvania, in 1859 by Edwin Drake. In the early 1850’s, a lawyer from New York named George Bissell made a plan to commercialize oil.

Problem  Evidence suggested that Native Americans had been making use of the Pennsylvanian oil seeps since the fifteenth century, and European settlers had been using it to fuel lamps and lubricate machinery. Bissell wanted oil to be a commercially available product. He did not know how to do that though.

Discoveries  Bissell hired Yale university chemist, Benjamin Silliman Jr. to analyze the substance. Silliman determined that the oil could be fractionated into substances of much greater fuel quality than the crude oil itself. Bissell gathered financial backers, and formed the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company.

The Brainstorm  The company hoped that this “rock oil” could be recovered in large quantities from deep within the earth. Oil had already been refined and sold for its most valuable byproduct at the time, Kerosene. Bissell’s idea was to drill into the ground for this oil, a concept that no one had thought of before. He thought that this would simply be a more reliable and plentiful source.

Previous Wells  As it turned out, wells had already been drilled in the region, but the wells had been drilled for water, and when they struck oil, it had been considered a nuisance, and the well was moved.

Design, Evaluate, and Redesign  Drake, with the financial backing of the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, began to drill the first “Oil Well” in the summer of The well had many problems though, and the investors’ money soon ran out, forcing Drake to borrow money to keep drilling.

Yankees Strike Oil!  Drakes well struck oil at a depth of 69.5 ft. on August 27, The oil was not discovered until the next morning, when the driller, “Uncle Billy Smith”, noticed oil floating in the hole. The well produced 20 barrels or less of oil per day, miniscule by today’s standards.

Share  Right as the financial backers were giving up, Drake’s discovery of oil spread everywhere. One of the financial backers sent Drake a bill to repay him for the project. Drake received the bill the day he struck oil.

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