EDWIN L DRAKE FRIENDS FREE
The oil company chose the retired railway man partly because he had free use of the rail. James Townsend, President of the Seneca Oil Company, sent Drake to the site in the spring of 1858. He was hired on a salary of $1,000 a year to investigate the oil seeps on land owned by Seneca Oil.Įdwin Drake was hired by the Seneca Oil Company to investigate suspected oil deposits in Titusville, Pennsylvania. But his job opportunity with the company arose because both parties were staying in the same hotel in Titusville. Before being offered a job by Bissell and Eveleth, Drake bought stock in Seneca Oil. Due to a disagreement between the shareholders and the pair, the company was split and Seneca Oil was formed in 1858. 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. Bissell found that the "rock oil" would be a practical alternative if a method could be devised to extract the oil from the ground. Until this time, the primary lamp fuel had been whale oil. They created the company after hearing of reports that petroleum collected from an oil spring in Titusville, Pennsylvania was suitable for use as lamp fuel. Seneca Oil, originally called the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, was founded by George Bissell and Jonathan Eveleth.
Along with a new lamp to burn Kier's product a new market to replace whale oil as a lamp oil began to develop. He was the first person in the United States to refine crude oil into lamp oil (kerosene). Samuel Martin Kier is credited with founding the first American oil refinery in Pittsburgh. While petroleum oil was known prior to this, there was no appreciable market for it.
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