But as valuable a product as petroleum had already become, gods and mortals alike until the 19th century took oil as the earth gave it to them, from seeps and springs." The petroleum that surfaced in salt borings also was another source of oil.Īn early name for petroleum, "Seneca Oil," alludes to the trade in oil by Seneca Indians of western New York in the 18th century. The Mesopotamians used asphalt as a building material 5,000 years ago. Fred Hapgood wrote in National Geographic: "In Greek mythology Medea set her rival on fire with naphtha. Humans and the gods had used oil for thousands of years before Seneca Oil Company sought to make its production worthwhile. The title stuck and Drake became commonly know as Colonel Drake. Townsend, one of the investors, used the salutatory title "Colonel" in his correspondence with Drake.
Drake had never been an officer, let alone in the military.
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Drake got the job because he had a free pass on the railway. The Seneca Oil Company founders needed someone to inspect the oil springs on their property and make a report. had analyzed oil from the site and determined that, after refining, it could be used as an illuminant, as well as for other purposes. The company was the successor to the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, the first oil company in the United States, which had been created to exploit ground-level seepage of oil near Titusville (Pennsylvania). Eveleth, founders of the newly formed Seneca Oil Company. The opportunity occurred while Drake was staying in the same hotel as George H. Ill health forced his retirement in 1857, but it also opened a new opportunity for him. In 1850 he settled in New Haven, Connecticut, and became a railway conductor for the New York and New Haven Railroad.
He left home at age 19, having received a common school education, and wandered the Midwest and East, working at various jobs. Though he drilled only three oil wells in his lifetime, Edwin Drake (1819-1880) is known as the "Father of the Petroleum Industry" because the technology he devised to drill the first commercial oil well in the United States revolutionized how crude oil was produced and launched the large-scale petroleum industry.Įdwin Laurentine Drake, born on March 11, 1819, in Greenville County, New York, grew up on family farms in New York and Vermont.
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