History- "First Oil Well In North America"
In 1814, Silas Thorla and Robert McKee drilled a well near a
place where deer came to lick salt. Thorla and McKee found salt,
but also got oil and some natural gas. Not wanting to waste
all their time spent in digging, they tried to find some use
for the dirty oil. "Maybe we could burn it in the homes,"
McKee suggested. This filled the cabin with thick smoke. Not
until after 1859, when refinery of oil was perfected, did oil
come into use in the home.
Some neighbors tasted the stuff and said it ought to be good
medicine. Thorla and McKee pumped the salt, water and oil
up and put them in big barrels. The next day the oil had come
to the top and so wool blankets were laid in the barrels to
absorb it from the top of the salt water. The blankets were
wrung out to get rid of the oil. It was put into bottles and
sold as "Seneca Oil", a medicine for rheumatism,
colds, cuts, aches, and what ails you.
The salt water was boiled down in cast iron kettles (six
feet across) until all that was left was the salt. This was
a priceless commodity for the frontier settlers to preserve
their meat and also to flavor foods.
The well was cased with a hollow sycamore log down to the
bedrock to a depth of about 18 feet. The sycamore log is 34
inches in diameter. In the center is a smaller hole that goes
down from 30 feet to 200 feet. (Sources vary on depth and
hasn't been logged for actual depth at this time.) Today,
the original sycamore log can still be seen and the well continues
to give oil, gas, and salt water in limited quantities.
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