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They created the company after catching wind 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. By 1858, the Drake family found themselves living in Titusville, Pennsylvania.

Edwin l drake friends free#

He retained the privileges of a train conductor, including free travel on the railroads. During this summer, illness prevented Drake from carrying on with his job.

Drake re-married three years later to Laura Dowd, sixteen years his junior, in 1857. During this time he married Philena Adams who died while giving birth to their second child in 1854. He spent the early parts of his life working the railways around New Haven, Connecticut as a clerk, express agent and conductor. He grew up on family farms around New York State and Castleton, Rutland County, Vermont before leaving home at the age of 19. Edwin Laurentine Drake (Ma– November 9, 1880), also known as Colonel Drake, was an American oil driller, popularly credited with being the first to drill for oil in the United States.Įdwin Drake was born in Greenville, Greene County, New York on March 29, 1819, the son of Lyman and Laura (née Lee) Drake.