“The Fredonia Gas-Light and Water-Works Company,” which obtained a special charter in 1856, was undoubtedly the first natural-gas company in the world. Its object was, “by boring down through the slate-rock and sinking wells to a sufficient depth to penetrate the manufactories of nature, and thus collect from her laboratories the natural-gas and purify it, to furnish the citizens with good cheap light.” The tiny stream of gas first utilized at the mill yielded its mite forty years. When Lafayette remained a night at Fredonia in 1824, on his triumphal visit to the United States, “the village-inn was lighted with gas that came from the ground.” The illustrious Frenchman saw nothing in his travels that interested and delighted him more than this novel illumination.
Col. J. A. Barrett, for many years a citizen of Illinois and law-partner of Abraham Lincoln, in 1886 removed to a tract of five-thousand acres on Tug Fork, near the quiet hamlet of Warfield. Gas issued from the soil and tradition says George Washington fired the subtle vapor at Burning Spring while surveying in West Virginia before the Revolution. Captain A. Allen, who pioneered the oil-business on Little Kanawha, leased the tract from Col. Barrett and struck a vast reservoir of gas at two-thousand feet.
John G. Saxe once lectured at Pithole and was so pleased with the people and place that he donated twenty-five dollars to the charity-fund and wrote columns of descriptive matter to a Boston newspaper. “If I were not Alexander I would be Diogenes,” said the Macedonian conqueror. Similarly Henry Ward Beecher remarked, when he visited Oil City to lecture, “If I were not pastor of Plymouth church I would be pastor of an Oil-City church.” The train conveying Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, through the oil-regions stopped at Foxburg to afford the imperial guest an opportunity to see an oil-well torpedoed. He watched the filling of the shell with manifest interest, dropped the weight after the torpedo had been lowered and clapped his hands when a column of oil rose in the air. An irreverent spectator whispered: “This beats playing pedro.”
Daniel Fisher, ex-mayor of Oil City and chief of the fire-department, donned a new suit one day when oil-tanks abounded in the Third Ward. Hearing a cry of distress, he mounted a tank and saw a man lying on the bottom, in a foot of thick oil. He dropped through the hatchway, pulled up the victim of gas and with great difficulty dragged him up the small ladder into the fresh air. Of course, the new clothes were spoiled beyond hope of redemption. The man revived, said his name was Green, that he earned a living by cleaning out tank-bottoms and was thus employed when overcome by gas. Next day Fisher met Green, who thanked him again for saving his life, borrowed ten dollars and never repaid the loan or offered to set up a new suit of clothes.
“Brudders an’ sistern,” ejaculated a colored preacher, “ef we knowed how much de good Lawd knows about us it wud skeer us mos’ to deff.” A Franklin preacher once seemed to forget that the Lord was posted concerning earthly affairs, as he prayed thirty-six minutes at the exercises on Memorial Day. The sun beat down upon the bare heads of the assembled multitude, but the divine prayed right along from Plymouth Rock to the close of the war. Col. J. S. Myers, the veteran lawyer, presided. Great drops of perspiration rolled down his face, but he was like the henpecked husband who couldn’t get away and had to grin and bear it. He summed up the situation in a sentence: “I think ministers ought to take it for granted that the Almighty knows enough American history to get along nicely without having it prayed at Him by the hour!”
SCENE AT OIL CITY AFTER THE DISASTER ON JUNE 5, 1892.
Fire and water have scourged the oil-regions sorely. A flood in March of 1865 submerged Oil City, floated off hundreds of oil-tanks and small buildings and did damage estimated at four-millions of dollars. Fire in May of 1866 wiped out half the town, the loss footing up a million dollars. The most appalling disaster occurred on Sunday, June fifth, 1892. Heavy rains raised Oil Creek to such a height that mill-dams at Spartansburg and Riceville gave way, precipitating a vast mass of water upon Titusville during Saturday night. With a roar like thunder it struck the town. Sleepers were awakened by the resistless tide and drowned. Refineries and tanks of oil caught fire and covered acres of the watery waste with flames. Helpless men, women and children tottered and tumbled and disappeared, the death-roll exceeding fifty. The two elements seemed to strive which could work the greater destruction. Above Oil City a huge tank of benzine was undermined and upset on Friday morning. The combustible stuff floated on the creek, which had risen four feet over the floors of houses on the flats. The boiler-fire at a well near the Lake-Shore tunnel ignited the cloud of benzine. An explosion followed such as mortal eyes and ears have seldom seen and heard. The report shook the city to its foundations. A solid sheet of flame rose hundreds of feet and enveloped the flats in its fatal embrace. Houses charred and blazed at its deadly touch and fifty persons perished horribly. The sickening scene reminded me of the Johnstown carnage in 1889, with its miles of flooded ruins and dreadful blaze at the railroad-bridge. Whole families were blotted out. Edwin Mills, his wife and their five children died together. Heroic rescues and marvelous escapes were frequent. John Halladay Gordon saved forty people in his boat, rowing it amid the angry flames and swirling waters at imminent risk. The recital of brave deeds and thrilling experiences would fill a volume. That memorable Sunday was the saddest day Oil City and Titusville ever witnessed. The awful grandeur of the spectacle at both places has had no parallel.
Sweeping into the yards of a refinery at the upper end of Titusville, the water tore open a tank containing five-thousand gallons of gasoline. Farther down an oil-tank and a gasoline-tank were rent in twain. Water covered the streets and shut people in their houses. The gas-works and the electric-plant were submerged and the city was in darkness. At midnight a curious mist lay thick and dense and white for a few feet above the water. It was the gasoline vapor, a cartridge a half-mile long, a quarter-mile wide and two yards thick, with a coating of oil beneath, waiting to be fired. One arm of the mist reached into the open furnaces of the Crescent Works and touched the live coals on the grate. There was a flash as if the heavens had been split asunder. Then the explosion came and death and havoc reigned. And the horror was repeated at Oil City, until people wondered if the Day of Judgment could be more terrifying. The infinite pity and sadness of it all!
The burning of the Acme Refinery at Titusville, on June eleventh, 1886, entailed a loss of six-hundred-thousand dollars. It caught from a tank lightning had struck. By great efforts the railroad-bridge and the Octave Refinery were saved. The fire raged three days and nights, and the departments from Warren, Corry and Oil[Oil] City were called to render assistance. Hardly a town in the oil-regions has been unharmed by fire or flood, while many have been ravaged by both.