PAVING THE WAY FOR DRAKE'S WELL American petroleum industry, like all the other vast developments of this country, is largely a thing of the present rather than of the past. It finds no such records in antiquity as have been presented through the accounts of ancient authors concerning the petroleum of the Old World. But it was not long after the first settlements in the New World before the hardiest adventurers into the endless American forests were bringing back tales of the oil springs and the wonderful medicine used by the Indians.
It is often claimed that in this country the use of petroleum antedates any of the Indian tribes found by the earliest white settler. This claim arises from the fact that the oil region of Pennsyl vania was found by the first English settlers to be dotted with rudely constructed pits inclosing the springs from which petroleum issued. Extreme age for the pits was indicated by trees which had sprung up on their banks and had attained a size said to be possible only as the result "of hundreds of years of growth." The pits were apparently very old and abandoned when the first English explorers penetrated this part of the wilderness, and it has been said that the Indian legends attributed their origin to a highly civilized race which had long before become extinct.
It is still a question whether such a legend actu ally did exist among the Indians, or whether it came bodily from the fertile imagination of some one of the many individuals who have tried to con• nect the pits with the so called "mound builders." But in the minds of many who have investigated the famous "oil pits" story most thoroughly there is no longer any question that they were the works of early French explorers.
There is, however, no doubt that the use of pe troleum was known among the Indians before they came in contact with either French or English. One legend says that just across the Canadian bor der there was a lake with a black surface—always black, and blacker by far than the shadows of the surrounding forest could have made it. Their curi osity. aroused by this strange appearance, the In dians soon discovered that the deep color was caused by a greasy, strong smelling liquid form ing a scum over the surface. They also observed that many animals of all kinds came to drink the water of this Black Lake, a fact which suggested the possibility of some special virtue in it. Fol lowing the example of the animals, they found as a reward for their curiosity that drinking the water was apparently beneficial for certain ail ments. From that time on, the legend says, the use
of the oil became well-nigh universal among the Iroquois nations, and the Indian medicine men at tributed to it such magic powers in all inward and outward ills that supplies were sought for in the places more remote from the now famous Black Lake.
In the southern part of New York State the Sen eca tribe found petroleum in springs from which it was gathered in small quantities. Here appar ently the white settlers first became acquainted with the Indian use of petroleum, and gave to it the name "Seneca oil," by which it was known for more than a century.
Turning from legendary to recorded history, the first written mention of petroleum appears in the letter of a French missionary, who describes a fountain of bitumen which he saw issuing from Lake Ontario while he was on a journey through New York districts in 1627. During subsequent years other Frenchmen reported the existence of petroleum in the Iroquois country, and on a map of the region, published in 1650, a "fountain of bitumen" is indicated near the present village of Cuba, in New York State—a strong proof that the occurrence was a matter of common knowledge. For a century or more after that time, however, the history of petroleum in this country consisted of nothing more than an occasional mention of the same regions of oil springs.
Some time during the latter part of the eigh teenth century the commercial spirit, which was so strong among the colonists, prompted some ingeni ous spirit to attempt the introduction of "Seneca oil" as a medicine among the whites. Even at that early date the methods of the modern patent medi cine advertisement were apparently familiar, for in 1791 glowing accounts were published, setting forth the wonderful virtues of this natural remedy. The American soldiers, tired and sore from camp ing and marching in the Pennsylvania wilderness, were pictured as stopping at the springs along Oil Creek to rub their weary limbs and joints with the oil. All their fatigue disappeared as if by magic, while chronic pains and rheumatism were perma nently cured. But, in spite of the amazing cura tive powers ascribed to it by Indian medicine men of old and by sharp-witted Yankees, petroleum does not appear to have been in very great demand • as a remedy. The odor alone, to say nothing of the appearance and taste, of the crude oil would seriously restrict its popularity for such use.