It is not surprising, therefore, that the natural springs readily supplied the whole demand for medicinal purposes, but it is hard to understand why such a resourceful and ingenious people as the American colonists had made no attempt to utilize the oil for any other purpose than as a quack remedy during the century and a half since the existence of the oil springs had been well The only explanation which is at all satisfactory is that the oil regions were too remote, and the diffi culties of transportation too great, to encourage the shipment of anything but very small quan tities.
The second step in the history of American pe troleum Came at the beginning of the nineteenth century, through the operations of the salt makers. Salt was an article of every-day need in the fron tier settlements west of the Alleghanies, and at the same time the difficulties of travel across the mountains made it hard to get until local supplies were discovered. The hunters and trappers had noticed that the wild animals of all kinds fre quented certain springs, the waters of which, on investigation, proved to be charged with salt. This discovery made it possible to secure a supply of salt by evaporating the natural brine, and salt making from local sources soon began to be a com mon practice among the settlers, especially in the vicinity of the Ohio valley. The salt makers dug wells to secure their supplies of brine, since the salt springs did not yield enough, but, unfortunately, these wells when completed were frequently found to yield also a black oily liquid having a disagree able odor, which by its persistence interfered with the use of the brine for salt. Even this incon venience, however, did not appear serious as long as the wells were shallow and only small quantities of oil were encountered. But as the frontier popu lation grew, there was pressing need for larger quantities of salt, to secure which deeper and deeper wells were necessary, until, having reached the limit of practicable digging, the idea of drill ing wells was adopted.
The first real drilled well west of the Alle ghanies, and very likely in the country, was bored a hundred years ago in the Kanawha valley, West Virginia, at a place known as the great Buffalo Lick or "Salt Lick." The success of this "ven ture" soon led to a general practice of drilling for brine in the salt regions, but, with the advent of deeper wells, the quantities of oil encountered were distinctly greater. Occasionally a single well
yielded such large quantities of petroleum that it gave more oil than brine. At that time the oil not only had no value, but was actually regarded as a nuisance by the salt makers, who used all sorts of devices to get rid of it. Yet, in spite of all their efforts, as the salt industry grew, the bad wells mul tiplied rapidly ; in some places to such an extent that the operators were forced to abandon the busi ness. So the first quarter of the nineteenth century slipped past, with still no attempt to use this oil which was coming into the wells so abundantly and playing such havoc with the salt making.
In 1826, however, a pioneer, one Dr. Hildreth, wise beyond his generation, foresaw the proper use for this petroleum which was troubling the salt makers of eastern Ohio. He published in one of the journals of that day an article containing the significant statement that "this product offers great resources as an illuminating agent, and will certainly become of great utility in lighting the future villages of Ohio." Although the salt mak ers continued to curse the stuff which ruined their brine, people apparently began to experiment with the oil, for a half dozen years later the same Dr. Hildreth reported that, in neighborhoods where it was abundant, petroleum was used instead of sperm oil as an illuminant and for lubricating ma chinery.
The common attitude toward petroleum, how ever, can be seen from the fact that a salt well drilled near Burkesville, in Cumberland County, Kentucky, in 1829, yielded a plentiful supply of oil for many years, but the only attempt to use it was under the name "American Medicinal Oil," fol lowing the example of the historic Seneca oil. While four years later, a famous eastern chemist and geologist, visiting the Pennsylvania oil spring regions, expressed the unqualified opinion that pe troleum was of no great importance, except as its existence indicated the presence of vast beds of an thracite coal. Luckily he lived long enough to appreciate fully the tremendous value of petro leum in itself, and to revise entirely his erroneous early ideas about its relation to coal. The second quarter of the century was nearly over and still petroleum stood on the same plane where it was fifty years before, except for the knowledge that it came abundantly from deep artesian wells in cer tain localities where the salt makers had operated.