Oil News Clippings-Allegany County, NY

The following newspaper clips were researched and submitted by Richard Palmer

Oil, Oil & More Oil

Miscl. Newspaper Clips

of Oil History

Bolivar Breeze, Thurs., June 29, 1911

HAD THRILLING TIME

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E.C. Kilmer, With 60 Quarts of Nitro-Glycerine in His

Wagon, Injured in Runaway Accident at Ceres Sunday.

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     Elba C. Kilmer of Bolivar, shooter for the Van Curen High Explosive Company of this village had a miraculous escape from being blown to atoms at Ceres, Sunday, as did Charles Day another shooter employed by the company.

     Mr. Kilmer with 60 quarts of nitro-glycerine loaded in his wagon was driving through Ceres, closely followed by Day, who had 150 quarts of the high explosive in his wagon. When in front of the William Faulkner house, Kilmer's team became frightened at a passing trolley car. They made a lunge into a gas pipe railing, where the wagon hit an iron post and stopped.

     The frightened horses broke off the wagon tongue and ran, pulling Kilmer from the wagon and him several rods before he lost his hold on the lines. The horses were caught near the Edward Bell farm below Ceres. Kilmer was bruised somewhat and had his clothing badly ripped.

     Both wagons were loaded at the company's nitro-glycerine plant on the Foreman farm in Bolivar township, Sunday afternoon. Mr. Kilmer was bound for Smethport, Pa., to shoot a well for the Smethport Glass company, while Mr. Day was enroute to Dallas City, Pa., to shoot a well.

     After repairing the wagon, the men left Ceres at 8 o'clock Sunday evening on their journey to those places, where they shot the wells on Monday.

Bolivar Breeze - Reports from Wellsville Daily Reporter - APRIL 12, 1896

"FOUR BARREL WELL IN WELLSVILLE

Phillips Bros. Made a Little Strike on the Macklin Farm, Lot 92

After drilling eleven dry holes, at an estimated expenditure of over $22,000, the wildcatter has at last found petroleum in Wellsville! Phillips Bros. of Allentown are the lucky producers and the well is situated on the edge of what is known as the Andover field, six miles or so from our post office. A mistake of a few feet in location would have put the new well, not on Lot 92 Wellsville, but in Andover, and it really wouldn't have taken too much of a crook in the hole to make the sand lie beneath the surface of our neighbor oil town. However, we now have the distinction of finding oil in our confines and will make the most of it. There is a remarkable showing of sand. Six feet of the ordinary Allegany chocolate sand were found, and below and adjoining this nineteen feet of a coarse white sand. The well has filled up with 300 feet of oil and will probably settle to a four barrel producer. It will not be shot immediately as there is no pipe line connected near it.

Bolivar Breeze, Feb. 21, 1901

     The only oil engine in Allegany county is in use at the National Transit Company's local pump station at Wirt Center, midway between Richburg and Nile. It is six horse power and crude oil furnishes the power. It is similar in construction to a gas engine and a spray of oil is injected into the cylinder and it instantly explodes, just the same as natural gas.

    Before the engine is started it is necessary to heat the cylinder with a patent Swiss lamp of great power. After the engine is started it gives no bother and will run a week at a stretch. All that is necessary is to keep a supply of crude oil in the fuel tank. There is no igniter used as with gas engines, the heat of the cylinder acting as an igniter in exploding the vapor.

     As soon as the engine is started up, the oil lamp is extinguished. For full six horsepower it required 30 cents worth of crude oil for ten hours. The engines are made under an English patent and were originally designed to run refrigeration machinery in steamships lying in port with fires banked.

Bolivar Breeze, Aug. 15, 1901

          OLD TRIANGLE NO. 1

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   The longevity of the oil wells of Allegany county is certainly remarkable. The first flowing well drilled in the county, Triangle No.1, on the Crandall farm at Petrolla is still producing oil in paying quantities, say 90 barrels a year. This well was drilled through the sand in July, 1879, by O.P. Taylor, better known as "The father of the Allegany Oil Field," and was the well that really opened the field.

     In the past 22 years this well has produced a flood of oil, though it only started off at a moderate gait, estimated at from ten to fifteen barrels a day. The original derrick stood over the well until a few years ago when it was taken down because it was believed to be unsafe, but the rig builders found that when the well flowed it had sprayed the rig so thoroughly with oil as to arrest decay and if let alone the rig would have stood for many years more.

    In its place a short derrick was put up. The well long ago passed out of the hands of the Taylor family and is now the property of J.B. Sutfin of Wellsville, and will without a doubt be producing oil in paying quantities twenty years hence.

Bolivar Breeze, Sept. 5, 1901

      RILEY ALLEN, HUSTLER.

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   Allegany county's busiest oil producer is Riley Allen of Allentown who divides his time between Allegany county, Ohio and Indiana. Just now he is taking a hand in developing the new field at Marion, Ind., where the companies he is a leading member of have several thousand acres and some wells drilling.

     He keeps several strings of tools running steadily in the Ohio field. During the past year the wells in which he is interested in in the Ohio field produced 180,000 barrels of oil and the production is larger today than at this time last year.

     All of his Ohio properties have about paid out out and today he is on Easy Street with very bright prospects ahead. The 250 wells that Mr. Allen owns in Allegany county are looked after by his farm bosses and he only comes back east once in three or four months for a few days. He is inclined to think that the new field at Marion will be very productive and that it will cover a large area.
     Mr. Allen and his partners first became interested in the Ohio field about three years ago and in that time have secured and developed about twenty paying properties which would be cheap at $500,000. Among the men interested with Mr, Allen in Ohio properties are W.J. Richardson, E.C. Brown, Charles Sternburg of Wellsville, W.R. Nobles of Belmont and J.R. Droney of Olean.