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The One That Started It All!!

From the Allegany County Democrat - Researched by Mary Rhodes

 

INTERESTING OIL STORIES - GLEANED FROM OLD NEWSPAPERS

• HONEOYE OIL!! 2 Articles from rare microfilm of Allegany County Republican newspaper; "OIL CERTAIN !" & "OIL DRIPPINGS - HERE, THERE & ELSEWHERE"; 11/22/1877
   
• Richburg History -- Discovery of Oil
   
• Thrilling Day at Ceres; E.C. Kilmer,  With 60 Quarts of Nitro-Glycerin in His Wagon, Injured in Runaway Accident at Ceres Sunday
   
• John P. Herrick's "Interview with Charles F. Fox"; Was Postmaster at Richburg in The Days of the Oil Boom Back in the Eighties.
   
• Photos of Empire Gas & Fuel Ltd., Employees - March 1962
   
• "FOUR BARREL WELL IN WELLSVILLE; Phillips Brothers Made a Little Strike on the Macklin Farm, Lot 92
   
• QUEER OIL REGION ROADS; Railroads of the Oil Days
   
• "THE HONEOYE WELL"; Sometimes oil was elusive; This is a story of one such well....The early years before the "big strike" didn't come until the next year...from Allegany Democrat, 1878
   
• "The Wellsville Story; A Small New York Town Holds a Big Celebration"; 1954
   
• BIG GAS WELL ON CRANDALL FARM, TOWN OF INDEPENDENCE, BLOWS IN!! (1940)
   
• 2 Wellsville Daily Reporter Columns about Gas, Marcellus Shale & Talk to be given by former Resident - TALK SCHEDULED FOR 8/11/08
   
• "BLOWN TO ATOMS" - Tragic Death of Charley Key, Shooter for the DuPont Powder Co. – Man and Team Go Up with 800 Quarts of Nitro-Glycerin.--Wellsville Daily Reporter, 1910
• Richburg Well - The Work of the Torpedo Yesterday - April 28, 1881
   
• The Richburg Strike - April 29, 1881
   
• Another Gusher! The McBride Well Torpedoed - The Biggest Well Yet ! - May 2, 1881
   
• Lucky Strike - Friendship Weekly Register, Oct. 8, 1885

• UNKNOWN PHOTO; WHO ARE THE WILDCATS? (Help Needed Here)

• Enormous Oil Production - Bradford Field

• "Not Dead, But Sleeping";  THE OIL ECHO; "The Representative Journal of the Allegany Field" - 1882 Richburg Newspaper Last Edition

• Richburg Hill Well Was Basis for Rush To Area Rich In Oil.

• Allentown - RED HOT;  Allentown, the metropolis of the Allegany Oil Field, is making fast its reputation as an oil town.

• Scio Farmer at 80 Recalls Exciting Richburg Oil Rush

• RAILROAD - A NECESSITY; Short Words and Big Work!  'On to Eldred'  Now or Never (April 25, 1881)

• UPS AND DOWNS OF OILDOM - John P. Herrick; June 30, 1895
• Obituary - John P. Herrick, 1961

• MORTGAGES VANISHING BEFORE THE BOOM IN THE ALLEGANY OIL FIELDS (1899)

• CUBA OIL FIELD.  IT BEGINS TO BOOM! Oil's Well at Last.

• AT RICHBURG - Oil Talk, 1881

• Clarksville Oil - Operations in that Growing Field (1885)

• GREASY CLARKSVILLE -- WILL IT BE ANOTHER RICHBURG? 1885

• AMONG THE OIL WELLS - An 1883 Letter to the Editor about Allentown by D. P. Fitch

• SHORT TRACT OIL POOL -A short History of Oil in Towns of Granger & Allen.

• Clarksville Oil History - Clarksville Pool

• Map of OIL POOLS IN ALLEGANY COUNTY; from Reverse of bookcover, "Empire Oil" by John Herrick

• Old Newspaper Found Again after 45 years Between Brick; Oil Pump Station Dismantling

• Harry Wallace BRECKENRIDGE; Oilman, Pipeline Builder, Entrepreneur & Wellsville Resident; Biographical Notes

• The NORTON OIL WELL REVOLVING PUMPING POWER; W. H. Norton, Patentee, Wellsville, NY

• "THE EFFECT OF STRIKING OIL"-A Village of Two Hundred Inhabitants Increasing to Five Thousand in Six Months

• THE RICHBURG DISCOVERY WELL - The Story of the well that opened the Richburg Field; Names from Wirt, Alma, Allentown, Bolivar & Wellsville

• Ex-Bolivar Man Brings Rig to South

• "ANOTHER HORROR.  Peter Hart, One of the Best Known Oil Well Shooters --"His Body Blow to Atoms........" A tale of Nitroglycerine in 1891

• "BITS & PIECES" - of Oil, Timber & Development of Industry in the Area; Letters & Writings submitted by Peter Sprague of Cuba,NY. 

• Historical Writings of Emma Lou King

  --Allentown History-- Father of the Allegany Oil Fields-- STATE’S RICHEST FIVE ACRES OF OIL LAND-- The Alma Wildcat Well--Oil Pioneers Who Went West

Pioneer Oil Museum of New York, Inc.(Bolivar,NY)

PICTURES:

• Memorial Collection of EmmaLou Cleveland King -Submitted by Sidney & Sandra Cleveland

• Typical Glycerin Wagon of the Early Days

OLDEST OIL WELL IN NY (TAP THUMBNAIL IMAGE FOR LARGER PICTURE) - (Empire Oil, 1949, John P. Herrick; Dodd,Mead & Company)

• OIL PIPELINES & TANKS - Pictures & Comments

• Richburg/Town of Wirt PICTURE GALLERY

STORIES:

• Oilfield Driller Meets Death in Awful Manner (1906 Accident)

• The Duke & Norton Flowing Wells

• The Mystery Well

• THE RICHBURG DISCOVERY WELL - The Story of the well that opened the Richburg Field; Names from Wirt, Alma, Allentown, Bolivar & Wellsville

• Charles Day - Biography & Obituary

• A Crude King - Karney Cochran

• Bolivar's Grand Oil Queen

• Tales of a WNY Boomtown

• Who Drilled the First Wells?

• O.P.Taylor Story

• Allentown, Before the Oil - 1881

•  The First Refinery-Friendship,NY

•  Bolivar's First Refinery - The Cynthia Lubricating Oil Works

•  Sawyer Oil Lease Refinery

• Allegany Refiners, Inc. - Bolivar Refinery

• c.1883 OIL Section Map - Allegany Field Petrolia, Alma, Allentown, Pikeville, Richburg, Bolivar, South Bolivar, Little Genesee, Carver, Ceres, and More!