drilling had to cease until the tools could be recovered and 
set to work again. 
Proceeding to his account of the work on the Drake well, 
Mr. Smith said: “Yes, sir; I think if it hadn’t been for me, 
the oil would have been in the ground yet. Drake often told 
me that. If that well had not been a success, there never 
would have been another attempted by any one.” 
Of course this is mere conjecture, but the old gentleman 
was probably wrong. It is inconceivable that the future of 
the great oil industry depended solely on the success of this 
attempt. Still, it is of great interest to get “Billy” Smith’s 
point of view, because he was the man on the grodnd, who 
actually did the work. He went on with his talk: 
“After the Drake well I followed the oil business about 
15 years, and drilled more than 100 wells. I never drilled a 
dry hole nor put down a well that did not pay. Before Drake 
engaged me to drill that well, he had engaged Joseph Doty, 
Dennis Martin, and Andy Marvin in succession, all of whom 
aad promised to go, but did not. I began work on that well 
on May 20, 1859, and began to drive pipe on August 5. 
Couldn’t get any pipe in less than a good many miles. Drove 
19 feet of pipe, cleaned out and began drilling. Put it down 
a little over 69 feet and struck oil on the 12th of August.” 
His attention was called to the discrepancy in dates be- 
tween his account and many others which had been published, 
but he was emphatic in his assertion that it was on August 12. 
His story runs thus: “When I got to Titusville to put 
down that well, Drake was sick. He told me to take the tools 
down to the oil place and I went. Found a man named Cord 
Redfield there. Talked over the prospects with him: was 
around there all day Friday, and set to work on Saturday, 
May 20. Drake came down on Monday. A saw mill stood 
about 60 yards from the well and the men all came over to 
see what I thought of the prospects. I said I thought the 
prospects good. 
“That was not the first pipe that had ever been driven 
in a well. I had driven a set of pipe in a salt well at Salina, 
on the Kiskiminetas, before I went to the Drake well. I am 
certain that the oil was found on August 12, 1859. Drake 
was in the derrick at the time, and Dr. Shugart was also