manufacture salt considerably more than a century ago. 
Some of these wells were operated previous to the year 1810, 
but when petroleum was struck it was looked upon as a great 
misfortune, because it ruined the well for salt-making pur- 
poses. Similar results were found in wells bored for brine in 
Dhio, Kentucky and Tennessee. 
Of the early utilization of oil in Venango County, an 
account written some years ago by the Rev. S. J. M. Eaton, 
of Franklin, contains the following: “A point was selected 
where the oil appeared to bubble up most freely, when a pit 
was excavated to the depth of two or three feet. Sometimes 
this pit was rudely walled up, sometimes not. Sometimes it 
was near the edge of the water on the bank of the stream; 
sometimes in the bed of the stream itself, advantage being 
taken of a time of low water. In these pits the oil and water 
would collect together, until a stratum of the former would 
form on the surface of the latter, when a coarse blanket or 
piece of flannel was thrown in. This blanket soon became 
saturated with oil, but rejected the water. The blanket was 
then taken out, wrung into a tub or barrel, and the operation 
repeated.” 
Even in those days, Pittsburgh was the market for oil, 
long before the drilling of the Drake well, for the Rev. Mr. 
Eaton’s narration goes on to say: 
“The first shipment of petroleum was to Pittsburgh, and 
in this wise: Mr. Cary, one of the first settlers on Oil Creek, 
possessing perhaps a little more enterprise than his neighbors, 
would collect or purchase a cargo of oil, proceed to Pittsburgh 
and exchange it for commodities needed in his family. This 
cargo consisted of two 5-gallon kegs, which were slung one 
on each side of a horse, and thus conveyed by land. . . . 
Sometimes the market in Pittsburgh became very dull, for a 
flatboatman would occasionally introduce a barrel or two at 
once, which he had brought down on his raft of lumber or 
logs. At other times the demand fell off, so that the purchase 
of a barrel was hazardous. At a period somewhat later than 
this, General Samuel Hays, who settled in Franklin in 1808, 
related that at one time he purchased all the oil produced in 
the country, and that the highest annual yield was 16 barrels. 
This oil he sold in Pittsburgh at about $1 a gallon.”