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PAGE-TWELVE--NINTH SECTION = = THE FKEE PEESS. LONDON, ONTARIO, SATUBDAY, JUNE 11, 1943- n J. I* /"VI 'C n • I Petroha, Oil Springs, Bngden iudden Wealth and Poverty Went Hand in Hand With Oil POUNDING HIS DRILL INTO the rock near Oil Springs that January afternoon in 1862, John Shaw was a discouraged man. All morning he had tried to buy a pair of boots on credit. No one would trust him. Why should anyone trust a man who had wasted months drilling a hole in the rock? Now, back at his well, he promised himself he'd work until nightfall. If no oil came then he'd quit. But the oil eame. Early in the afternoon it came, rambling and gurgling up the pipe, escaping the confinement of centuries. It filled the pipe, it filled the well, it filled a tank, a second tank, scores of Shaw had bored through 60 feet of clay and 158 feet of rock to tap his well. With a primitive spring pole worked by foot-power -- no wonder his boots wore out -- he tapped a well that gushed thousands of gallons an hour for a long period. barrels, and, outpacing Its human collectors, It ran down the bank to th» creek, filling it with a layer a. foot thick. At Wallaceburg where it blackened the hulls of lake vessels, wise men fingered and smelt the black scum, murmured with a prayer or an oath "oil, oil . . ." and headed inland. But Shaw refused an offer of $25,000 for his property, lived to see the flow dwindle to a few FOREST-LONDON BUS LINES LTD. West Bound LONDON JUCT. HIGHWAY 4-8? MELROSE JJOBO POPLAR HILL STRATHROY KERWOOD WATFORD ARKONA FOREST RAVENSWOOP CAMP IPPERWASH HANK'S PLACE THEDFORD Esst Bound FOREST BAVENSWQOB CAMP IPPERWASH HANK'S PLACE THEDFORD ARKONA WATFORD KERWOOD STRATHROY POPLAR HILL LOBO MELROSE JUCT, HIGHWAY 4-22 LONDON Parcel Service, Chartered Coaches for all occasions. Connections at London for Stratford, Kitchener, Guelph, Woodstock, Ingersoll, Brant-ford, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Barrle, OrilMa, Graven-hurst, North Bay, and all point* In the United States. You can now purchase your ticket In Forest for any bus trip. FOREST, ONT. -- A. BUTLER, MANAGER -- TEL. 61-r-Z barrels a day, and is said to have died in poverty. Meanwhile other drillers entered the area, and by 1866 over 1,500 wells were in operation. At least 22 of these were flowing rock wells and two were flowing surface wells. Before methods of collecting the oil were improved, much of it was wasted. One account states that "for months Black Creek ran oil a foot deep and for spaces of 40 or 50 acres near the larger wells, oil stood on the ground one to three feet deep." Oil in Swamps As early as 1830 settlers entering Enniskillen Township had found oil in surrounding swamps. It was called "gum oil" or "gumbo" and was considered about as useful as weeds -- It killed vegetation and detracted from the value of the land. Four years before Shaw drilled his well, J. H. Williams, of Hamilton, extracted nphtha from the gum beds by boiling the gum. Hoping that he might find more oil by digging below the gum 'layers, he began digging, and found that the deeper he went, the greater the yield. This was the first oil well in America, for although it did not penetrate the limestone, it was dug a year before Drake's well in Pennsylvania in 1859. For a few years after Shaw's well came in, Oil Springs was a boom town. Oil was refined on the spot; at one time 27 refineries were in operation. The twelve-mile run to the railhead at Wyoming saw 500 teams pass daily. Incorporation Not even a hamlet in 1862, it was incorporated as a village in 1865, and had even applied for incorporation as a town a year later when the population was close to 4,000. At least 500 teams left Oil Springs daily for Wyoming, 12 miles away, at the end of this period. They each hauled two barrels of oil through the "canal." The barrels were fastened to stone-boats, which followed a track through swamp and forest. In short order the heavy stone-boats made a channel through the yielding soil "through which the teams waded in the most adhesive mud to be found anywhere in Canada," states one account. There were 12 stores, nine hotels, a daily paper, and the streets were brilliantly lighted. A mile and a half of the main Hats Off to "t London Free Press I am glad to have this opportunity of congratulating The London Free Press on its Century of Service. 5RYAN L CATHGART Lambton West WE HAVE STARTED OUR SECOND YEARS OF SERVICE TT IS OUR PARTICULAR PRIDE IN COMPLIMENTING THE LONDON FREE PRESS ON ITS CENTENNIAL --A FINE NEWSPAPER THE LAMBTON LOAN & INVESTMENT COMPANY 191 N, FRONT ST. , S ARM I A, ONTARIO Tfte Oldest Canadian Mortgage 105 YEARS IN BUSINESS street was planked with a double thickness of white oak two teams wide, and was called the finest paved street in Canada. Stages connected the boom town with Sarnia, 19 miles away, along a plank road cutting across the concession lines. Fenian Raids After 1866 several factors contributed to the decline of the boom. The Fenian raids began, and American oil men, fearing war, left for the U. S. Oil was discovered at Petrolia, and a rail line connected it with Wyoming. These two blows were followed by a decline in oil production. A few years later Oil Springs' population had dropped from 4,000 to 300. The boom was over. In the "Eighties," the village was a tumble-down ruin of empty houses and decaying buildings. Its oil gone, Oil Springs has turned to the steadier, if slower, prosperity of its , surrounding farm land. Today a plaque on the community hall marks the first Canadian oil well, and the village's growth comes from other endeavors. Peter Grant Piled His Goods on Raft ON A SLIGHT KNOLL overlooking the mighty Sydenham River, near Becher a stone cenotaph stands guardian over a little cemetery. That cemetery is the resting place of Peter Grant, one of Becher's first settlers and the builder of the famous Grant estate. Beside him, row upon row of granite and marble tombstones mark the resting place of succeeding generations of Grants. It was in 1837 that Peter Grant, a native of Scotland, navigated the Sydenham River with his worldly goods piled on a cumbersome raft. Where the Sydenham twisted in long gentle turns through picturesque tree-lined hollows he landed and built the' first log cabin. Four Generations That land has remained In the Grant name ever since -- for 117 years. Four generations of Grants have tilled the heavy clay soil, and a great-grandson of the Scottish settler, George Grant now lives in the 78-year-old frame house built near the site of Peter Grant's log cabin. The Grant estate, situated two and a half miles northwest of the hamlet of Becher, is the oldest settlement in that area. Becher itself has remained little more than a cross-roads through the years, host tr.™,,,,, P=rilapo, for the Becher bridge across the Sydenham. Becher was first opened as a post office about 1865, and named by the Postal Department after Henry ,C. R. Becher, a wealthy land owner in that area. A post office still operates at Becher with two rural routes out of the village which now consists of one store, an Orange Hall, United Church, two schools, and a chopping mill. Boom Prosperity In Wyoming Story WYOMING -- ALONG WITH Oil Springs and Petrolia--experienced an oil boom in the 1860's. But Wyoming's boom was not based primarily on oil. Twin ribbons of steel--the railway lines--were the beginning and end of Wyoming's spurt of prosperity. The- site was for many years two farms owned by George Brown and Robert McAuslin. Even after the Great Western line was pushed through to Sar-nia, 'only a store and a hotel greeted the traveler. But with the discovery of oil at Oil Springs in 1861, the village mushroomed, for it was the nearest railway point to the oil fields. Hotels, stores, houses (mostly ramshackle), and refineries were built overnight. And always, day and night, an unending stream of wagons and sleds poured into the expanding village, bringing oil to the greedy refineries and railway cars. Six Refineries By 1862 there were six refineries operating1 in the village. But the prosperity that the railway brought passed away with the completion in 1866 of the Great Western branch line to Petrolia. Wyoming's usefulness was past. The shipping and refining facilities moved to Petrolia and the "shantytown" built during the boom stood empty. In the years that followed, Wyoming was the heir of a steadier prosperity. The flimsy buildings of the oil boom were torn down. New, more substantial ones took their place. More Intensive, development of the rich farms in the area has helped Wyoming recover from the end of the boom days. In recent years it has grown steadily, providing ' ever-increasing facilities for the adjacent farm areas. Croton Was Settled After War of 1812 CROTON, a quiet community near the east branch of the Sydenham River in the north-past comer of the Gore of Cam-den Township, was first settled by pioneer farmers after the war of 1812. Among the early settlers in the district were the Greenwood, Cragg and Falardeau families. Though Croton has not grown beyond the hamlet stage, it is the post office address for a prosperous farming district along the river, as well as a shopping centre. Petrolia in 1876 The Great Western Railway Station at Petrolia in 1880. Barrel of Oil Dropped From $10 to lOc at Petrolia "PETROLIA IS ESSENTIALLY AND ENTIRELY an oil town. It had its inception in oil. Its early stages of development were fostered and supported by oil. Its present prosperity and activity is the direct result of the production of oil. And it is claimed that even its future existence is dependent upon the continued profitable yield of oil. "In fact, the alpha and omega of Petrolea is oil, oil, oil. Everything 'smells of oil; everything tastes of oil; everything is covered ana smearea witn on; everything is on. YOU hear nothing but oil spoken of in the cars, in the hotels, in the public offices, in the stores, In By 1867 -- the year of confederation -- Petrolia was experiencing an oil boom that far outshone the earlier Oil Springs excitement. Despite the development of Oil Springs between 1862 and 1866, Petrolia had grown sufficiently to have a newspaper in 1863, and the 'exchange,' on the streets, everywhere; and we would think from a casual visit that not only the prosperity of Petrolea, but the lives of all its inhabitants and the existence of the whole country, depended on whether "crude" advanced or declined one-eighth of a cent 'on 'change' within the next 10 days." This account was written about 10 years after Petrolia -- the difference in spelling is the result of & clerical error in the provincial offices -- first gained fame as an oil boom town in 1866. Abortive Oil Boom Petrolia had had an abortive 011 boom as far back as 1861. During the summer of that year, oil was struck in the Petrolia area, but the discovery of flowing wells at Oil Springs the next winter left Petrolia deserted. With the collapse of the oil boom at Oil Springs by 1866, prospectors moved north and sunk wells in the Petrolia area. Brigden Contrast To Boom Centres BRIGDEN, LIKE MANY other communities in Western Ontario, owes its existence to the enterprise of men who laid out village plots and promoted their prosperity much as Chambers of Commerce promoted towns and cities today. The St. Clair branch of the Canada Southern Railway, now the New York Central Railway, was built from St. Thomas to Courtright in 1873. The same year Nathaniel Boswell bought lot 7, concession 5, of Moore, and laid out a village plot. He immediately built grist and saw bills, a hotel and a blacksmith shop, and a large number of houses. Within a few years he saw a prosperous village growing where before the railway came there had been nothing but a farm. Though it never shared in the oil prosperity of Oil Springs and Petrolia, this Moore Township community has enjoyed a quiet life of trade that contrasts strangely with the boom periods of its neighboring communities. The village, named after an engineer who surveyed the Canadian Southern route^ is a police village, with a population today of about 600 persons. to be incorporated a village in 1866. Oilmen Joyous ' Before the floods of oil that swamped the demand hit the market, ten dollars gold was the price of a barrel. And Canadian oilmen were joyous. Nine dollars was the price for many months until the gushers came in. Then the higher the oil spouted, the faster the prices dropped, and the barrel of oil that had brought ten dollars brought ten cents. The producers then got together, and forcing an expansion in uie (sAput L mantel, Orougnt the price of oil back to a reasonable price. All this, it must be remembered, was long before the development of oil derivatives as fuel for motors. The bulk of refined oil sales were for lighting purposes - "oil for the lamps of China" -- and as a lubricant. Haphazard Growth Petrolia grew fast -- and haphazardly. An observer during the boom days stated that "the general character of the buildings of Petrolea is inferior, there being very few which are really good, the majority being of wood material and 'balloon' structure." Even the branch line of the Great Western Railway from Wyoming to Petrolia was of inferior construction. Reports at the time said that the railway did not expect the boom to last, so spent as little money as possible on the line. But the line paid for its full construction costs, as well a» running expenses, in the first six boom town shanties that mushroomed up with the discovery of oil. It has lost the "smell of oil" mentioned by the early writer -- though you can still smell H outside the town among th» pumpers. And it has lost its abnormal interest in oil. Today's Petrolia still has oil, and oil refineries. But there are other interests claiming the attention of the people. Light industry has entered the town, and the business of supplying ths surrounding farm lands has kept pace with the fertility of th« land. Along Petrolia's streets ar» substantial stores, homes and business offices. A new -- and steadier -- prosperity has replaced the brawling boom years when oil was the "life blood" of Petrolia. ...it's a pleasure TO WISH YOU A HAPPY BIRTHDAY! This is an expression that we feel is the opinion of all in my riding: "Many Happy Returns!" C. E, JANES C. E. JANES Lambton-East Warwick Pure Salt Co.* ESTABLISHED 1871 One of the Oldest Salt Industries Producing Coarse Salt DRY KILNS MANUFACTURERS OF LUMBER PRODUCTS - - LUMBER CLAY PRODUCTS Specializing in Western Ontario Hardwoods To Specification For Industrial Uses MILLING GEO. COULTIS & SON ESTABLISHED 1886 PHONE 424 THEDFORD ONTARIO Congratulations, London Free Press, On Your 100th Anniversary