Foundations of construction:  Oil Springs: Canada’s first oilfield

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By Suzanna McLeod

Petroleum is in the news almost daily, the problems with fossil fuels, pipeline discussions, the uncertain future for companies and workers. Oil is a construction standard, for water pipes, linoleum, paint, plus solvent and grease for machine operation.

The thick, sticky and stinky hydrocarbon is considered precious as water to some and used by most every day in one form or another. Oilfields are found in specific regions around the globe, but the world’s first commercial oilfield wasn’t drilled in Alberta. It was in southern Ontario.

Finding bitumen “gum beds” on their property near the village of Black Creek in Enniskillen Township, Lambton County, the Tripp brothers—Charles and Henry—grasped a business opportunity. Established in 1854, the International Mining and Manufacturing Company was recognized as the first incorporated oil company in North America. Installing equipment, the brothers harvested the accessible dark substance, processing the crude oil into kerosene, asphalt, and a waterproof sealant for ships. (Kerosene was developed in 1846 by Nova Scotia’s Abraham Gesner.)

Although they earned an honorable mention at the Universal Exhibition of Paris, France in 1855 for their innovative goods, the business floundered. Deep in the swampy woods without a proper road nearby, the bitumen beds were far from markets. Defeated, Tripps sold their company to politician and carriage manufacturer James Miller Williams; he hired Charles Tripp as landman.

Williams dug into the gum beds with a hand shovel in 1857. “At a depth of 4.26 m he struck oil,” said Lambton County Cultural Services. The new owner “immediately built a small refinery and began to produce illuminating oil for lamps—kerosene.” Williams immediately formed the J.M. Williams Company.

Digging further to nearly 15 m., Williams’ well was “a primitive hole in the ground where the oil bubbled to the surface,” said Steve Pitt in “The Oil Springs of Ontario” (Legion Magazine, Nov. 1, 2001). “Operators merely dipped in a bucket and filled up barrels by hand.” The distilling operation was primitive as well, with a lidded cauldron set over a wood-fueled fire. Gases created by the heat “escaped through a hole in the lid and ran through a pipe where it condensed into liquid [kerosene] and then flowed down into a container.” The slick at the bottom of the cauldron sold as machine grease.

Considered North American’s first commercial oil well in 1858, the site was preparing for increased production. (Edwin Drake’s well in Pennsylvania was a very close second.) In 1859, Williams installed the country’s first cable-tool drilling rig to enable drilling into bedrock.

The next year, “his company became known as the Canadian Oil Company,” stated Fathi Habashi in the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry, Vol. 25, No. 1. Interest in oil exploded and “nearly a hundred wells were drilled in the area, and production averaged 20 barrels a day.” (Part of a wooden derrick, a cable-tool rig “pounded through soil and rock by repeatedly dropping a heavy metal bit (tool) weighing up to 900 kilograms and attached to a cable,” according to Canadian Museum of History.)

Good timing was part of Williams’ inspiring success. The London-to-Sarnia branch of the Great Western Railway opened just as the oil started to flow, enabling transportation across the province and to shipyards for export.

In early 1862, Hugh Nixon Shaw “struck oil at 48 metres at Oil Creek, Enniskillen [Township], Ontario. This was Canada’s first gusher, estimated to be good for 3,000 barrels per day,” said Petrolia Heritage. Hopeful entrepreneurs flooded in to join the oil rush, and Black Creek was re-named Oil Springs.

Just 13 km. away at the thriving village of Petrolia, “wealthy oilmen, builders, and merchants erected their fine mansions, an opera house, and a racing track,” Habashi said. There was a fire station, too, prepared to douse the many fires that engulfed tinder-dry derricks.

In 1860, Williams’ re-named his firm The Canadian Oil Company, and it was incorporated as North America’s first integrated oil company to produce, refine, and market oil. A pioneer in petroleum refining, Williams received medals from the British government for his discovery of oil and for best refined oil.

Refineries opened in Sarnia, London, and other southern Ontario towns, producing “a fine amber-colored oil that would make any lamp chimney the same color in about 20 minutes, but it commanded the attractive price of one dollar per gallon,” wrote A. Raymond Mullins in “Liquid Gold,” Maclean’s Magazine, April 15, 1931.

The fortunes of Oil Springs flourished and waned, and Petrolia became the industry hub for a short time. Presently, Charles Fairbank attends to Fairbank Oil, family company for over 150 years. The First Commercial Oilfield of 1858 was named a National Historic Site in 1925.

And Alberta? The province’s industry erupted with the productive oil strike in 1902 at what is now Waterton Lakes National Park.

© 2019 Susanna McLeod. McLeod is a Kingston-based freelance writer who specializes in Canadian history.

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