Venango County PA Archives News.....Oil in Western Pennsylvania January 3, 1861
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Donald Buncie http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00034.html#0008389 November 26, 2023, 1:07 pm

Jeffersonian Republican. (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911: January 03, 1861 January 3, 1861
It seems that the early French settlers and the Indians in Western Pennsylvania were
acquainted with the natural oil or petroleum wells, which are now thought by many
persons to be a discovery. At Franklin, Pa., old oil vats have been discovered, with
trees a century old growing in them. An old well, supposed to have been sunk for
obtaining the oil, has also been discovered, with the remains of an Indian ladder in
it. The early settlers used to place a dam on the creek, then take off the oil which
floated on the surface by absorption with blankets. This they used to sell in vials
as a medicine for curing rheumatism.

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