Forgotten Dartmouth Men

"The Father of Petroleum"

DARTMOUTH MEN will recall that the Thayer School is housed in Bissell Hall, formerly the gymnasium, but many forget that the building perpetuates the name of a donor, who was, according to Professor John K. Lord, "the first to recognize the commercial value of petroleum and to make it an article of trade."

George Henry Bissell was born at Hanover, November 8, 1821, the son of Nina and Isaac Bissell, Jr., one of the townsmen who participated in the raiding of the Social Friends' Library in 1817, a disturbance incidental to the Dartmouth College Case. He was educated at Kimball Union Academy, Norwich University, and received his degree from Dartmouth in 1845. Appointed Professor of Latin and Greek at Norwich, he left shortly to become a newspaper correspondent in Washington. In the same capacity he went to Cuba, then to New Orleans, where he was engaged on the editorial staff of the Delta. In 1846 he was made the first principal of the New Orleans high school, later being appointed Superintendent of Schools. Mr. Bissell remained in New Orleans until 1853, when ill health necessitated his removal to a more temperate climate. In the meantime he had studied law with Charles Milton Emerson, Dartmouth 1826, and at Jefferson College in New Orleans.

HISTORIC HANOVER VISIT

The exact order of events in the life of Mr. Bissell in the year 1853 is rather obscure. It is certain that it was the year in which chance caused his removal to the north, of his entering into a law partnership with J. F. Eveleth, and of most importance to us, of a visit to Hanover.

Naturally Mr. Bissell made various calls while in Hanover, one of them to visit with his former professor, Dr. Dixi Crosby. To his guest the professor exhibited a recent acquisition, a bottle of "rock-oil, or "mineral-oil," which had been collected on the lands of his nephew, Dr. F. B. Brewer, of Titusville, Pennsylvania. The crude oil was sometimes found floating free in springs, and again in wells drilled to obtain salt which was ruined by its presence. The material was sometimes bottled and sold for medicine, (three teaspoonfuls three times a day to cure almost anything) and factories within short distance of a supply often used the oil for lighting and lubrication purposes.

The petroleum, and the indefinite information about it, caught Bissell s fancy. He returned to New York, interested Eveleth, who went to Western Pennsyl vania to investigate the extent of the supply and production, and the lands from which it was obtained. Whether Eveleth was enthusiastic upon his return is not known; but it is certain that without conception of the future magnitude of the industry, Bissell and Eveleth did not know they were fathering the first oil company in the United States; "The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company," with a capitalization of $500,000 was organized, and 200 acres of Venango County oil lands were bought or leased in 1854. In that year both Eveleth and Bissell made a trip to their new properties, but were probably discouraged because there seemed to be no way in which the petroleum could be secured in any appreciable quantity. However, they secured several barrels of the crude, which they sent to Benjamin Silliman, Jr., Professor of Chemistry at Yale University, for analysis.

FIRST OIL WELL

In his report, Professor Silliman had shown that the distilled product furnished an illuminating material superior to anything then in use, though he was unable to demonstrate his belief that it was also more economical because it was impossible to estimate the value of the oil. But if the supply of petroleum continued to be meager and dependent on accident of nature it would have practically no commercial value.

The next step in Bissell's career is perhaps even more important, and also obscure. The company continued to secure oil by "trenching," and finally, in 1857, in the hope of securing oil in greater and more steady quantities, agreed to sink an artesian well. That Bissell proposed it is fairly certain, and it is possibly true that his determination to sink the well, and obtain petroleum by a pumping process, is the result of suggestion received, when he one day happened to see in the window of a drugstore, a bottle of Kier's Petroleum, on which the label stated that it was obtained from a salt well in Allegheny county, four hundred feet below the surface of the earth, and on which the picture of a well derrick was shown. Mr. Kier, whose petroleum was obtained at Tarentum, Pennsylvania, had sunk wells in order to obtain salt, but the presence of petroleum had ruined that prospect, so that he had the oil bottled, and sold for medicine.

DARTMOUTH BENEFACTOR

However, though the reason or inspiration of Bissell's suggestion remains uncertain, the fact remains that the company adopted his proposal in 1857, and engaged Col. E. L, Drake, a stockholder in the company, to superintend the sinking of the well. After delays and discouragements of many sorts, during which the operation came to be known as Drake's Folly, oil was reached finally on August 28, 1859, and the well produced forty barrels per day for a time, and later, by pumping, the production was maintained at ten barrels per day. With a method for securing the crude at last discovered, the rise of the oil industry was rapid, and its history has been told in many different places. To Bissell should go the credit for discovering and ascertaining the possible commercial value of petroleum, and for having suggested the means by which the raw material could be obtained in quantities.

There is little to be added to an account of Bissell's life. He moved to Franklin, Pennsylvania in 1859, is said to have invested more than 1300,000 in oil lands before his return to New York in 1863, continuing to engage in the oil industry, and associated businesses until his death on November 19, 1884. To Dartmouth, he gave the gymnasium, in 1867, then considered the finest available, and in which it is said he insisted there should be bowling alleys, because it was alleged he was denied that pleasure during his college days in which piety was manifested in many curious ways.

George Henry Bissell, 1845

REPORT FOR ROCK OIL OR PETROLEUM. FOR VENAGO CO., PENNSYLYANIA. WITH GENERAL REFERENCE BY B. SILLIMAN, JR., NEW HAVEN: FROM J.R 1855.