McBride - Bumpus Genealogy

     The city of Franklin was selected as the county seat 

on March 26, 1808. It originally laid out in 1795 at the 

site of Fort Franklin, which was built in 1787 & named 

after Dr. Benjamin Franklin. The town was incorporated
as a borough in April 1828 and chartered as a city on 

April 4, 1868.
     Oil City, at the junction of Oil Creek & the Allegheny 

River, was settled in 1825 and remained a small village 

until 1860 when the town's oil wells were developed. 

 In 1892, the town of Oil City was destroyed &  hundreds

 of residents killed when burning oil rushed down Oil 

Creek from Titusville.  Damage was estimated at over

1 million dollars.

         The county of Venango, located in the northwestern part of Pennsylvania, was created on 

March 12, 1800 from parts of Allegheny and Lycoming Counties and was attached to Crawford 

County until 1805. The name Venango is an Indian term meaning French Creek.
     In 1839,  part of the county became Clarion County  (some Clarion records from 1800-1839 

are found in Venango County). Additionally, part of Venango County was included in Forest 

County in 1848. 
         Venango County is bordered on the north by Crawford and Warren Counties, on the east 

by Forest and Clarion Counties, on the south by Butler County & on the west by Mercer County.

                 Short  County  History

VENANGO  COUNTY , Pennsylvania

       exerpt from your Family Tree, 1958

Drake   Well   -   From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Drake Oil Well                                                                Built  1859
U.S. National Register of Historic Places                   Built by Edwin Drake , William A. Smith
U.S. National Historic Landmark                                 NRHP reference # 66000695 [1]
Replica engine house and derrick in June 2012       Significant Dates
[Drake Well is located in Pennsylvania]                     Added to  NRHP November 13, 1966
[Drake Well]                                                                   Designated NHL November 13, 1966
Location Cherrytree Twp, Venango County, Pa
Nearest city Titusville, Pennsylvania
Coordinates 41°36′39″N 79°39′27.7″WCoordinates:  41°36′39″N 79°39′27.7″W

The Drake Well is a 69.5-foot-deep (21.2 m) oil well in Cherrytree Township, Venango County

 in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, the success of which sparked the first oil boom in the

United States. The well is the centerpiece of the Drake Well Museum located 3 miles (5 km) south of Titusville.

Drilled by Edwin Drake in 1859, along the banks of Oil Creek, it is the first commercial oil

 well in the United States. Drake Well was listed on National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. It was designated a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1979. The well was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark in 2009, on the sesquicentennial of the strike.

The Drake Well is often referred to as the first commercial oil well, although that title is also claimed for wells in Azerbaijan, Ontario, West Virginia, and Poland, among others. However, before the Drake Well, oil-producing wells in the United States were wells that were drilled

for salt brine, and produced oil and gas only as accidental byproducts. An intended drinking

water well at Oil Springs, Ontario found oil in 1858, a year before the Drake Well, but it had

not been drilled for oil. Historians have noted that the importance of the Drake Well was not

in being the first well to produce oil, but in attracting the first great wave of investment in oil

drilling, refining, and marketing:

The importance of the Drake Well was in the fact that it caused prompt additional drilling,

thus establishing a supply of petroleum in sufficient quantity to support business enterprises

of magnitude.

     Among the first settlers at Franklin were George Powers, William Connally, Col. McDowell, 

Samuel Ray, and John Andrews.

News and Notes:

• Major George Washington came to Venango County in 1753 to interview the French 

         Commander at Fort Dusquesne.

• The Indians used the oil found in this area as a base for their war paint (it gave it 

permanence). They also used the oil as part of their religious ceremonies.