Samuel Martin Kier
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
inventor and businessman who is credited with founding the American petroleum
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
refining
Oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...
industry. He was the first person in the United States to refine crude oil into lamp oil. Kier has been dubbed the Grandfather of the American Oil Industry by historians.
Early life
Kier was born in Conemaugh TownshipConemaugh Township, Indiana County, Pennsylvania
Conemaugh Township is a township in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,437 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it is water.-Demographics:As of the census of...
, Indiana County
Indiana County, Pennsylvania
-Government and politics:As of November 2008, there are 58,077 registered voters in Indiana County .* Democratic: 26,653 * Republican: 24,159 * Other Parties: 7,265 -County commissioners:*Rodney Ruddock, Chairman, Republican...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
near the town of Livermore
Livermore, Pennsylvania
Livermore, Pennsylvania is an abandoned town that was located on the Conemaugh River between Blairsville and Saltsburg in Derry Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania...
. He was the son of Thomas Kier and Mary Martin Kier. The Kiers were Scots-Irish immigrants who owned several salt well
Salt well
A salt well is used to mine salt from subterranean caverns or deposits by the use of water as a solution to dissolve the salt or halite deposits so that they can be extracted by pipe to an evaporation process that results in a brine or dry product for sale or use...
s around Livermore and nearby Saltsburg
Saltsburg, Pennsylvania
Saltsburg is a borough in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 955 at the 2000 census. The town was based on the construction of salt wells and the canals and railroad tracks that passed through it.-Geography:...
.
In addition to the salt business, Samuel helped found Kier, Royer and Co., in 1838. The company was a canal boat operation that shipped coal between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Kier also owned interest in several coal mines, a brickyard, and a pottery factory.
He, along with several other investors including Benjamin F. Jones, founded several iron foundries in west central Pennsylvania. The iron business would be the forerunner of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company
Jones and Laughlin Steel Company
The earliest foundations of Jones and Laughlin Steel Company were the American Iron Company, founded in 1851 by Bernard Lauth, and B. F. Jones founded in 1852a few miles south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River. Lauth's interest was bought in 1854 by James H. Laughlin...
, one of the largest steel producers in America.
Later life
Kier married Nancy Eicher of GreensburgGreensburg, Pennsylvania
Greensburg is a city in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States, and a part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. The city is named after Nathanael Greene, a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War...
, Pennsylvania in 1842.
Salt wells and oil
By the 1840s, Kier's salt wellSalt well
A salt well is used to mine salt from subterranean caverns or deposits by the use of water as a solution to dissolve the salt or halite deposits so that they can be extracted by pipe to an evaporation process that results in a brine or dry product for sale or use...
s were becoming fouled with petroleum. At first, Kier simply dumped the useless oil into the nearby Pennsylvania Main Line Canal, but after an oil slick caught fire, he saw a way to profit from this otherwise worthless byproduct. With no formal training in science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
or chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
, he began experimenting with several distillates of the crude oil along with a chemist from eastern Pennsylvania. He developed a substance he named "Rock Oil" and later "Seneca Oil". In 1848, he began packaging the substance as a patent medicine
Patent medicine
Patent medicine refers to medical compounds of questionable effectiveness sold under a variety of names and labels. The term "patent medicine" is somewhat of a misnomer because, in most cases, although many of the products were trademarked, they were never patented...
charging $0.50 per bottle. He also produced petroleum butter (petroleum jelly
Petroleum jelly
Petroleum jelly, petrolatum, white petrolatum or soft paraffin, CAS number 8009-03-8, is a semi-solid mixture of hydrocarbons , originally promoted as a topical ointment for its healing properties...
) and sold it as a topical ointment. Neither product proved to be a commercial success.
After further experimenting, he discovered an economical way to produce kerosene
Kerosene
Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin or paraffin oil in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland and South Africa, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid. The name is derived from Greek keros...
. Kerosene had been known for some time but was not widely produced and was considered to have little economic value. But at the time whale oil
Whale oil
Whale oil is the oil obtained from the blubber of various species of whales, particularly the three species of right whale and the bowhead whale prior to the modern era, as well as several other species of baleen whale...
, the principal fuel for lamps in America, was becoming increasingly scarce and expensive.
Kier began selling the kerosene, named "Carbon Oil", to local miners in 1851. He also invented a new lamp to burn his product. Kier never obtained a patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
for his developments and many other inventors and businessmen would go on to improve upon his work yielding huge fortunes. Even so, Kier's income at the time exceeded US$40,000 per year, a huge sum for the time.
Kier established America's first oil refinery in Pittsburgh on Seventh avenue near Grant Street, in 1853. A marker identifying the site read's "Kier Refinery – Using a five-barrel still, Samuel M. Kier erected on this site about 1854 the first commercial refinery to produce illuminating oil from petroleum. He used crude oil from salt wells at Tarentum
Tarentum, Pennsylvania
Tarentum is a borough in Allegheny County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is northeast of Downtown Pittsburgh, along the Allegheny River. Tarentum was an industrial center where plate glass and bottles were manufactured; bricks, lumber, steel and iron novelties, steel billets and sheets,...
." Kier consulted with Edwin Drake
Edwin Drake
Edwin Laurentine Drake , also known as Colonel Drake, was an American oil driller, popularly credited with being the first to drill for oil in the United States.-Early life:...
concerning Drake's experimental oil well
Oil well
An oil well is a general term for any boring through the earth's surface that is designed to find and acquire petroleum oil hydrocarbons. Usually some natural gas is produced along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce mainly or only gas may be termed a gas well.-History:The earliest...
and the first shipment of oil from Drake's well went to Kier's refinery.