first
successful experiment on Oil Creek, there were not less than two hundred
wells in different stages of progress in the town of Franklin alone.
Wells were being bored in gardens, in dooryards, and even in some cases
in the bottoms of wells from which water had been procured for household
purposes. So numerous were the tall 'derricks,' that a profane riverman
made the remark that the people of Franklin must be remarkably pious, as
almost every man seemed to be building a meeting house with a tall
steeple near his dwelling. At one time there were in Franklin fifteen
productive wells, yielding a daily aggregate of one hundred and forty
barrels. Among these were what was known as 'the celebrated Evans well.'
This was, in some respects, the most remarkable well in all the region.
It was sunk by its proprietor in the bottom of the well that had long
been used for household purposes. An humble house and lot constituted
his entire worldly possessions. The work in the well was performed
entirely by his own family. Being a blacksmith, he constructed his own
boring implements, and was dependent on no outside assistance. Patiently
and assiduously did the blacksmith and his two sons toil on, as they had
seldom toiled before, the former guiding the drill, and the latter
applying the power by hand to the simple machinery. At the depth of only
forty feet in the rock they struck a crevice that promised to pour them
out rivers of oil. In attempting to enlarge this, the drill broke, the
fragment remaining in the cavity, and defying every effort used for its
removal. The well was then tubed, and a hand pump inserted, when it was
found to yield at the rate of ten or fifteen barrels per day.
Speculation soon began to run wild, and the fortunate owner of this
well, among other propositions, received an offer of fifty thousand
dollars for his well. To all these tempting offers he persistently
returned the same reply--that he had bored that well for his own use,
and that if others wished a well, they could do as he had done.

Oil was generally obtained in the valley around Franklin at the depth of
about three hundred feet from the surface, for pumping wells; in the
valley of Oil Creek the same stratum was reached at about half that
depth. In all these wells, whether successful as oil wells or not, a
strong body of salt water was obtained, that added greatly to the
facility of separating the oil by its increased gravity. Hitherto the
busine