Samuel Martin Kier (July 19, 1813 – October 6, 1874) was an American inventor and businessman who is credited with founding the American
petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
refining
{{Unreferenced, date=December 2009
Refining (also perhaps called by the mathematical term affining) is the process of purification of a (1) substance or a (2) form. The term is usually used of a natural resource that is almost in a usable form, b ...
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.
Background
Early life
Kier was born in
Conemaugh Township,
Indiana County, Pennsylvania
Indiana County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in the west central part of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 83,246. Its county seat is Indiana. Indiana County comprises the Indiana, PA Mic ...
near the town of
Livermore. He was the son of Thomas Kier and Mary Martin Kier. The Kiers were
Scots-Irish immigrants
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
who owned several
salt well
A salt well (or brine well) is used to mine salt from caverns or deposits. Water is used as a solution to dissolve the salt or halite deposits so that they can be extracted by pipe to an evaporation process, which results in a brine or dry produ ...
s around Livermore and nearby
Saltsburg.
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
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
and
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. Kier also owned interest in several coal mines, a brickyard, and a pottery factory.
He, along with several other investors including
Benjamin Franklin Jones, founded several iron foundries in west central Pennsylvania. The iron business would be the forerunner of the
Jones and Laughlin Steel Company
The Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation began as the American Iron Company, founded in 1852 by Bernard Lauth and Benjamin Franklin Jones, a few miles (c 4 km) south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River. Lauth's interest was bought in ...
, one of the largest steel producers in America.
Later life
Kier married Nancy Eicher of
Greensburg, Pennsylvania in 1842.
Salt wells and oil
By the 1840s, Kier's
salt well
A salt well (or brine well) is used to mine salt from caverns or deposits. Water is used as a solution to dissolve the salt or halite deposits so that they can be extracted by pipe to an evaporation process, which results in a brine or dry produ ...
s were becoming fouled with petroleum. At first, Kier simply dumped the useless oil into the nearby
Pennsylvania Main Line Canal
The Main Line of Public Works was a package of legislation passed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1826 to establish a means of transporting freight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It funded the construction of various long-proposed can ...
, but after an oil slick caught fire, he saw a way to profit from this otherwise worthless byproduct. With no formal training in science or
chemistry
Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
, 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
A patent medicine, sometimes called a proprietary medicine, is an over-the-counter (nonprescription) medicine or medicinal preparation that is typically protected and advertised by a trademark and trade name (and sometimes a patent) and claimed ...
charging $0.50 per bottle.
He also produced petroleum butter (
petroleum jelly
Petroleum jelly, petrolatum, white petrolatum, soft paraffin, or multi-hydrocarbon, CAS number 8009-03-8, is a semi-solid mixture of hydrocarbons (with carbon numbers mainly higher than 25), originally promoted as a topical ointment for its h ...
) 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, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning "wax", and was regi ...
. 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 is oil obtained from the blubber of whales. Whale oil from the bowhead whale was sometimes known as train oil, which comes from the Dutch word ''traan'' ("tears, tear" or "drop").
Sperm oil, a special kind of oil obtained from the ...
, 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 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 reads "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 may refer to:
* Taranto, Apulia, Italy, on the site of the ancient Roman city of Tarentum (formerly the Greek colony of Taras)
**See also History of Taranto
* Tarentum (Campus Martius), also Terentum, an area in or on the edge of the Camp ...
."
Kier Refinery, in Pennsylvania Historical Markers
at waymarking.com Kier consulted with Edwin Drake
Edwin Laurentine Drake (March 29, 1819 – November 9, 1880), also known as Colonel Drake, was an American businessman and the first American to successfully drill for oil.
Early life
Edwin Drake was born in Greenville, New York on March 2 ...
concerning Drake's experimental oil well
An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas may ...
and the first shipment of oil from Drake's well went to Kier's refinery.
References
External links
Before gas and oil, petroleum yielded riches in another form
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kier, Samuel M.
19th-century American businesspeople
Founders of the petroleum industry
1813 births
1874 deaths
People from Indiana County, Pennsylvania
Burials at Allegheny Cemetery