1859 - Energy

Energy

Petroleum production begins at Titusville, Pennsylvania, giving the world a new source of energy and reducing demand for the whale oil, coal gas, and lard now used in lamps (see Baku, 1823). Former New Haven & Hartford Railroad conductor "Colonel" Edwin L. (Laurentine) Drake, 40, has been sent to Titusville in Pennsylvania's Venange County by New York banker James Townsend at the urging of his associate George Bissell, who has heard reports that salt mines in the area are being contaminated by petroleum (see 1854). Using salt-well drilling equipment to dig into oil-bearing strata, Drake strikes oil August 28, and his 70-foot well is soon producing 400 gallons per day (2,000 barrels per year, each worth $20) to begin the first commercial exploitation of petroleum in the United States and inaugurate a new era of kerosene lamps and stoves (see Gestner, 1855). The discovery of oil at Titusville will spur mechanization of U.S. agriculture, and paraffin wax (a byproduct of kerosene produced from petroleum) will be used to seal Mason jars used for preserving foods (see Mason, 1858). Fire destroys Drake's well in the fall, but the Cleveland Leader reports November 18 that "the oil springs of northern Pennsylvania [are] attracting considerable speculation" and that there is "quite a rush to the oleaginous locations" (see Andrews, 1860).

Electric home lighting gets its first U.S. demonstration. Salem, Massachusetts, inventor Moses G. (Gerrish) Farmer, 39, lights two incandescent lamps on his mantelpiece with platinum strip filaments powered by a wet-cell voltaic battery (see Edison, 1879).

French physicist Gaston Planté, 25, invents the first practical electric storage battery, or accumulator (see Daniell, 1836; Leclanche's dry-cell battery, 1867).