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 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 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, a ...

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 produc ...

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 of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

and

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

. 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

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 or chemistry, 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) 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'' (" tear" or "drop"). Sperm oil, a special kind of oil obtained from the head ...

, 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."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 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