Wood Barrel Factory, Secony Vacumn Oil Co.

WOOD BARREL FACTORY--VACUUM OIL CO

The wood barrel factory built in 1880 was once located on the same site as the Central Shops of the Socony Vacuum Oil Company. The wood barrel played a very important part in the early history of petroleum, and especially in the Pennsylvania field where the petroleum industry started in the United States. At that time the petroleum industry was not only new to this country but also to the world. Petroleum products had been used throughout the world only in small quantities, mostly in the heavy evaporated form found on the surface of the earth, for the calking of ships and other uses. The Pennsylvania oil boom was therefore probably the first the world had known, and for that reason it had to make a small start and feel its way along until the technical aspects of crude oil production, distillation and finishing had been developed, and until the refiners of the crude oil could find general acceptance of the products which they were marketing.

The country at that time was still largely agricultural, and the mechanical age which we now know and take for granted had hardly begun. Practically all of the early crude production in the area of the Drake well of 1859 was transported in barrels to the place of use, either for refining or in the very earliest days for use in medicinal oils such as the bottled product sold in the Pittsburgh area and known as Rock Oil.

The same situation which existed throughout the United States also was true in the case of foreign shipping, for the beginning there also had to be small. There were as yet no tankers for shipping oil to foreign countries, and again the light weight, conveniently sized wood barrel was used. Barrels of oil were transferred from ship to shore on lighters, and in some instances were thrown overboard and then hauled to shore. In the Orient and similar places the barrels traveled inland on camels, and as in the case of China, much of the oil was delivered by wheelbarrows.

Crude Oil in those early days was sold by the barrel, a barrel furnished by the customer. Often there was a variation of several gallons in the capacity of the barrels brought to the well for loading, for these were vinegar barrels, pork barrels, or whatever the buyer could obtain.
In 1866 at a meeting of the Venango County oil producers, a resolution was adopted to standardize the capacity of an oil barrel at 40 gallons, with two additional gallons to cover the leakage and evaporation, and this has never changed to this day when a oil man speaks of a barrel of oil you can know that it's a 42 gallon barrel he means.
Most of the crude oil was barged down the creeks and streams in barrels, much of it going toward Pittsburgh and similar points south of the Titusville area, such as Oil city. Where water was not available the oil was moved in barrels on wagons or sleds to the small neighboring refineries that sprung up in the area where the oil was produced.
After the oil was refined it was again put into wood barrels to be shipped to the cities where it was to be used. Until the volume grew to the point where the use of pipe lines and tank cars became justified and economical, it was the barrel that moved the entire oil production, crude and refined, to its destination.

This sudden demand for wood barrels created by the new oil industry caused a great boom in the cooperage business, and barrels were rushed to the Pennsylvania field from many parts of the county. Large rafts were floated down the Allegany River from a barrel factory on the Indian Reservation at West Salamanca.

The most largely used product from crude at the beginning of the oil industry was burning or illumination oil, and at one time this was almost the only product which the early refineries made and for which a market could be found. It was natural then that kerosene, the first product shipped domestic and foreign was in barrels, for in most instances it went to small consumers, and was used largely for home lighting. Some of us can still remember when we were sent to the store with the kerosene can to buy oil for the lamps, and the custom of sticking a potato on the spout to prevent slopping of the oil.

The refineries found it necessary in many instances to build their own barrel factories, and this was the case with our Rochester Refinery, where was located what was said to be the second largest barrel factory in this country.

About 1879, after Mr. W. M. Irish became head of the Acme Works, began the erection of a barrel factory along the Erie Railroad right-of-way at the site of the Central Shops. After completion, this factory had a capacity of 3,500 barrels a day, utilizing 70,000 oak staves and 30,000 pounds of iron hoops each 24 hours.

The barrels were made of white oak, with iron hoops, and sprayed with glue on the inside. These barrels, with blue bodies and white heads were known all over the world for the quality of their contents, usually kerosene. At first they were made by hand, but eventually various machines were developed for cutting the staves, cutting the croze, turning the outside of the barrel, etc. The value of the barrel was based on its size--2and1/2 cents a gallon or $1.05 for the standard oil barrel--and many of these were returned to the refinery to be re-coopered or re-driven and used again and again. The barrels made at Olean, over and above the requirements of the Olean refinery, were shipped to the Company's other plants at Buffalo and Rochester, and were loaded in box cars and even cattle cars. Old records have shown that at one time as many as 70 trains of about 50 cars each left Olean in one day, most of these of course carrying either crude oil or refined products in barrels.

The building to the west end of which was used for the Paint Shop, and the remainder for storage space for the various mechanical departments, was still referred to as the dry kiln building. This building, of one story construction with saw-tooth roof, was built for use in the kiln drying the lumber which was used in making of staves and heading. Up until about twenty years ago (1930) some of the rooms were still equipped with the old wood grating which covered all the floors in the building and on which the lumber to be dried was piled. Hot air was pumped through trenches under this wood grating, and was blown up through the grating with a large fan driven by a steam engine, and the lumber thus dried until it was suitable for use in the making of barrels.

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