Replica of the Drake Well, just south of Titusville, Pennsylvania, on Oil Creek.
The well is almost emblematic with the birth of the petroleum industry in North America. “Colonel” Edwin Drake brought-in the well probably on Saturday 27 August 1858, at a place known as Watson Flats. This heralded the beginning of the petroleum industry and about 10 years of oil activity in the Oil Creek valley and vicinity the likes of which has seldom been matched anywhere in North America. Almost all our eight Fleming-line ancestral lines lived in the area. For example, of the three sons of James and Sarah (Park) Henderson, Richard settle in present-day Southwest Township, Warren County, about five miles northeast of the Well. Samuel settled a couple miles north of Titusville in Crawford County, believed to be in an area drained by a stream aptly named Henderson Run. David, the youngest son, settled in the Pleasantville, Venango County, area, about four miles southeast of Drake Well.
Hendersons
of
of mainly Venango, Warren and Forest Counties
Pennsylvania
Their descent from
James and Sarah (Park) Henderson
of
Mifflin County and Venango County, Pennsylvania
To Helen (McGuire) Palmer (1909-)
and to the memory of
Olive (Hedges) Peters (1925-1997)
