Link here to Rigzone.com story.
From the web:
In some areas, small quantities of oil naturally seep out of the ground. Human beings have long recognized the utility of the seeped oil and have employed it for a variety of purposes. For instance, Native Americans used tar pitch to waterproof their canoes and early Spanish settlers used it to seal their boots. Pioneers in Pennsylvania skimmed seeped kerosene from riverbeds to use as lamp fuel and machinery lubrication.This is practically verbatim from a section in Daniel Yergin's 1990 Pulitzer Prize winning The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Power, and Money.
In response to the rising demand for kerosene in the 1800s, American investors hired Edwin Drake to drill at the source of a natural kerosene seep in 1859. The resulting oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania was 69.5 feet deep and produced 15-20 barrels of oil per day. Originally, kerosene was the end-product and gasoline, the by-product, was discarded. However, as the automotive industry developed to run on gasoline-powered internal combustion engines, a permanent market for gasoline developed and kerosene became a minor product.
