BENJAMIN SILLIMAN JR. - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 01/28/1862 - HFSID 253384
Price: $625.00
BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, JR.
His report on the economic uses of petroleum led to drilling of the first oil
well.
Autograph Letter signed: "B Silliman Jr", 1p, 5x8. No place, 1862
January 28. Affixed to 7½x9½ page. To "My dear Sir", in full:
"I take pleasure in handing you for your friend several autograph letters
of news of science & others. If you have a wish to reserve any of them for
yourself you are of course at liberty to do so. Yours very truly".
Benjamin Silliman, Jr. (1816-1885), the son and namesake of Yale
University's first professor of chemistry, followed in his father's footstep by
holding the same position. In 1855, at the request of the founders of the
Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, Silliman, Jr. wrote a report lauding the economic
potential of rock oil, now called petroleum, previously considered a smelly
nuisance. Although his vision of oil's future was for lighting and
lubrication, not a power source, his report helped George Bissell and James
Townsend to raise capital for their enterprise. Shortly thereafter, the company,
renamed the Seneca Oil Company, financed the drilling of the first oil well by
Edwin Drake in Titusville, Pennsylvania (1859). Silliman also developed a
distillation method permitting the economic production of kerosene. Mounting
adhesive shows through slightly at corners. Mounting sheet slightly soiled, with
frayed left edge. Otherwise, fine condition.
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