Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 64, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1919 — Frenchman Given Honor. [ARTICLE]

Frenchman Given Honor.

The first white man, as far as can be determined, to discover petroleum in America was Joseph de la Roche D’Allon, a French missionary who speaks oft his discovery in a letter written 189 had crossed" the Niagara river and made his way southward through western New York Into northern Pennsylvania, where he found a spring from which oil flowed. The oil was highly esteemed by the Indians for medicinal uses. This old spring was probably identical with one described by the Massachusetts Magazine in 1789, which speaks of “a creek called Oil creek, which issues from a spring, on the top of which floats an oil similar to that called Barbados tar, and from which one may gather several gallons a day." The waters of this spring were supposed T6~ give great relief from rheumatism and to possess many other healing qualities. t