LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - JULY 30, 2023 by Lynne Belluscio One of the proposed new historic markers in LeRoy would recognize the story of the salt well that was drilled in LeRoy in 1879 by the Vacuum Oil Company of Rochester. Incredulous as it sounds, it was this well that brought down J.D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, thirty years later in 1911. The story starts in 1859 in Titusville, a little town in Pennsylvania. Edwin Drake adapted the drilling technology used to drill salt wells and struck oil. It was the beginning of the great oil boom. Skip ahead to 1866 in Rochester, where Matthew Ewing and Hiram Bond Everest founded the Vacuum Oil Company which was manufacturing a variety of oil based products. In the meantime, John D. Rockefeller was scheming to control every aspect of the new oil business, from drilling, transporting, refining and marketing. He founded the Standard Oil Company, based in Cleveland. He cut costs, reduced labor, and undercut all the small refineries, such as those in Titusville. On New Years Day, 1872, Standard Oil began a methodical attack on the oil producers in Pennsylvania. It was called the Cleveland Massacre and in little Titusville, 14-year-old Ida Tarbell watched as her father went bankrupt and his business partner committed suicide. Ida would never forget. Back in LeRoy, the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania encouraged speculators to explore the possibility of finding oil, and in 1878, a well was drilled south of the village of Wyoming. Since oil and salt are often found together, this well was drilled for salt. The plan was stopped when it became evident that the costs of transportation on the Rochester and State line Railroad was prohibitive. So plans shifted north to LeRoy. Several businessmen including N.B. Keeney and Charles Prentice approachedVacuumOil inRochester to drill on the Lent farm (at the end of Lent Avenue). The drill rig was built and at 4 PM on February 22, 1879, the well erupted with a blast of gas, which immediately exploded when it came in contact with a hot stove on the derrick. Fortunately, a huge amount of water followed and put out the fire. Actually, the water turned out to be brine. Never the less, work was suspended because the man who drilled the well wanted to go back to the Wyoming well. Not to be put off, the men in LeRoy had a second well drilled late in 1881. It would take a few more years before the salt wells in LeRoy produced enough brine to make it a successful business. So, re-enter Ida Tarbell. She had become a successful writer, and was one of the most prominent “muckrakers” who were going after conglomerates. In 1904, she wrote the “History of Standard Oil” and she was going after John. D. Rockefeller. In a chapter titled “Buffalo Case” she described all the lawsuits and the claims of sabotage that occurred in the drilling inLeRoy. “The Buffalo case demonstrated that when their ordinary advantages failed to get a rival out of the way, they winked at methods which a jury called criminal. It was fresh proof of what the oil men had always claimed - that the Standard Oil Company was a conspiracy!” Indictments of criminal conspiracy were placed against three Standard Oil executives. The case was tried in Buffalo and John D. Rockefeller sat in the courtroom for two weeks. Although the three executives were acquitted, the case was brought before the Supreme Court. In 1911, the Supreme court ruled that Standard Oil was in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and ordered that it be broken into 34 separate companies. The ruling was based on the court case that cited the LeRoy oil well and Vacuum Oil of Rochester and Buffalo. What history tells us, is that Rockefeller didn’t really lose. He eventually became the president of 34 different companies. LeRoy Salt Company and John D. Rockefeller
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