peaceful Venango Valley in West ern Pennsylvania in this year of 1859 was undergoing a transform ation. The Seneca Oil Company's Edwin L. Drake, wolking with the local blacksmith, had rigged up a drilling outfit and had started pros pecting for oil. The operation was known locally as "Drake's Folly." At 691/2 feet Drake hit oil. It was the world's first oil well. Now the elder Stewart could see the rock-hard determination in the set of his son's shoulders. "Lyman," the father's voice was gentle but in his eyes the hurt was still painfully there. "You are a God-fearing young man. Perhaps this new vocation is God's will. May He prosper you accordingly." To Lyman Stewart the words of his father were like a benediction and entirely fitting for a man with his faith. The Stewarts were sin cere adherents of the Presbyterian church. Every evening Lyman's mother read the Bible aloud and the seven children took part in the family prayers that ended each day. Lyman's father helped to raise funds for the first Presbyterian church erected in their area and he occasionally preached the ser mon when the weather delayed the circuit-riding pastor. Young Stewart exchanged his $125 for the desired lease but failed in his attempt to raise enough money to drill a well. Six years later others drilled on the Benninghoff farm and struck the first 300barrels-per-day well in the nation. Lyman Stewart had lost the possibility of a fortune in his first oil venture. He soon saved up enough for a second try. He and several part ners leased the Boyd farm near
Petroleum Center. This time, prof iting from experience, the partners saved enough money to drill a well. Their first well was a pro ducer, but just as it came in sev eral new wells by other drillers came in, producing more oil than the market could handle. The price of oil fell so low that Stewart and his partners could not afford to pump the oil. Again Stewart had to call it quits. Later the Boyd farm became one of the valley's richest producers. The war between the states had broken out and, putting aside his dreams of riches, Lyman Stewart joined a group of volunteers from the valley and enlisted in the 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry. He spent most of the next four years as "a valet to horses with the rank of private." He often said that hte only claim to military distinction was that "my unit was at Appo mattox Courthouse when General Lee surrendered to General Grant, ending the war." When he returned to the Venango Valley in 1865, Stewart found his village of Titusville had grown from 400 to over 6,000. Lacking capital, he enrolled for a hurry-up commercial course at Eastman's Business College, at Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Within six months he managed to digest the course. Returning to the valley, he opened an office at Pioneer Run, not far from Titusville, buying and selling oil leases. His boyhood ex perience of tramping over the hills collecting hides and delivering leather for his father's tannery now became an unexpected asset. Un doubtedly Lyman Stewart knew the valley better than any other operator.
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