To Bore For Oil

Oil derricks in Pennsylvania

Cortland Evening Standard, Thursday, May 23, 1901.

TO BORE FOR OIL.

OPERATIONS TO BE STARTED IN CINCINNATUS.

Lewis Nusbaum of Bradford, Pa. on Hand With His Machinery. Options Secured on 4,000 Acres of Land. Company to be Organized and Stock Sold—Cincinnatus Aroused.

   Cincinnatus is at present having its share of the general excitement over oil. The people are not particular whether they secure oil or gas, but they want something and they are going to work to see what they can find beneath the surface of the earth. Lewis Nusbaum of Bradford, Pa., is the active promoter of the scheme and he has retained Attorney J. H. Murray of Cincinnatus to assist him in the legal part of the business.

   Two years ago Mr. Nusbaum was in Cincinnatus as the representative of the Interstate Oil Co., and secured options on four thousand acres of land in the Otsellc valley. This territory extends from the Willet line on the south as far north as the upper bridge and for two miles up the Brackel. It occupies the entire width of the valley and extends a little way up the valley of the Gee brook. It includes the great farms of the Crittendens, the Harringtons and of David White along with the other smaller farms. The Interstate Oil Co. never did anything with these options, but they have now all been assigned to Mr. Nusbaum. He is getting up a company with a capital stock of $4,000 to bore for oil or gas or to see what they can find. Lewis Emory, the oil magnate of Bradford Co., is back of Mr. Nusbaum in this matter. It is expected that a number of Cincinnatus people will take some of the stock.

   The derricks and apparatus are ready to be shipped to Cincinnatus over the E. & C. N. Y. R. R., and work will be begun at once. The plan is to sink the first well somewhere near the eastern edge of the valley near the mouth of the Bracket creek, on the farm of Floyd Totman or Mrs. John Fish or Seward Beckwith or James Root. The exact location has not yet been decided upon. It is expected that the well will be bored to a depth of from 1,800 to 2,500 feet until Trenton rock is struck. Just what the outcome of this will be cannot be forecasted, but at all events an investigation of the interior of the earth is to be made to see what can be found.