Ninety-five years ago hardy lumbermen settled permanently in Deerfield township, Warren county, thirty miles above the mouth of Oil Creek. Twenty years later a few inhabitants, supported by the lumber trade, had collected near the junction of a small stream with the Allegheny. Bold hills, grand forests, mountain rills and the winding river, sprinkled with green islets, invested the spot with peculiar charms. Upon the creek and hamlet the poetic Indian name of Tidioute, signifying a cluster of islands, was fittingly bestowed. Samuel Grandin, who located near Pleasantville, Venango county, in 1822, removed to Tidioute in 1839. He owned large tracts of timber-lands and increased the mercantile and lumbering operations that gave him prominence and wealth. Mr. Grandin maintained a high character and died at a ripe age. His oldest son, John Livingston Grandin, returned from college in 1857 and engaged in business with his father, assuming almost entire control when the latter retired from active pursuits. News of Col. Drake’s well reached the four-hundred busy residents of the lumber-center in two days. Col. Robinson, of Titusville, rehearsed the story of the wondrous event to an admiring group in Samuel Grandin’s store. Young J. L. listened intently, saddled his horse and in an hour purchased thirty acres of the Campbell farm, on Gordon Run, below the village, for three-hundred dollars. An “oil-spring” on the property was the attraction. Next morning he contracted with H. H. Dennis, a man of mechanical skill, to drill a well “right in the middle of the spring.” The following day a derrick—four pieces of scantling—towered twenty feet, a spring-pole was procured, the “spring” was dug to the rock, and the “tool” swung at the _first_ oil-well in Warren county and among the first in Pennsylvania. Dennis hammered a drilling-tool from a bar of iron three feet long, flattening one end to cut two-and-a-half inches, the diameter of the hole. In the upper end of the drill he formed a socket, to hold an inch-bar of round iron, held by a key riveted though and lengthened as the depth required. Two or three times a day, when the “tool” was drawn out to sharpen the bit and clean the hole, the key had to be cut off at each joint! With this rude outfit drilling began the first week of September, 1859, and the last week of October the well was down one-hundred-and-thirty-four feet. Tubing would not go into the hole and it was enlarged to four inches. The discarded axle of a tram-car, used to carry lumber from Gordon Run to the river, furnished iron for the reamer. Days, weeks and months were consumed at this task. At last, when the hole had been enlarged its full depth, the reamer was let down “to make sure the job was finished.” It stuck fast, never saw daylight again and the well sunk with so much labor had not one drop of oil!