Eveleth & Bissell retained a controlling interest and Ashael Pierpont, James M. Townsend and William A. Ives were three of the New-Haven stockholders. Bissell visited Titusville to complete the transfer. On January sixteenth he and his partner had given a deed, which was not recorded, to the trustees of the original company. At Titusville he learned that lands of corporations organized outside of Pennsylvania would be forfeited to the state. The new company was notified of this law and to avoid trouble, on September twentieth, 1855, Eveleth & Bissell executed a deed to Pierpont and Ives, who gave a bond for the value of the property and leased it for ninety-nine years to a company formed two days before under certain articles of association. It really seemed that something definite would be done. The first oil-company in the history of nations had been organized. Pierpont, an eminent mechanic, was sent to examine the “spring,” with a view to improve Angier’s machinery. Silliman’s reports had a stimulating effect and the Professor was president of the company. But the monkey-and-parrot time was renewed. Dissensions broke out, Angier was fired and the enterprise looked to be “as dead as Julius Cæsar,” ready to bury “a hundred fathoms deep.” [Illustration: FAC-SIMILE OF LABEL ON KIER’S PETROLEUM.] One scorching day in the summer of 1856 Mr. Bissell, standing beneath the awning of a Broadway drug-store for a moment’s shade, noticed a bottle of Kier’s Petroleum and a queer show-bill, or label, in the window. It struck him as rather odd that a four-hundred-dollar bill—such it appeared—should be displayed in that manner. A second glance proved that it was an advertisement of a substance that concerned him deeply. He stepped inside and requested permission to scan the label. The druggist told him to “take it along.” For an instant he gazed at the derricks and the figures—four-hundred feet! A thought flashed upon him—bore artesian wells for oil! Artesian wells! Artesian wells! rang in his ears like the Trinity chimes down the street, the bells of London telling “Dick” Whittington to return or the pibroch of the Highlanders at Lucknow. The idea that meant so much was born at last. Patient nature must have felt in the mood to turn somersaults, blow a tin-horn and dance the fandango. It was a simple thought—merely to bore a hole in the rock—with no frills and furbelows and fustian, but pregnant with astounding consequences. It has added untold millions to the wealth of the country and conferred incalculable benefits upon humanity. To-day refined petroleum lights more dwellings in America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia than all other agencies combined.