line to determine if the shell went down to the proper place.
There were several ways of exploding the nitroglycerine after it had been put into position in the well. The method in longest use was known as the “go-devil.”
For a go-devil shot, the top shell had in its upper part a small perforated tin tube containing three or four little anvils, one above the other, each carrying a waterproof percussion cap. The nitroglycerine, when the shell was full, flowed in around these caps through the perforations in the small tube. On the upper cap rested an iron rod, fastened to a flat plate above the shell. When this shell was in place and the lowering line reeled up, an iron casting called the “go-devil” was dropped into the well. This falling weight struck upon the iron plate and the stock set off the percussion caps, expolding the nitroglycerine.
If the go-devil did not set off the shot because either it did not fall with sufficient rapidity through the salt water, or mud had fallen on the plate, the shot had to be “squibbed.” The squib was a small shell, holding a quart or more of nitroglycerine. It was lowered until it rested on the shells in the well and was then fired, by letting a hollow weight run down on the wire line. Guided by the line, this weight struck a firing head similar to that used on larger shells and the explosion of the squib set off the larger bulk of nitroglycerine below.
When the charge was set off a dull thud was heard in the bowels of the earth. In a few moments, which seemed like hours, there was a resounding roar as the oil came rushing to the surface bringing with it water and whatever mud was in the hole. The resultant black spray often gushed high above the derrick.
The operation of filling the cartridges and devil-squib with nitro was always accompanied by a certain amount of risk, as this explosive is as easily ignited by friction as by percussion. For that reason, each cartridge was carefully washed off for fear that any liquid spilling over the sides and the cartridge rubbing against the side of the casing while being lowered into the well, could set it off prematurely.
It was by neglecting to do this, by a couple of devil-may-care American well shooters, who had a couple too many under the belt, that the hookey-playing adventure of Elmer Selkird and his pal, climaxed into one of horror.
“I guess they just didn’t give a damn,” he said. “All of a sudden there was a premature explosion and arms, legs and derrick timbers fell all around us as we stood and watched. I remembered that day all my life.”
Accidents happened only once in the life of a high-explosives handler. Once was the last time. Nitroglycerine was especially tricky to handle. Fumes from the empty cans were the most dangerous of all. The “shooters” had a real fear of the empties.
The stuff would freeze in winter and had to be thawed out in barrels of hot water. This was an eerie, if not downright dangerous, job. (Handling of nitro has been eliminated today, since the practice of sand fracturing and the use of acid has become standard practice.)
Although carrying full cans of the explosive was the safest of all for the handlers, there was always the possibility that a hard jolt would set it off and blow everything sky-high.
Ice boat on Lake Erie at Leamington, Ontario.
Chapter 5
A Contract With Eugene Coste
Del Mullen was one of the survivors. He was a roistering well-shooter from the Ohio field. He had handled thousands of gallons of nitro in his career and had learned to live with it.
Art Robinson, a plumber, recalled how Mullen drove up in front of the shop one day and asked him to make six of the long tin cans, used to lower the nitro down the holes.
Art got busy and made them and took them out to the car. There he discovered that Mullen had 15 gallons of nitro in the back seat. One ripple and the stuff would have blown the town sky high. However, Mullen seemed unconcerned and drove away with it to the field.
Mullen was an intrepid practical joker. One of the stunts he used to pull, was to take a mouthful of coal oil and wait till he saw somebody go to light his pipe, then sidle up beside him and spew the coal oil from his lips in a fine spray.
It would blow up with quite a flash and bang — much to the amusement of the bystanders.
Mullen would then go to the nearest bar and take a slug of good Canadian whisky, to take the taste of the coal oil away.
Mullen’s favorite yarns were about getting the better of the Findlay police, who tried to enforce a bylaw prohibiting transport of nitro on city streets. The bylaw resulted from an explosion in the city centre in which two men and two horses were killed.
Any attempt to arrest a driver, resulted in him getting off his wagon and offering the cop the reins.
That usually ended it. No cop was brave enough to take over the reins. And he would have been afraid to take the driver away and leave the wagon standing in the street. Most drivers were given warnings and allowed to go on their way.
But one of Mullen’s mates had his bluff called by Constable Jack Crawford. When the driver got off the wagon, Crawford calmly took his place, picked up the reins and motioned the startled driver up onto the seat beside him and drove to the police station.
Crawford had been a nitro wagon driver himself. That ended those shenanigans.
The Leamington-Mersea oil field was a small one — only eight miles long and half a mile wide — brought in 1902. It was part of a larger field extending from Petrolia, (Canada’s first commercial field), across the west end of Lake Erie to Findlay. It was also exploited for natural gas and marketable quantities sold by Eugene Coste, a native of Amherstburg, Ont. A man who was to have an enormous influence on the lives of Tiny and Frosty.
The original big players in the Leamington field were Capt. Ed Winter, a lake boat captain, and Ed Wigle, a crony of Winter and a partner with him in the Leamington Torpedo Company. They founded the Leamington Oil Company, in 1904, with capital raised by friends of J.C. Hickey of Detroit.
Hickey was associated with the National Supply Company, which supplied most of the drilling equipment in the United States and, from 1905, in Canada. Hickey also headed the Detroit Oil Exchange, where most of Ontario’s venture capital was raised.
Hickey also formed an oil company, when Winter’s company brought in a well with a good paying flow. The Winter well started an oil rush, which saw 300 technical personnel from the Ohio fields working there, in the summer of 1905. Common labourers in the oil fields of Ontario were making $2 to $5 a day, compared to $1 a day for industrial labourers.
When there was a slow day, the city editor of the Toronto Globe would assign a reporter to take the train to Leamington and do an update on the drilling. Those stories brought in thousands in new capital, as they indicated oil was flowing from gushers in all directions, because of lack of wooden tankage to contain it. But nobody cared — especially the farmers. They were collecting big royalties and becoming rich. And then, if the flow of a well was shut off, how would the well owners be able to tell if there was any more in the ground.
A note from Tiny’s scribbler attempts to clear up a popular misconception, that has created hard feeling between eastern and western farmers even to this day.
Ontario farmers owned their own mineral rights and the usual lease rental
