Growing Up in the Oil Patch. John Schmidt J.

       Chapter 3

       Transporting Nitro to Pelee Island

      One day in the summer of 1904, a man walked into the store. He had a drilling proposition on Pelee Island. Tiny could hardly wait to get home to tell Zulah about this exciting new venture, that would make them all rich.

      She signed resignedly and said “Yes, but this time I’ll go with you — and stay, too.”

      And so began an adventure that was to take him to Canada for life; and make him a member of the Elks Club in Calgary.

      The man who came to visit him, represented a syndicate of New York financiers formed to drill on some oil leases they owned on Pelee Island, 14 miles offshore from the town of Leamington, Ontario in Lake Erie. It is the southernmost point in Canada. Sandusky, Ohio, is across the lake.

      Tiny sent for Frosty, who was in California. They agreed to take on the contract late in the summer. For eight years before that, Frosty had gone wildcatting in Texas, Mexico and California.

      It can be imagined, that Zulah was sitting close to the conference table. She was taking no chances that Tiny would go off somewhere for another year and leave her alone in Findlay. Thus when they left for the job, both she and Maud Martin were along. This was despite the fact they’d be living in rough bunkshacks on the isolated island.

      Oil had previously been discovered on the island. It was being barreled and shipped to Sandusky in the steamer, Lincoln. Lincoln and another steamer, Excelsior, supplied the islanders — mostly fishermen, with provisions.

      When Tiny and Frost arrived with two tool dressers, they found the first job they were expected to do, was clean out two wells already drilled with Canadian pole tools. Pole tools were an ancient type of rig, consisting of 20-foot hickory lengths screwed together like pump rods. The rods hung on a rope strung through a pulley at the top of a 40-foot derrick. One end of the rope was attached to a springed bull wheel, to keep it taut.

      The outfit was driven by a steam engine with an upright boiler. The drill bit was not attached to the end of the pole rigidly, because the pounding action of the pole up and down at 25 to 30 times a minute, would cause excessive breakage. The rod was actuated by a walking beam which, in turn, was actuated by the steam engine.

      When it became necessary to pull the pole out of the hole, a winch was used. Since there was no reverse on the engine, it was necessary to attach a 100-pound weight to the rope, to bring it back down to the derrick floor. This weight was called a cow sucker — but nobody knew why.

      The pair decided to improve the drilling efficiency by buying a No. 5 Star drilling rig. They had no money, but Frosty went across the lake and talked the National Supply Company of Toledo, Ohio, into selling a rig on a “$1 down and $1 when you can catch us” proposition. It was said to be one of the first of its type in the Ontario fields.

      There was plenty of everything on the island but money. The residents were nearly all Canadian fishermen, friendly folk who used pound nets and sail boats. There was always fresh fish for Zulah and Maud to cook.

      To make money, Frosty hit upon a profitable little scheme. He would buy a carload of casing from the National Supply Company and sell it to the syndicate at a profit. The casing was brought over on the steamers and hauled by wagon to the well by his fishermen friends.

      Another of his little money-making schemes did not find favour among his new-found friends, who were unwitting accomplices. The drillers were paying an inflated $3.50 per quart in Leamington, for nitroglycerine, for shooting the wells in the limestone strata. Frosty hit upon the idea of buying the nitro in Toledo for half the price, doing the shooting himself and pocketing the difference.

      Since they wouldn’t let him use the steamers to transport nitro, he hired a crew of fishermen and their sailboat for the job, but he didn’t tell them the cargo would be 1,000 quarts of high explosive from the Hercules Torpedo Company.

      When they finally found out what he had on board, they were scared to death. The slightest jar could set the stuff off and blow them all sky-high. Nobody, including Frosty, himself, breathed easily until the boat docked and he got the dangerous cargo ashore.

      The fishermen gave him and his schemes wide berth after this, but the lure of ready cash led him into one more transportation deal in late winter, which was also dangerous and could have gotten them all drowned.

      When the lake was frozen over there was no way of reaching the mainland, as the ferry shut down. To get around walking 14 miles to land, they built an ice boat called the “Yankee,” and learned how to sail it. This was great sport and when there was a good wind, the speed was “estimated” at 100 miles an hour.

      The mail was brought over from Leamington by a sled boat pulled by a horse. One day in March the mail they expected did not come. There was no word from the syndicate and no money. Frosty and Tiny decided to go to Leamington, to wire the president and get matters straightened out. They started out at 6 a.m. one day, guided by a Boy Scout compass. When they got six miles out in the channel they had to abandon the ice boat, and walk the remaining eight miles to shore on glare ice, as the ice had heaved and left pressure ridges, cracks and cakes all over the ice surface.

      They arrived at Ed Ryall’s Hotel at 8 p.m., after being picked up and fed by a farmer. They knew Ryall as he had backed some of the Pelee Island wells.

      They were surprised to find the bar full of old-time contractors and friends from the Findlay field. They had quite a reunion that night at the Huffman House, a hang-out for oil drilling types.

      Even without hang-overs the next day, the pair would have found the news was bad. The syndicate had gone broke — and so were they. By nightfall, however, the story had changed.

      On a previous visit to Leamington, Tiny and Frosty had come into contact with J.C. Hickey, of the National Supply Company. He told them one of the companies, in which Capt. Ed Winter and Ed Wigle were interested, was looking for somebody to drill a couple of wells near Leamington. They went around to see Winter and Wigle and before the day was over, made a deal under which the National Supply Company was to repossess the syndicate rig and turn it over to Tiny and Frosty. The whole clout of the deal was some 13-pound 6½-inch casing Frosty owned. The deal also included a $350 advance. Frosty also talked them into endorsing a note for an additional $350 operating loan at the bank.

      The only problem now remaining was how to get the rig off the island. This called for ingenuity on their part, as the spring breakup was at hand. The Leamington teamsters they contacted would have nothing to do with them. It was too near break-up for their liking. They pointed out that Pelee had open water on both sides and, in case of a storm, they had little chance of surviving.

      Tiny and Frosty walked home across the ice next day, arriving at 11 p.m. Despite the lateness of the hour, Frosty rousted out some of his fishermen friends who owned teams and sleighs and talked them into risking their necks on his behalf. They responded to that $350 in his pocket.

      During the night they worked, breaking camp and dismantling the rig. The next morning, they began the most unorthodox entry of a drill rig ever to be found in oil history in Canada: a most hazardous trek.

      The boiler was on one sleigh, the string of tools and casing on another, timber on the third and the derrick on the fourth — all overloaded, but easy sliding on the ice. Staring ahead apprehensively, they set out. The ice proved safe. It is noted in Tiny’s scribbler:

      “Everything went well until we came within a quarter mile of shore. There we ran into a five-foot wide crack in the ice. We solved the dilemma by cutting a large cake of ice and floating it into the gap, then laid planks across it. Somehow we got those loads across that unsteady bridge but it was tricky.

      “We arrived at Leamington