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STATE HISTORICAL MARKERS
~ VENANGO COUNTY ~

SPEECHLEY GAS POOL WELL - located in Pinegrove Township in the village of Coal Hill. Dedication was held on Oct. 28, 1999 and nominated by the Oil Heritage Region, Inc.

Here on April 15, 1885, at a depth of 1,963 feet, Samuel Speechley completed a natural gas well that was sufficient for a time, to supply all of Oil City & nearby communities. At the pool of this well was discovered a deep gas-bearing sandstone belt - named the "Speechley Sand" in his honor - extending through much of Pennsylvania into West Virginia. This well continued in operation under successive owners into the early 1990s.

Biography of Samuel Speechley - "History of Venango County", 1890 edition, p. 1128.Samuel Speechley, farmer, was born November 1, 1832, in England and is a son of Samuel and Maria (Webster) Speechley, natives of the same country and the parents of five children: Adelaide; Samuel; Emma, deceased; Maria, and Charles, deceased. The father was for many years engaged in the hotel business in Newmarket, Cambridgeshire, England, and with his wife belonged to the Episcopal church. Samuel, our subject, received a common school education in his native country, and at the age of fourteen years he began learning locomotive building and marine engineering in Newcastle-on-Tyne; at twenty he was sent to China by the firm of Robert Stephenson & Company to join a steamer plying between Hong Kong and Calcutta in the opium trade. He continued at that for about three years, then entered the Chinese government service for the purpose of putting down piracy on the coast of China, which was very rife at that time (1855 --56); in 1857 he started the first engineering business in China at Hong Kong and conducted it for thirteen years. In 1872 he visited America, and after one year's residence in Cranberry township decided to stay. He settled on his present farm (in Pinegrove Twp.) of one hundred acres - the seat of the great Speechley gas district… He was married in China (1864) to Margaret Galbraith, a native of Ireland, and has two children: Emily, born in China, and Adelaid, born in America. Mrs. Speechley's parents, James and Janet (Patterson) Galbraith, were of the old Scottish Covenanter faith, in which they reared their children.

Donated by Penny Haylett Minnick
pictures Penny Haylett Minnick