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The first week of June in 1925 saw unusually warm temperatures across the northeast.1 Nearby Jamestown had record-breaking highs in the low 90s.2 You can imagine the temperature on Main Street in Fredonia at 2:45 in the afternoon on Thursday, June 4. Still, the crowds came. So many, in fact, that the village had to redirect traffic away from the primary road running through its downtown.3
The ceremony was spear-headed and organized by the Benjamin Prescott chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Citizens marched down the flag-decorated streets and assembled to see the unveiling of a new marker dedicated to memorializing two major events in this small rural community.4 One hundred years to the day earlier, General Lafayette set foot on that same main road. Just as citizens in 1825 went out of their way to see the Revolutionary War hero, so too did their descendants gather a century later to mark the anniversary.
And, oh, what a celebration they had! It seemed like everyone was there. Well, everyone except Arthur R. Maytum, President of the Village Trustees. He was off in Syracuse for a conference of New York State village officials.5
The people merged onto the corner of West Main Street by the bridge over Canadaway creek. The flag-covered object they surrounded drew their attention and anticipation. Onlookers quieted as the Reverend Walter A. Henricks of the Fredonia Presbyterian church read the opening prayer. The high school orchestra and choir followed that with a heartfelt rendition of “America.” High School Principal Claude R. Dye gave the welcoming address. He urged the audience to live by those ideals responsible for making our country great.6
He then introduced the keynote speaker, Mrs. Charles White Nash, state Regent of the D.A.R. She gave an inspiring speech that began with, “To keep alive the history of a nation by the placing of markers, the preservation of buildings and relics or by the rehearsing of deeds and the holding of ceremonies is not merely to perform a laudable task but to thus preserve a record of past events and achievements is to develop a realization of human progress which should bring an appreciation to each succeeding generation of what it owes to its predecessors. For no generation is great of itself alone nor its any nation or individual living up to its highest and best if it fails to learn the lessons its past has taught.”7
As Mrs. Nash closed by dedicating the memorial, Edith Gardiner and Clarence Cato, dressed in colonial costumes, removed the flag covering the boulder to reveal the attached bronze plaque. All sang “America the Beautiful” before closing remarks by Dr. Howard G. Burdge, President of the Fredonia Normal School (predecessor to SUNY @ Fredonia). Dr. Burdge, in keeping with the theme of the previous speakers, said not only should we laud history, but we can’t stop there. We need to also follow through on the advances made by those who preceded us. Harriet Ross (from Rochester) conducted an intricate flag drill before Mrs. A.J. Gardiner, regent of the local chapter of the D.A.R., formally presented the boulder to the village. Trustee William L. Hart accepted, seeing that President Maytum was in Syracuse. The exercise ended with all singing the national anthem.8
Here’s what the plaque on the boulder reads:
The site of the first gas well in the
United States
Lighted
In honor of General Lafayette’s
visit June 4, 1825
Placed by Benjamin Prescott Chapter,
Daughters of the American
Revolution
June 4, 1925
Take a closer look at this inscription. Doesn’t it imply the first gas well was lit on the day of Lafayette’s visit to Fredonia—June 4, 1825?
It sure seems that way.
There’s only one problem with this. The earliest record of the use of natural gas (and specifically from the well the plaque recognized—the first natural gas well ever dug in America) wasn’t until August 31, 1825.9 This was more than two months after Lafayette left Fredonia.
What gives? How did they get the history of this so wrong?
It gets worse.
In January 1925, The Fredonia Censor ran a page one story titled “The Story Of Natural Gas Is Here Recorded.” It offers a rather detailed chronicle of how a group of young boys accidentally discovered the “inflamable (sic) air” in 1821. Without giving any other dates, the article describes the location and the building of the first well. It then reports Lafayette, when visiting Fredonia, toured the gaslit house with a local clergyman who could speak French. The General “expressed satisfactory astonishment and is said to have told the clergyman that he was afraid that Fredonia must be pretty near hell, in a upward direction, and he thought he would hasten his departure.”10
This certainly wasn’t the first instance of the 1821 date. An industry journal cited this date in 1886. It said, “A correspondent of the Tribune states that the first natural gas well was bored in 1821, by a man named Hart, at Fredonia, at the crossing of Main street and Canadaway Creek. The well was one and a half inches in diameter, was twenty-seven feet deep, and yielded enough gas to use in thirty burners. Natural gas has been used there ever since.”11 There was no citation for this “correspondent of the Tribune,” nor does it say which “Tribune” it’s referring to.
The earliest reference found (so far) that ties the natural gas well with Lafayette occurs in 1873. It states, “The use of natural gas at Fredonia was begun in 1821, when experiments were made to determine its illuminating value and it was introduced into a few of the public places, among which was the hotel which then occupied the site of the Taylor House, and which was thus illuminated when Lafayette passed through the village.”12
This story, in varying forms, was repeated throughout the many history books covering Chautauqua County.13,14,15
Even industry chronologies from as recently as the 1960s repeat these falsehoods. One has these entries (citing as its source “Diary of an Industry,” published by the American Gas Journal, Dallas, Texas, October 1959):
“1821 – Natural gas discovered at Fredonia, New York, in the form of a ‘burning spring.’ Residents drill a 27 -foot deep well and ‘log-pipe’ gas to nearby houses for lighting.”16
“1825 – June 4-At Fredonia, New York, during a visit to the United States, General Lafayette arrives by stagecoach at the old Taylor House at 2 a.m. to find the city and the inn brilliantly illuminated in his honor by natural gas.”17
Post World War II newspaper accounts weren’t that reliable, either. Their elaborate (some might say fanciful) stories even went so far as to say the Abell Tavern (where Lafayette briefly sat while in Fredonia) was the first to receive the gas and was lit for the French guest.18 Of course, one newspaper identifies the owner of the tavern as Col. Thomas G. Abell19 but fails to mention his co-owner and brother Mosley W. Abell who figures prominently as host to the dinner for Lafayette (Mosley sold his share to Thomas in 182820).
So, what really happened in Fredonia in 1825?
Sometime that summer, William A. Hart successfully tapped a well very near to the Main Street bridge over Canadaway Creek and, by the end of August, “2 stores, (one a grocery) 2 shops and one mill that are every evening lighted up with as brilliant gas lights as are to be found in any city in this or any other country.”21
In November, Hart had built a reservoir large enough to hold 1200 gallons, enough to light 150 lights.22 The Abell Tavern was connected to the gas line a year later in November 1926.23
And what of Lafayette? If he even saw a demonstration of the gas in Fredonia, it didn’t leave an impression. The gas lights during the ball held in his honor in Baltimore drew much attention. His secretary André-Nicolas Levasseur noted “the gas blazing abundantly from numerous pipes, and throwing floods of dazzling light over the hall, discovered to our delighted eyes the most ravishing picture I ever beheld.”24
Note that, unlike the natural gas lights in Fredonia, the Baltimore lights utilized a man-made gas, initially using tar or wood before moving to coal in the mid-nineteenth century.25
It’s not, as we shall see, that Levasseur had nothing to say about Fredonia. He did. Just nothing about natural gas. Indeed, you might say Lafayette was just as likely to see natural gas in Fredonia (he missed by about two months) than he was to see the Buffalo Bills (he missed by almost two centuries).
And don’t even start about whether he thought Groucho Marx used the village as the model for his most acclaimed movie. (He didn’t. The country in the movie Duck Soup had two e’s, as in “Freedonia.”)
And speaking of something easy to accomplish, the road from Westfield to Fredonia certainly wasn’t duck soup.
But, in the end, the ride was worth the “violent jolting.”
Next Week: Fast Fredonia Frenzy
1 “1925: Temperature reaches 100 degrees in Washington DC,” This Date in Weather History website, https://shows.acast.com/this-date-in-weather-history/episodes/1925-temperature-reaches-100-degrees-in-washington-dc, [retrieved May 6, 2024]
2 Jamestown Weather in 1925, Extreme Weather Watch website, https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/cities/jamestown-ny/year-1925#june, [retrieved May 6, 2024]
3 “Dedication of Memorial To Gas Discovery,” The Fredonia Censor, Wednesday, June 10, 1925, p.1
4 “Commemorate Visit Of General Lafayette,” The Westfield Republican, Wednesday, June 17, 1925, p.2
5 “Dedication of Memorial Will Occur Thursday,” The Fredonia Censor, Wednesday, June 3, 1925, p.1
6 The Fredonia Censor, June 10, 1925, p.1
7 “Dedication Address By Mrs. Charles White Nash,” The Fredonia Censor, Wednesday, June 17, 1925 p.13
8 The Fredonia Censor, June 10, 1925, p.1
9 The Fredonia Censor, Wednesday, August 31, 1825, p.2
10 “True Story Of Natural Gas Is Here Recorded,” The Fredonia Censor, Wednesday, January 7, 1925 p.1, p.4
11 “Gas and Oil Notes – New York,” Engineering and Mining Journal v.41, 1886 Jan-Jun, p.156
12 Childs, Hamilton, Gazetteer and Business Directory of Chautauqua County, NY for 1873-4, Journal Office, Syracuse, 1873. p.143
13 Edson, Obed, Historian, History of Chautauqua County New York, Georgia Drew Merrill, Editor, W.A Fergusson & Co, Boston, Mass, 1894 p.42
14 The Centennial History of Chautauqua County, Chautauqua History Company, Jamestown, 1904 p.274
15 History of Chautauqua County New York and Its People-Vol. 1, John P. Downs & Fenwick Y. Hedley, American Historical Society, 1921, p. 71
16 Clark, James, A., The chronological history of the petroleum and natural gas industries, Clark Book Co., Houston, 1963, p. 15
17 Ibid, p.16
18 “Fredonia’s Part In History Of Gas Business Is Reviewed By Distributing Company’s Writer,” Dunkirk Evening Observer, Thursday, October 4, 1945, p.10
19 “Fortune Hunters Still Drilling For Natural Gas In NY Areas,” Star-Gazette (Elmira), Friday, February 19, 1965, p.3
20 Shepard, Douglas H., “One Park Place,” 2005 https://chqgov.com/sites/default/files/document-files/2019-09/One%20Park%20Place%20%28PDF%29.pdf, [retrieved May 6, 2024]
21 Fredonia Censor, Wednesday, August 31, 1825, p.2
22 Fredonia Censor, Wednesday, November 30, 1825 p.3
23 Fredonia Censor, Wednesday, November 26, 1826 p.3
24 Levasseur, André-Nicolas, Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825, Volume I, John D. Godman translation, Philadelphia, Carey and Lea, 1829, p. 166
25 Samford, Patricia, “Gas Lighting in Baltimore, 19th-Century Style,” Maryland History by the Object, September 13, 2018 by Patricia https://jeffersonpatterson.wordpress.com/2018/09/13/gas-lighting-in-baltimore-19th-century-style/ [retrieved June 1, 2024]
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