CHAPTER XXI 



ROMANCES OF AN OLD FOREST ROAD— 

 ONCE USED BY MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE 



(The First Natural Gas Well) 



(By JOHN C. FRENCH.) 



IN 1824, the party that started from Philadelphia, 

 by train of coaches, horses and packmules, cross- 

 ed the Susquehanna and soon entered the forest along 

 the West Branch, to view the beautiful highlands of 

 ■ Pennsylvania. They passed through McKean County, 

 along the new-made forest road, over the ridges and 

 westward through Hamlin township, and northerly 

 through Lafayette township, crossing the Kinzua Val- 

 ley five miles west of the great viaduct of the Erie 

 railroad, and climbing to the crest of the range be- 

 yond, near Marshburg; thence through Hamilton 

 township, past the oil-field ''Klondike," of recent de- 

 cades, and westerly, down the backbone ridge, to the 

 Kinzua Milage on the Allegheny river, at the con- 

 fluence of Kinzua creek and the river ; thence norther- 

 ly to lake Chautauqua, and to Fredonia, New York, 

 near the shore of Lake Erie, where the hotel was lit 

 by natural gas, from the well bored in 1821. 



The trip was for entertainment of the great French- 

 man and to endow him with the land that bears his 

 name, in the midst of the rich oil and gas fields that 

 developed later, 1880-1910, and the forest road was 



140 



