The tools and drilling techniques used by early oil-well drillers were developed in this country by salt-well drillers in their search for brine during the 50 years before Colonel Drake's 1859 oil well. The Ruffner brothers drilled the first salt well near Charleston, West Virginia, in 1807, to a depth of 58 ft. Their well, which penetrated 40 ft of the Pennsylvanian Charleston Sandstone at a rate of 4 in./12-hour day, required about 4 months to drill. In 1831, the L. G. Barker salt well was completed in the Mississippian Big Injun sand to a total depth of 820 ft at McConnelsville, Ohio. Penetration rates for various rocks in a 24-hour day were mud rock or shale, 4-10 ft; silty or sandy shale, 2-4 ft; limestone, 1.5-2 ft; sandstone, 0.5-1.0 ft; chert, 2-3 in., and ganiste , 1 in. Correlating these drilling rates with the detailed sample log of the Barker well suggests a minimum continuous drilling time of 20 months. In all probability, the well required at least 2-2.5 years to drill considering fishing jobs, repairs to equipment, and similar vicissitudes that beset the early salt-well drillers. Except that he was able to substitute steam power for muscle power, "Uncle Billy" Smith's drilling time of 13 days for the 34 ft of sandy bed rock in the Drake oil well is closely comparable to drilling time for similar shallow salt wells of that period.

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