This collection contains 22 deeds and other legal documents related to oil lands near Burning Springs, West Virginia, and to the formation of the Rathbone Petroleum Company of Pennsylvania. Of the 22 documents, 12 are true copies of deeds. Several early deeds document the transfer or lease of land around Burning Springs in Wirt County, West Virginia, on which several brine and, later, oil wells were subsequently drilled.
John V. Rathbone is mentioned in the first document, in which he agreed to lease land to John H. Weare (November 30, 1860), and in an agreement with John H. Weare and J. H. Camden regarding payments on the lease (May 24, 1862). Other deeds pertain to the ownership or lease of various nearby parcels of land by John F. Petty and Jacob H. Petty, both residents of Wirt County. Three abstracts trace the history of ownership of several tracts of land, including ownership by John G. Stringer and Alfred L. Kinnaird. The collection also holds an agreement between Weare and Darnell of Fleming County, Kentucky, and Samuel Herndon of Mount Sterling, Kentucky, regarding drilling for oil in the West Virginia oil fields (November 25, 1861).
Several items concern the formation and land holdings of the Rathbone Petroleum Company of Pennsylvania, including its original articles of association, created on July 18, 1863, and signed in Philadelphia on July 26, 1864. The collection also contains the company's letter patent, signed by the governor of Pennsylvania on September 24, 1864. Many of the later deeds and indentures relate to William S. Hassall, one of the company's founders.
William P. Rathbone purchased a plot of land in northwestern Virginia (now West Virginia) from John F. Petty in 1841. The land, which included the White Sulphur Springs, is located near present-day Burning Springs in Wirt County, West Virginia. In 1842, Charles Reynolds drilled a salt brine well on the land that he had leased from William Rathbone and Rathbone's sons, J. Cassius. and John V., but the drilling yielded oil. It was abandoned until 1860, when a new lessee, General Samuel D. Karns, began to purposefully drill for oil. During the Civil War, J. Cassius Rathbone served as colonel of a military regiment defending the oil wells, though the men succumbed to a Confederate Army raid in May 1862. John V. Rathbone later worked as an oil dealer, based in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
In July 1863, Pennsylvania residents Nathaniel C. Sheeff, George O. Evans, William S. Hassall, John F. Graff, and Robert B. Esler founded the Rathbone Petroleum Company of Pennsylvania for the purpose of producing oil found in Wirt County, West Virginia.
