Home > Humble Beginnings of Natural Gas > Water Heater History
Humble Beginnings of Natural Gas
The Humble Beginnings of Natural Gas
Natural gas has gone from mysterious flames rising out of the ground to one of the most important fuels for heating homes, generating electricity, and producing hot water. This timeline traces how people first noticed it, how they learned to capture and move it, and how better delivery made reliable gas water heaters possible.
Ancient Observations and the First Practical Systems
People in the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East noticed natural gas seeping from the earth and burning continuously. These “eternal flames” appeared at places such as Mount Chimaera (Yanartaş) in present-day Turkey, described by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, and near the Oracle of Delphi on the slopes of Mount Parnassus.
Geological studies have confirmed light hydrocarbon gases (methane and others) rising along faults in the Delphi area. Similar sacred flames were known to Zoroastrians near Baku. In these early times the gas was observed and honored rather than systematically captured.
The first clear practical use developed in China. From at least the Han dynasty (roughly the 2nd century BCE onward), salt producers in Sichuan drilled wells seeking underground brine. When natural gas came up with the brine, they put it to work. Workers used hollowed bamboo tubes—nodes removed, joints sealed with lacquered cloth or clay—to carry the gas to large pans where it was burned to evaporate the brine into salt. Later texts such as the Huayang Guozhi and especially Song Yingxing’s Tiangong Kaiwu (1637) describe the technique in detail.
Percussion drilling with bamboo tools gradually reached greater depths; by 1835 a well in the Zigong/Ziliujing area exceeded 1,000 meters. This bamboo pipeline network was the earliest known industrial-scale system for capturing and delivering natural gas.
Scientific Identification and the Manufactured-Gas Lighting Era
In 1776 the Italian scientist Alessandro Volta collected gas bubbles rising from the marshes of Lake Maggiore near Angera. He showed that the gas burned with a pale blue flame and was distinct from hydrogen. He called it “inflammable air of the marshes”—the substance we now know as methane, the main component of natural gas.
Around the same period in Britain, engineers learned to make gas from coal. In the early 1790s Scottish engineer William Murdoch distilled coal and piped the resulting gas through metal tubing to light his house and offices in Redruth, Cornwall. In 1812 the Gas Light and Coke Company received a royal charter in London and became the world’s first public gas utility, supplying manufactured coal gas for street lighting. Baltimore became the first American city to light a commercial building with gas in 1816. For most of the nineteenth century the “gas” used for lighting was manufactured from coal, not the natural gas found underground.
The Birth of the American Natural Gas Industry
In 1825, in the village of Fredonia, New York, gunsmith and tinsmith William Aaron Hart noticed gas bubbling from the shale bed of Canadaway Creek. He experimented by trapping gas under an inverted washtub, then drilled a shallow well—about 27 feet deep—into the rock. By late summer 1825 a crude gasometer held the gas, and hollowed wooden pump-logs sealed with tar-laden cloth carried it to nearby stores, shops, and a mill. The Fredonia Censor of 31 August 1825 reported that the buildings were “every evening lighted up with as brilliant gas lights as are to be found in any city.” Hart’s work is widely regarded as the first commercial natural gas well and delivery system in the United States; he is often called the father of the American natural gas industry. (The frequently repeated date of 1821 is a later popularization; contemporary records point to 1825.)
Production later declined. In the late 1850s Preston Barmore, related to Hart by marriage, drilled deeper wells nearby. When one well produced little gas, he lowered eight pounds of gunpowder and ignited it—an early form of fracture stimulation. The explosion was followed by a stronger flow. Gas was then moved through lead pipe to a larger gasometer in the village. The Fredonia Gas Light Company (also called the Fredonia Gas Light and Water Works Company) was organized around 1857–1858 and is considered the first formal natural gas company in the United States.
The Father of US natural gas, Preston Barmore
Father of The Natural Gas Industry
Preston Barmore (1831–c. 1861) was a young entrepreneur and early natural-gas developer in western New York who helped turn the Fredonia area’s shallow shale gas into a commercial utility.
He was born in 1831 in Forestville (sometimes spelled Forrestville), New York, about eight miles east of Fredonia. He attended Fredonia Academy (the forerunner of what is now SUNY Fredonia) from roughly 1847 to 1851 and was related by marriage to William Aaron Hart, the man who drilled the first commercial natural-gas well in the United States along Canadaway Creek in 1825.
When Hart’s early wells declined, Barmore stepped in. In 1856–1857 he organized local investors and helped form the Fredonia Gas Light and Water Works Company (incorporated 14 April 1857; later renamed the Fredonia Natural Gas Company). He served as the company’s secretary and superintendent. That year, at age 26, he drilled wells on the Risley farm along Canadaway Creek, less than a mile from Hart’s original site. One well reached about 122–127 feet.
When production was weak, Barmore lowered an 8-pound charge of gunpowder to roughly 122 feet, connected it to the surface with a tin tube, and dropped a red-hot iron down the tube to detonate the charge. The explosion increased the gas flow substantially. Researchers (notably Gary and Eileen Lash) describe this as the first documented intentional fracture stimulation of a shale-gas well—an early form of what would later be called fracking. He then used lead pipe to move the gas to a gasometer in the village, helped install street lamps, and saw the gas metered (around $4 per 1,000 cubic feet).
Barmore died young, around 1861 at about age 30, reportedly from the effects of alcoholism. Because of his short life he is often overlooked, yet some historians argue he deserves greater recognition as a pioneer of the natural-gas industry and as an early practitioner of reservoir thinking: he understood that fractures in the shale controlled gas flow and treated production, storage, and distribution as parts of a single business.
In short, while Hart opened the first commercial well, Barmore helped organize the first formal natural-gas company and performed the earliest recorded attempt to deliberately fracture a shale well to improve production.
First US gas well historical marker in Fredonia, NY
Fredonia, New York: Birthplace of America’s Natural Gas Industry
In 1825, a small village in western New York became the first community in the United States to capture natural gas from the ground and use it for practical lighting and commercial distribution. That village was Fredonia, on the banks of Canadaway Creek in Chautauqua County. Its story marks the humble beginning of what would grow into a nationwide energy industry.
The First Commercial Well
Gas had long bubbled up through the shale in Canadaway Creek. Local residents, including children, sometimes lit the bubbles for amusement. William Aaron Hart, a skilled local gunsmith and tinsmith, decided to put the gas to work. In the late spring or early summer of 1825 he drilled a shallow well—about 27 feet deep—into the rock along the creek. Contemporary accounts in the Fredonia Censor confirm the details.
Hart stored the gas in a simple gasometer (an early storage tank) and delivered it through short pipelines made of hollowed wooden logs sealed with tar-soaked cloth. By the end of August 1825, the gas was lighting several stores, shops, and a mill in the village. The local newspaper reported that the buildings were “every evening lighted up with as brilliant gas lights as are to be found in any city in this or any other country.” Visitors were impressed. The Marquis de Lafayette, passing through the area during his 1825 tour of the United States, is said to have remarked on the unusual lighting.
Hart’s well is recognized as the first commercial natural-gas well in the United States. He is often called the father of the American natural-gas industry. (A popular but incorrect date of 1821 still appears in some accounts; primary newspaper evidence places the well in 1825.)
From Local Experiment to Organized Utility
Hart’s early wells gradually declined. In the mid-1850s, a young relative by marriage named Preston Barmore took the next step. Born in 1831 in nearby Forestville, Barmore had attended Fredonia Academy. He organized local investors and helped establish the Fredonia Gas Light and Water Works Company, incorporated on April 14, 1857.
The company is widely regarded as the first formal natural-gas company in the United States. It was later renamed the Fredonia Natural Gas Company, and Barmore served as secretary and superintendent.
Barmore drilled new wells along Canadaway Creek, one of them reaching roughly 122–127 feet. When production was disappointing, he performed what researchers describe as the first documented intentional fracture stimulation of a shale-gas well. He lowered an eight-pound charge of gunpowder to about 122 feet, connected it to the surface with a tin tube, and dropped a red-hot iron down the tube to set it off. The explosion increased the flow of gas. Lead pipe then carried the gas to a larger gasometer in the village. By late 1858, gas street lamps were being installed, and usage was being metered—sold at about four dollars per thousand cubic feet.
Why Fredonia Matters
Fredonia’s achievement came decades before the better-known oil boom at Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859. While most American cities of the era used manufactured gas distilled from coal for lighting, Fredonia was using true natural gas taken directly from underground. The system was small and local—wooden logs and short runs of pipe—but it proved that natural gas could be captured, stored, delivered, and sold for everyday use.
The village seal still features a gas lamp with the words “First Gas Well,” a reminder of the claim. An inscribed boulder near the site of Hart’s well marks the location. Historians of the petroleum industry, including researchers Gary and Eileen Lash, have argued that both Hart and Barmore deserve more recognition for launching the natural-gas business in America.
From Village Lights to a National Fuel
What began with a 27-foot well and hollow logs in Fredonia eventually led to iron and steel pipelines, compressor stations, and the vast natural-gas network that now heats homes, powers electricity plants, and supplies water heaters across the continent. Fredonia’s early success showed that natural gas was not merely a curiosity or a scientific oddity—it was a practical fuel that could be collected and sold. In that sense, the village was the first American town to turn a natural seep into a commercial lighting and energy service.
The story of Fredonia is a reminder that large industries often start in small places, with practical people who notice something useful and find a way to put it to work.
Better Combustion and the First Gas Water Heaters
In 1855 German chemist Robert Bunsen, working with instrument maker Peter Desaga in Heidelberg, introduced a burner that mixed air with gas before ignition. The result was a hotter, cleaner, non-luminous blue flame. The principle became the foundation for practical gas stoves, furnaces, and later water heaters.
Once a controllable flame existed, dedicated water-heating appliances followed. In 1868 Londoner Benjamin Waddy Maughan received British Patent 3917 for the “Geyser,” the first practical instantaneous (tankless) domestic water heater that did not rely on solid fuel. Cold water flowed through pipes heated by a gas burner. Early versions lacked a proper flue, so combustion gases could enter the room—a safety limitation—but the idea of on-demand hot water heated by gas was established.
A major step toward today’s automatic storage heaters came in Pittsburgh. Norwegian-American engineer Edwin Ruud, working for the Fuel Gas and Manufacturing Company (associated with George Westinghouse), designed a tank heated from below by a gas burner whose valve was controlled by the temperature of the water. He patented the design on 30 December 1890 (U.S. Patent 443,797). The thermostat kept the stored water at a set temperature without constant attention. Ruud later left to found Ruud Manufacturing Company in 1897 and continued to improve both storage and instantaneous designs, including a coiled-tube automatic heater patented in 1898. His work is the direct ancestor of the automatic gas storage water heater found in millions of homes.
US Natural Gas Pipeline
Long-Distance Pipelines
Early delivery used short runs of hollow logs or small iron pipes. In 1891 the Indiana Natural Gas and Oil Company completed two parallel 120-mile, 8-inch wrought-iron pipelines from northern Indiana gas fields to Chicago. The lines operated at up to about 525 pounds per square inch—high pressure for the time—and required no compressors. This was the first major long-distance natural-gas pipeline in the United States and proved that gas could be moved beyond the immediate vicinity of a well.
Through the early twentieth century, better steel pipe, welding, and compressor stations extended the reach of natural gas. After World War II a massive expansion of high-pressure steel pipelines created the continental network that still supplies most American homes and businesses.
Liquefied Natural Gas and the Modern Era
Where pipelines cannot reach, natural gas can be cooled to about –260 °F (–162 °C), turning it into a liquid whose volume is roughly 1/600th of the gas. In 1959 the converted cargo ship Methane Pioneer carried the first ocean cargo of liquefied natural gas from the Lake Charles, Louisiana, area to Canvey Island in the United Kingdom.
Beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the combination of horizontal drilling and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing unlocked vast quantities of natural gas trapped in shale rock. The United States became one of the world’s largest producers and a major exporter. Raw gas from the well is gathered, processed to remove water, impurities, and natural-gas liquids, and given a small amount of odorant so leaks can be smelled. It then travels through high-pressure transmission pipelines to local distribution systems that deliver it to homes and businesses.
Natural Gas and Hot Water Today
Today natural gas generates roughly 40 percent of U.S. electricity. It is the main heating fuel in about 47 percent of occupied American homes (utility gas delivered by pipeline). It is widely used for cooking, clothes drying, and both storage-tank and tankless water heaters. The same improvements in capture, processing, and delivery that turned a local curiosity into a national fuel also made reliable, controllable hot water possible in ordinary households.
From bamboo pipes carrying gas to salt pans in ancient Sichuan, to hollow logs lighting a few buildings in Fredonia, to today’s continental pipeline grid and LNG ships, natural gas has traveled a long path. Its role in providing safe, on-demand hot water is one practical result of that journey from humble beginnings.