Video Links
- The Oil Farmer. CBC, The National. 4:00 minutes, October 22, 2012
Watch Now - Fairbank Oil Fields 19th Century Technology. YouTube. Jane Austin. 11 minutes
Watch Now - Fairbank Oil Fields Jerker System. YouTube. Jane Austin. 5.3 minutes
Watch Now - The James Rig, Fairbank Oil Properties, Gum Bed Line. Jane Austin. 6 minutes
Watch Now
Written for the Public
Reports, Journals & Books
- Oil Springs, Ontario: The Living Breathing Dinosaur
Essay by Charles Fairbank
The International Association for Preservation Technology (APT) Bulletin
Volume XLIX, No.1, 2018
Read Now - Lambton County Oil Heritage Conservation District Study, 2010
Read Now - Appendix to Lambton County Oil Heritage District Study, 2010
Read Now - Report of the Royal Commission on the Mineral Resources of Ontario and Measures for their Development 1890
Warwick & Sons, Toronto, ON
See pages 153-167 for Petroleum section on early technology of Oil Springs and Petrolia.
See page 160 for Foreign Drillers.
Read Now - Sketches of Creation,
by Alexander Winchell, 1870
Printed by Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York, U.S.A.
See pages 286-287, 443-444 for the 32 Flowing Wells of Oil Springs, Ontario in 1862.
Read Now - Oil Heritage Tour of Lambton County: The Birthplace of the Canadian Oil Industry
By Robert O. Cocherane & Charles O. Fairbank
Ontario Petroleum institute, London, ON, 2000
Read Now - Early and Later History of Petroleum
By J.T. Henry
Jas. B. Rodgers Co., Printers, Philadelphia, 1873
See pages 113-128 – Oil Fields of America
See pages 129-139 – The Canadian Oil Fields
See pages 140-179 – Foreign Oil Fields
Read Now - The Great Canadian Oil Patch, The Petroleum Era from Birth to Peak,
By Earle Gray
JuneWarren Publishing Ltd. Edmonton, AB, 2005
Read Now - Petroleum Technology in Ontario During the 1860s
By Dr. Norman Ball
Master Thesis, University of Toronto, 1972
Read Now - 19th Century Petroleum Technology
By Emory L. Kemp & Michael W. Caplinger
Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Archaeology
West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, 2007
Read Now - Canada’s Victorian Oil Town:
The Transformation of Petrolia from a Resource Town into a Victorian Community
By Christina Burr
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006
Read Now - The Heritage of the Oil Industry THEMATIC STUDY:
By James Douet, 2020
Read Now
Books in Print
A number of books listed in link below may be purchased at the Oil Museum of Canada in Oil Springs.
Oil Museum of Canada gift shop
- Canada’s Victorian Oil Town, The Transformation of Petrolia from a Resource Town into a Victorian Community
by Christina Burr
McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal PQ and Kingston ON, 2006 - The Story of Fairbank Oil: Four Generations of the Family Producing Oil Longer than Anyone in the World
by Patricia McGee
Words Unlimited Ink, Brown’s Printing, Petrolia, ON, 2004 - Ontario’s Petroleum Legacy: The birth, evolution and challenges of a global industry
by Earle Gray
Heritage Community Foundation, Edmonton, AB, 2008 - Hard Oiler! The Story of Early Canadians’ Quest for Oil at Home and Abroad
by Gary May
Dundurn Press, Toronto, ON, 1998 - Rivers of Oil
by Hope Morritt
Quarry Press, Inc., Kingston, ON, 1993
Technology
- The Oil Heritage Tour of Lambton County: The Birthplace of the Canadian Oil Industry
By Robert O. Cochrane and Charles O. Fairbank
Ontario Petroleum Institute Inc, printed by KKP Sarnia ON, 2000 - 19th Century Petroleum Technology in North America
by Emory L. Kemp and Michael W. Caplinger
Sponsored by the Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Archaeology & Charles Fairbank Properties, 2007 - Early Development of Oil Technology, Oil Tools and Stories
by Wanda Pratt and Phil Morningstar
Sponsored by the Oil Museum of Canada, Oil Springs ON 1987
Reference Books
- Lambton County’s Hundred Years 1849-1949
by Victor Lauriston Haines
Frontier Printing Company, Sarnia, ON, 1949 - John Henry Fairbank of Petrolia, 1831-1914, A Canadian Entrepreneur
by Edwards Phelps
Unpublished, available at the Lambton County Archives, Wyoming, ON, 1965