C. G. Hamill Interview

PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL Topic: The Lucas Gusher, Spindletop. Name: Hamill, Curt G. Interviewer: Owens, William A. Place: Kerrville, Texas. Tape No.: 16 Date: 7-17-52 Restrictions: No material to be published without written permission. H. - I'm Curt G. Hamill. I moved to Kerrville from San Antone [San Antonio] last March.

We moved here for the reason that my wife's health was not so good and she needed the higher climate.

As- and as both of us suffer with, more or less, throat trouble, from sulphuric gas that we encountered during the early days of the Beaumont oil field and also in Sour Lake and Batson Prairie.

I was born in Letrope County -- in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, the 24th day of June, 1872.

On account of Mother's health, my father moved to Waco, Texas, in 1876.

There was three boys in our family - Jim Hamill, the older; Curt G. Hamill; and Al Hamill, the younger.

Our mother died in, I believe, '79.

Some time later, during the yellow and black jaundice that prevailed up and down the Brazos River, Al Hamill was sent by my father back to live with an aunt in Pennsylvania.

I attended the public schools in Waco as well as the country school.

And after going through the fifth grade, I attended Baylor University. During my first year in Baylor I contracted -- contracted pneumonia.

And while eating my lunch outside of the building at noon the janitor threw a scuttle of cinders and ashes out the door which I got the full benefit of.

A little later, I seem to have keeled over and Dr. Burleson [?] picked me up and carried me over to the dormitory

and I spent three days and nights there for the reason that the doctor would not allow me to be carried home, while I just lived three miles away.

My father nursed me very carefully and after about six weeks, I was able to be up and about, but was not allowed to go back to school.

I spent possibly eighteen months or two years working around on the place, farming, different things.

Finally, I went into an agent business, selling smeething - smoothing irons.

I took the county of Bell and was very successful in placing these smoothing irons in that county.

While selling smoothing irons there, I met Eva Estelle Smith and finally made her my wife.

Now, the eighth day of October, 9-- 1893- Was that on then?-- we lived on a farm and- in Palls County for one year and then moved back to Waco and run a small farm there.

During my farming season in the Spring, I had quite a nice cotton crop and also ten acres of watermelons.

On Sunday, first Sunday in May possibly, it came a hailstorm and there was nothing left of my crop.

Both my cotton and my watermelons were absolutely a wreck.

So I went to work for a man who owned a small bunch of cattle. His name was Gus Griple [?].

I worked for him quite a while and run his little dairy, and made butter.

And later he decided to sell his herd, which he did to J. S. McClinnen, who was a banker in Waco. He sold his herd, providing I would go with the herd.

So I did, and for a year or more I made butter and seen after this man's Jersey herd which consisted of possibly a hundred cows.

I made butter for the Carons, the Sangers, the Clarks, and other responsible people of Waco during my term there.

O.- Which Clark was that? Was it the one who was running against Governor Hogg?

H.- It was the Clark that was running against Governor Hogg.

In about 1891, or '92, Jim Hamill went to work for Fowler and McGillery [?] on the first well that was drilled in Waco for artesian water.

This come in a big well so Jim stayed in that line of business for a number of years.

During this time, Al Hamill had spent his days in Pennsylvania, and Jim Hamill decided that he'd like to have the brother Al come and be with him.

So he came to Texas and after a year or two they went in together contracting the drilling and cleaning out and pulling casing in the field of Corsicana.

They were quite successful there in that line of business.

During my dairy work there, Jim Hamill paid a visit to my father and also myself at Waco,

and at this particular time he advised me that I'd better come and go in the oil field and work for them,

that he would give me $55 a month to work for them and I could learn the business,

which would be more profitable to me in the future than running a dairy.

So, after a few weeks consideration, I decided to do this, and I moved to- I went to Corsicana. I went to work, and--

O.- How did your father feel about your going?

H.- Well, my- my father didn't want me to go.

He said that having been down with this pneumonia and all that I was just - wouldn't be physically fit to go through the work I'd have to do.

And he did everything possible, in his power, to keep me from going to the field.

But, through my determination, I went, and I worked on-- both on cable tools and clean-out tools for possibly a year or more.

During this time, the rotary business and the cable business in Corsicana had developed some kind of a friction,

and the rotary work was being done by practical contractors for as little as 35 cents a foot while the standard tools was charging 75 cents a foot.

So, during this time, I advised Jim that If he wanted to stay in business that he should get into the rotary business.

After some consideration, thoughtful thinking of the business, he come to me and told me that if I would go on this rotary machine, he would buy it and do rotary work as well as cable work now.

The reputable contract-- rotary contractors in Corsicana at the early-- in the early days was Sharp Brothers, the Sturm Brothers, and others that I can't think of at this time. I-

O.- Excuse me. You were telling me about a race between the Sharp brothers and the Sturm brothers.

H.- Yes, they- they made a race on a- on a well and the Sharp brothers was successful.

They finished their well in about 36 hours, while the Sturm brothers, I understand, was about 38 hours.

Both wells were completed and made producing wells.

O.- What kind of work had you been doing to this date?

H.- Well, I had been working on a Star machine which we called a grasshopper. We pulled casing and we also cleaned wells with cable tools.

At times when this rig was shut down, I generally did some roustabout work or dressed tools on- on a standard drilling rig.

O.- What's the difference between a tool dresser and a roughneck?

H.- Well, a tool dresser is a man that's working on cable tools while a roughneck is a fellow that has-- that does his work on a rotary machine.

This started in the early days of the business and I don't know just when, but that was established when I went into the oil fields.

A man who worked on cable tools was a "toolie" or a tool dresser, while the man that worked on the rotary tools was a roughneck.

O.- At what time did Mrs. Hamill move to Corsicana?

H.- I went to Corsicana some time during the summer or spring ahead of Mrs. Hamill.

O.- Of what year? 1898?

H.- But- 90- in the year of 90-- 1898, and Mrs. Hamill come to Corsicana on the 19th day of June that same year.

I had leased a-- or rented a house in Corsicana and we lived in this house during my stay on cable tools.

When we moved to the rotary tools, I had moved to another house which was more convenient for us.

And I worked on this rotary rig for some time and then I was given the night drilling job, but I only used a fireman and we never pulled our pipe at night,

but the day crew furnished us with a sharp bit and we'd run all night and the next morning the day crew would take on and put a sharp bit, pull the pipe,

and they would run all day and leave a sharp bit in the hole that night for me to work with.

During my roughnecking on the rotary machine, I only drew $55 a month, but when I was advanced and given a night run, they gave me $65 a month for this work.

I worked on this until the contract was made and I was shipped to Beaumont.

At that time, I was given $80 a month, my board and my lodging in the camp.

Some time in 1900, Hamill Brothers was offered a contract to drill a well by Guffey and Galey on what was known as Spindletop, near Beaumont, Texas.

Jim Hamill, during his early days, had met up with Mr. Galey or some of his field supervisors and it was through this connection that he was offered the drilling of this well at Beaumont, which after some consideration, he did.

I was Instructed to go to Beaumont with this drilling rig and help on the making of this well.

And I was loading the machinery to go to Beaumont when a trainload of provisions and spoils for the sufferers of the Galveston storm--

this was possibly a day or two before the first of October, because we landed at Beaumont about the first of October to go to work on this particular well.

I had very little knowledge of the trade that had been made between Guffey and Galey other than Jim Hamill had told me that he was not working for Captain Lucas,

but- as he had never known him before- but was working directly with Guffey and Galey. So I had not met Captain Lucas until I arrived at Beaumont.

Some time during a visit with him, he told me of his experience in drilling one or more wells - I believe, two - on the Spindletop field but had lost all his wealth trying to do this.

But he had saved up a small vial of oil that come out of one of these wells, and that he had carried this vial of oil to Corsicana and showed it to J. S. Cullinan

and tried to interest him in making a well or joining him on this Beaumont adventure.

Mr. Cullinan finally came down to Beaumont and went out to Spindletop and, after going over the field, told Lucas he wouldn't drill it with counterfeit money, but if he would contact Guffey and Galey,

they- as they had done quite a good deal of wildcatting in Texas and other states, that they might be interested in drilling this particular property.

Some time later, Lucas did go to Pittsburgh and encountered Mr. Guffey's officers,

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and In due time Mr. Galey came to Beaumont and, as Mr. Lucas was in Louisiana looking over some sulphur or salt holdings or prospects,

Mrs. Lucas carried Mr. Galey over the land and showed her-- him the gas seepage in this old seepage box.

Mr. Galey put up a stick and said, "We'll drill our first well here. And we will join the Captain in his undertaking."

During the time, or the latter part of 1900, the crew who worked on the Lucas well lived in a warehouse, or a little building that Captain Lucas had put up for his shop and workmen during the time he was drilling his little work.

The men who made up the crew for the Lucas Well and left Corsicana to build the derrick, was Henry McLeod, derrick builder;

Al Hamill, contractor; Peck Byrd was supposed to be the fireman; and I was supposed to be-- Curt Hamill, the driller and all around helper out there.

When we arrived at Beaumont, we had a four-mule team and we had provisions for ourselves and hay and feed for the mules.

We also had a white boy with us to do our cooking.

On our way out Pearl Street, one of the mules got down in the mud and we had to cut the tugs of the mule- of the harness, in order for this mule to get out to keep from being drowned. That's a fact.

O.- It was that bad, huh?

H.- On arriving at our destination, we found our little camp house had to be cleaned out and there was oodles of

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little white and green, different colored frogs all around the top, around the roof.

And when we'd be eating our meals, even for several days after, those little old frogs would jump and land right in on our table, sometimes in our butter.

And we had no ice. Everything was warm, and that butter would slide there over our table. Well, we had a lot of fun even at that.

Mosquitoes were bad. They was almost galanippers.

Grass was high as the fences and mosquitoes would rise out of that grass and we had lots of difficulties fighting the mosquitoes,

O.- Did you have any screens?

H.- No screens on the house whatsoever, but we got mosquito bar and put mosquito bar over our windows, which were wood. And we protected ourselves all we could.

O.- Did you have any sort of mosquito dope?

H. - No, I don't recall that we did.

O.- You just suffered them.

H.- We just- we just took our medicine, and did the best we could.

O.- Well, what about your derrick now?

H.- Well, that was the first job, to build our derrick.

The timber was wet, right out of the Neches River, and green, of course. And the timber wasn't sized then as it is today.

One end of a two by ten would be an inch and a half thick at one end and two and a half inches thick at the other end, and it was really hard for us to handle.

Neither of us had ever built a derrick.

Henry McLeod claimed to be a derrick- know something about building a derrick, but on arriving there, we found he didn't know any more than we did.

So we planned this derrick. We made us a pattern.

We knew how big the bottom of the derrick was, the base, and we knew how big the top of the derrick was supposed to be, so we made us a pattern, and laid it right out on the ground, a pattern just like a woman patterned an apron.

And we sawed- started from the base, laid our base down and put up our first girth. Then we sawed timber for the next section, and so on until we reached the top.

O.- About how- how high was it?

H.- My recollection, the old Lucas derrick was 84 feet.

O.- And how soon after the derrick was built did you start drilling?

H.- We started right away to moving our machinery in and setting up. We was possibly ten or twelve days building the derrick and getting ready to start drilling.

O.- I wonder if you remember many details about the kind of equipment that you had, boiler and so on?

H.- Yes, our equipment was- our boiler was F & T [Feren and Treft]. My recollection it was a 25 horse boiler, F & T boiler.

The engine was an Oilwell Supply, Wolf gear, and our pumps were- we had two 8 x 10 Smithvale pumps, and they were set up just outside of the derrick floor on an extra scaffold from the derrick floor.

Our rotary was a Chapman rotary. Our draw works was some make that I couldn't tell you what they were.

O.- Yes, sir.

H.- But, it- the entire machine, after being set up, was possibly as good a machine as there was at that time.

O.- Yes, sir.

[break]

H.- .... derrick. We had teams digging our slush pit. This pit was about 15 to 16 feet wide, 30 feet long, and possibly three feet deep, and was finished in red Beaumont clay at the bottom.

Our boiler pit was dug by hand. We dug this boiler pit after we had completed the derrick and possibly setting up of the machinery.

We started this well with water from a little gulley, or a bayou, possibly 700 feet from the well, location.

We had a pump down at this little bayou and we had a three-quarter inch steamline laid from the boiler down to the pump, and from the pump back to the pit.

And the boiler pit was one inch pipe, which was our discharge water line.

We had a-- a crosshead pump on our engine. We also had a little two-by-four, or about that size, pump that was stationary on the side of our boiler.

These two pumps was our water supply from this bayou, but later we had to drill a water well under the derrick on account of losing all the water that we could possibly get out of the bayou, pumping it dry.

O.- Uh-huh. H. - So we was forced to drill this water well.

At this time, we started drilling our hole.

We started with a 12-inch bit and we immediately, below the surface, went into a water sand.

We fought this sand losing our water and everything for several days. We finally set three joints of 10-inch casing.

After this casing had been set, we went inside of the 10-inch pipe with a 9 and a 7/8's bit, but immediately went into more water sand.

This was very difficult for us as we had never drilled in loose sand prior to this time. And we had to have- get our own experience, and fight the sand the best way we could.

We knew that several wells had been started on this particular hill or section that had only been able to get about 400 feet deep and the holes were practically lost where they couldn't go any deeper.

So we was determined to make this hole 1200 feet as that was our contract

O.- Yes, sir.

H.- So we pulled bits one after another there and fought this sand until we decided that we'd just set our 8-inch pipe and then drive it into the sand as far as we could.

We formed a - this was done by keeping our drillpipe inside of the 8-inch casing with a full-sized bit at the bottom.

We built a drive block out of 18 by 6 timbers and they were about eight feet long.

We put a 4 by-- 6 by 6 in the back of these timbers which made a "U" out of the timber, 8 feet long, let's say.

Then we put bolts through the other side so that the thing couldn't get off our pipe.

We had our cathead line, a one-inch Manila line, tied to this block and over the derrick, and used it on our cathead for power.

And we pulled that line, raised the block, throw the line loose and let it fall. Used it as a drive block.

And this way we spent 12, 15, maybe 20 days, working in this way, and finally drove our pipe down some below 400 feet and hit some gumbo. We got through the sand with the pipe, onto this shale or gumbo.

And at that point, the casing was stuck and we then cleaned up our sand. We would wash inside of that pipe, see.

We kept our pump pressure going at different times, and wash all sand that accumulated up in the pipe and keep it clear,

wash the sand away from the bottom of the 8-inch pipe, and pound it and that way we was able to drive on down and finally get through this bed of sand.

O.- Yes, sir. Do you know if this device had been used before

H. - I'd never heard of it.

O.- Yes, sir. Who got the idea for it?

H.- Well, it possibly just developed there amongst the crew.

O.- Uh huh.

H.- But Captain Lucas may have give the idea. I wouldn't know.

O.- Yes, sir. H.- I just don't recall who did. I know we made the block there on the place and fixed it all up and I disremember just whether it was Al's idea or my idea or....

Unidentified voice.- Daddy!

H.- The eight-inch pipe being set, we then started inside with a seven and 7/8's drill bit.

We got in and we went through this shale and had several continued bits of the shale and it made us a little muddy water which give us an idea that with heavier water we could do better.

O.- Yes, sir.

H. - We eventually went into another pocket of sand, about 640 - maybe 700 feet, and lost all our returns. We would get a plug bit.

We'd have to pull out. We'd go back in the hole and start and just as quick as we got a load of sand coming up, down it would go. We'd lose all our returns.

The water would rush back to the bottom of the hole and into the sand.

Then the sand would rush up into our four-inch, fill our drill pipe up six or eight feet. So we'd have to pull pipe again. This was done several times.

And at this- about this point, our-- we run out of water. After losing all our water in that sand. We was running out of water and pumping lots of water out of this well.

It had cut our little steam jet, water jet that was in the well, it had cut it out. And at this point, also, we run out of wat- wood. A car of wood had been ordered. So our nigger come

[break]

up about this time, our wood man, who was a fairly young nigger man, said the car of slabs had not been sent and that we were out of wood.

So we had pulled the pipe out of the hole, plug bit.

And at -- and so Al said at this time, "I'll have to go and rustle up some wood, and I'll also take this water jet and have it repaired or get a new one."

And he told Peck Byrd to put the bits and all the material that was there in his buckboard and he left

with instructions for us to pull the water-- to wash the water well out, the sand out of the water well,

and to clean the slush pit out and then to chip the rotary table if we could get to it.

O.- Now, will you give me the full details of your trouble with this sand?

H. - Yes, we had plenty of trouble trying to do something in this loose water sand.

I wish to give my full version of making of a pit of mud that was made and used during the month of December, 1900,

on what was called the Lucas Well and was the discovery well at Spindletop, near Beaumont, Texas.

About three days prior to making the mud we encountered a coarse water sand that gave us lots of trouble.

We had pulled three or four plug bits. When the bit was taken off the pipe, there would be two to six feet of sand in the pipe.

We had just pulled a plug bit when the wood wagon drove up with a few pine slabs. He said that was all the slabs

-16- that was at the railroad switch. The car of slabs expected had not been placed.

Our water well was under the derrick floor, had been stopped producing, so we pulled its steam jet and found it was cut with sand, too bad to be of any further use.

Al Hamill, the contractor, said we would not go back in the hole until some wood could be had. Our supply was almost gone.

He told Will -- Peck Byrd to put two 7 and 7/8 drill bits in the buckboard and told -- and told the two of us to wash the water well, clean the ditches and the slush pit.

The pit was full of sand. He also told us to repair the rotary table if we could get to it.

He was gone to hustle some wood. This was about 10 o'clock in the morning.