C. G. Hamill Interview - C. G. Hamill Interview [part 2 of 5]

PIONEERS IN TEXAS OIL Topic: The Lucas Gusher, Spindletop. Name: Hamill, Curt G. Interviewer: Owens, William A. Place: Kerrville, Texas. Tape No.: 17 Date: 7-17-52 Restrictions: No material to be published without written per-mission.

This was about 10 o'clock in the morning.

As soon as Al had gone, we told the wood hauler, who was a colored man, to go to his headquarters which was Reverend Chaney's home, and corral, and have him send teams and equipment to clean the slush pit.

It was about two o'clock when the teams arrived at the well.

They had six mules, four mules to the wagon and leading two mules behind the wagon, four colored men and a white man who rode a pony.

They had a heavy walking plow and a Fresno scraper on the wagon, also some chain and a wire cable about 40 feet long.

The mules- the mules could not be put in the pit so a long chain was used.

The mules were some 20 feet from the Fresno.

The mules were at the--two mules were at the other end of the pit and a 1/2 inch steel cable, about forty feet long, was used to pull the Fresno back into the pit where it was loaded by

two colored men.

The wire line was released from the Fresno and the chain fastened to-- to the four mules, the loaded Fresno- pulled the loaded Fresno out of the pit, where the same two men dumped it.

The chain was released and a wire line fastened as before and the Fresno was pulled back into the pit.

In this way the work was done until the mules could be put into the pit to finish the job.

It was almost sundown.

The men were through and fixing to leave.

Reverend Chaney, who was a rice farmer and did our team work, rode up on a pony.

They were his teams.

He wanted to know why so much sand.

We told him of the sand strata that we had.

We told him if we could get some heavy, muddy water, it might help us.

He said he could make us all the muddy water we wanted.

We told him we would like to have it now while the pit was clean.

He said the teams and men would be there the next morning to do the job if we wanted it.

We talked over just how the mud should be made.

Our contractor, Al Hamill, was not there, so Peck Byrd and myself decided to have the mud made.

O.- All right.

H.- The teams arrived at the well early in the morning having the same equipment that was used in cleaning the pit the day before.

This time a plow was used.

The bottom of the pit was clay.

They plowed it shallow, then deeper, and then deeper until the plow had gone down at least ten inches.

Then we started to pump water from the bayou into the pit.

This was slow as the pump was very small and some 600 or 700 feet

from the boiler.

A 3/4-inch steam line from the boiler to the pump and a one-inch water line from the pump to the pit was what had been used at all times.

O.- All right.

H.- The derrick had a 20-foot base and there was 1200 feet of six-inch pipe stacked on the ground that made a wall possibly three feet high.

This made a real fence for more than 40 feet on that side of the slush pit.

The wood wagon with four mules was placed across in front of the-- one end of the pit and tied to the leg of the derrick.

Six mules were put to the wagon that had the Fresno and plow on It.

They were placed on the opposite side of the pit from the derrick and the lead mules were tied to the back of the wood wagon.

This made a good coral or fence except for the entrance to the pit.

At this time, Mr. John, as the darkies called him, left on his pony for the cows.

The cows had been driven to a gate in a small pasture some four or 500 yards sway.

In a short time, Mr. John came back riding in front of the cows.

The colored men--two colored men, on horseback were driving the cows.

The mules had been tied to the derrick and were turned enough so Mr. John rode through the pit leading the cattle.

When the- when he got through the pit, the mules were tied back to the derrick, closing the trap that had been planned, excepting the entrance.

One pony was tied to the derrick and one to the iron wheel of the wagon.

Mr. John tied his pony to the horn of the saddle of one pony, but these ponies, two

men, kept the cows in the pit. About twelve inches of water was in the pit at this time.

It was no small job getting the cows in the pit.

Some of the herd got away, but there was plenty put in the pit to do the job.

The cows were allowed some ten to- some time to get settled before they were made to move around.

A man stood on each ledge.

He would poke the cows on the back with a long whip that was used to drive four or six mules in those days.

The cows were left in the pit about four hours.

Water was being pumped in the pit all the time.

The cows did a good job as we found the plowed place to be a muck when we got back to work.

While the cows were doing their work, Peck and myself were chipping the rotary table and keeping the water pump going.

The following morning we made a double swing on a two-inch valve that was used for a release of pressure from the manifold between our two mud pumps and reduced it to one inch.

From there we used a joint of one-inch pipe that carried the water back into the pit and stirred the water from the bottom of the pit with pump pressure.

We kept doing this until Al Hamill returned.

All arrived at the well about three o'clock that evening.

We were circulating muddy water.

Peck was firing the boiler and watching the pump.

I was holding the one-inch joint of pipe- pipe.

Al wanted to know what we were doing. Peck told him. He said, "That will do no good."

Peck told him the machinery work had all been done and we were ready to go drilling any time.

Al told Peck to get a new cathead line and the seven and 7/8 bits that had been dressed and

some fittings from his buckboard.

Al shut the steam off the pump and said, "Let's get this jet in the well so we can fill the pit with water."

Pardon me a minute. [break]

H.- All said 'there would be plenty of wood here by night to start drilling in the morning.'

He had secured dry cork, wood, several wagon loads of pine knots, and a car of slabs that had been sent at the railroad switch.

All of this was delivered on time and we had no more shortages.

We put the new jet in the water well and it did fine.

The discharge was three-quarters of an inch.

We talked Al into filling the boiler pit first as the water was low in it.

Peck brought in -- brought a four-inch collar from the buckboard that had been made into a drill bit by putting a steel blade across in a slot with a rod through the blade and both sides of the collar, and ribbed it at both ends.

Al said he would use that collar for our drill bit as it would not get plugged with sand.

We started in the hole with the drill bit and got to the bottom of the eight-inch casing by quitting time.

Al was much sold on his new drill collar, the blade.

Peck and myself were sold on the mud idea.

That night we talked over what and how it had been done and Chaney had advanced the idea, and, Al not being there, we had mud made. [break]

H. - The following morning, Al decided not to put any more water in the slush pit until we had found if the mud was of value so we went to circulating water as before and did this until the water was red and thick.

We finished going in the hole.

When we reached the sand, we lost almost half of our muddy water.

The heav-- the heavier mud carried a quantity of roots and chunks of mud that gave us lots of trouble.

The foot valves were taken off the pumps' suctions and the heavy mud was rigged to the suction and went through the pump into the well.

We had lots of pump trouble but got through the strata of sand that day and into gumbo.

Peck ran the pump until midnight that night and Al went out at midnight and ran the pump until that morning.

This was done until we had gotten through all of our trouble.

(I put that in extra.)

He had made about four feet of hole in the gumbo, and had not lost any more water.

When Peck and myself got back on the job with him, Al said he could not make any headway with the blade so we pulled it and ran a fishtail bit.

The bit went to the bottom of the hole which was gumbo.

It made some mud and we had no more sand trouble.

Six-inch pipe was set on the 24th day of December without any trouble.

Did this bit of mud save the Lucas Well?

After the gusher came in, Jim Sharp learned about the mud and made the first mud mixer that was made on the Spindle-top Field which was proved to be a success and almost every

drilling rig in the field had a mud mixer patterned after the Sharp machine.

Mr. Sharp told me after looking at his mud machine, that if it hadn't been for Peck and myself and Reverend Chaney making the mud with the cattle, he would not have thought of making this mud mixer.

Some three or four days prior to Peck's sudden death, he and I rode together from Houston to the Hull Oilfield, and that day we talked over all about this pit of mud that we had made at Spindletop and decided that we should put it into writing or a story that both of us would sign and- sign that.

Peck died suddenly and nothing was done about it and I feel now that I am doing what he would have me to do and take the authority of giving him as much credit as is given to the Reverend Chaney and myself.

O.- Do you remember when he died, about when?

H.- No, I can't-- I can't tell you when he- when Peck died.

O.- Do you have the approximate date in mind?

H.- No, but it was about the time the Hull Oilfield came in, which must have been about 25 years ago or more.

We talked over everything that we had done that day on the Lucas-- in making of the Lucas Well.

And we both thought that in the near future we would put everything down in black and white in order that the oil fraternity could someday have it and do with it as they wanted to.

O.- You'd never heard before of anyone using mud

H. - No. No, I'd never heard, and I don't think Al had, of mud being made for that purpose.

And I'm sure that no oil wells had been using it.

There might have been some oil wells that we had never heard of, possibly did use it, but we had never heard of it and it was new to us.

And that was our best method of preparing the mud so we could mix it into drilling mud.

O.- Yes, sir.

H.- During our drilling, after having our sand troubles, we run [sic] into a gas sand and it blew out and give us some little trouble for possibly 30 or 40 minutes but no damage was done other than it blew the sand and water and mud, such as we had, out of the hole.

But we cleaned everything up and went right back to drilling without any trouble.

We had gotten down to some 900 and 20 or 30 feet. I disremember exactly where the six was set.

But, anyhow, on the 24th of December, we set our six-inch pipe and shut down and went home to Corsicana to be with out families for Christmas.

O.- You felt you needed a holiday, I'm sure.

H.- Yes. We was [sic] pretty well worn out at that time, and we really needed a few days vacation.

We spent our Christmas and returned to the- and was back at work on the first day of January.

I brought Mrs. Hamill with me, my family, and we had a cottage, out about- between the well and-- between

the P.G. track and Spindletop, closer to the P. G. track than it was to the well.

O.- Yes, sir. And you had children at that time?

H.- We had four children at that time and Mrs. Hamill, while she had a Negro boy to help her, took care of the well crew from then on, till the time the well was finished.

O.- They stayed at your house, then?

H.- They stayed at my house.

And Al had a buckboard that we went back and forth to work in.

And he also used this buck-board to go back and forth to Beaumont or to wherever he had to tend to things.

And, of course, contractors those days were just as they are today.

He had to go on-- do errands and things like that and left just Peck and myself at the well to do the job.

This man, McLeod,had only stayed with us about a week or ten days.

O.- Yes, sir.

H.- When we started the well till he quit and left.

O.- So you were really running with a very limited crew.

E.- Our-- our crew was very limited.

O.- How many hours a day do you think you were working during that period?

H.- We had no hours. We worked from as early as we could to as late as we could.

Sometimes we were on all night.

One man would go in and sleep and the other one would come back and.

O.- Stand and watch.

H.- And keep the boiler hot and keep the pump going through the hole, the water circulating through the hole. Sometimes there was only one man there. Very often there was only one man. doing that.[break]

H.- Before we set our six-inch pipe at about nine hundred and ten to twenty feet, we found a sand that produced some oil.

We set a- a perforated pipe with a ordinary bedsheet wrapped around it in this sand and, of course, the pressure of the sand pushed right through this bedsheet and through the perforated pipe and sanded the well up.

But we did have some oil.

And-- but we abandoned that idea and went on to finish our contract and set the casing, the eight-in-- the six-inch casing through this sand.

After we went back to drilling through our six-inch pipe, after the 1st of January, we encountered a little gas and possibly a small showing of oil, but we travelled on until the 10th day of January, and we'd gotten into a rock that we couldn't do much with and the - the bit would go down some three or four feet into this rock but we couldn't turn it.

We decided our bit was dull so we pulled our pipe and in going back in the hole, with this pipe -- we'd gotten in possibly to 700 feet - all at once the well blew in, blew the water and mud out of the hole that we had and come in a pure-D oil well.

O. - Where were you when this happened?

H.- When the-- I was in the derrick.

It was customary with us for Al to run the drawworks when we was [sic] pulling in and going back in the hole.

Al was running the- I was in the derrick at this time and I couldn't tell you how I got down, but when I got down the driller had left the clutch in the drawworks and I got down in time to kick the clutch out, and by this time the pipe was going out the top of the derrick.

And the other men had ran [sic] and got out of the way and, of course, I did the same thing.

I ran as hard as I could, and got away from the falling pipe, and no one was hurt from any of the blowout or the falling pipe.

O.- Well, what happened next?

H.- Well, the well, of course, was blowing wild and hundreds of people come out there to see the well and I was-- Captain Lucas had been notified that the well was blowing wild and when he got there, why, there were several people had broke [sic] through the fence and was down at the well.

And he called my attention to it that he was going to have me deputized and give me a shotgun and we'd keep everybody out for the reason he didn't want his well burnt up.

O. - How did they get the word to Captain Lucas anyway?

H.- Well, Al sent Peck Byrd in his buckboard over to Captain Lucas' house.

O.- Yeah.

H.- The Captain was in Beaumont at that time, so Mrs. Lucas phoned and finally located him in Beaumont and, of course, everybody went wild and that was the way the thing started.

Then, too, McFaddin was building a rice barn about 300 yards of the well.

The framework had all been up and there was lots of boards there, lots of timber, around there and the carpenters, four, five or six of them, were working on this building.

Well, they come off that building just like rats when that well blew in and all of them was there, possibly, horseback, and they too got the news scattered to Beaumont and other places.

O.- Yes, sir. Did you see Captain Lucas when he got back from Beaumont?

H.- Oh, yes. I was there. When Captain Lucas come in there, he was very much excited.

He hugged every man on the job.

Practically squeezed me in too as he did Al and Peck Byrd.

And he was very much elated-- elated over what had happened, but didn't know what he was going to do with the wild well.

There was no tankage in the country.

The oil was going out just like a river in the lowlands that they intended to put in rice, and there was no way of stopping the well at that particular time.

O.- Yeah. Well, I'd like to know, what time did the well come in?

H.- My recollection, it was about 10:30 or maybe 11 o'clock in the morning.

O.- And that afternoon there were a great number of people out there?

H. - Oh, there was everybody- you couldn't get a livery stable buggy in Beaumont.

There was no means of travel left in Beaumont.

It had all been taken up.

People come there afoot, horseback, in buggies, and wagons, from every direction, and it was really a problem keeping them away from the well.

The grass was high as the fence and it was saturated in an hour's time, as wet as it could get with oil, and it was dangerous.

O.- Weren't you also saturated?

H.- Oh, we was [sic] all wet with oil for ten days, soaked just as wet with oil as we ever was [sic] with water, for ten days till we got the gate on there.

O.- Did any of the people refuse to stay out from the well?

H. - Yes, when Captain Lucas first got out to the well, after surveying everything, why, he wanted to go back to Beaumont and send Mr. Galey a wire.

So he told us to keep everybody away from the well.

So a little later there was one man who would pay no attention to our instructions and our advising him to stay away from the well.

He crawled through the fence and started for the well.

He'd gotten 50 yards through the fence when I caught up with him and I walked on and talked

v;ith him and begged him to return and he said, "No."

He says, "You don't know who you're talking to."

He says, "I was born and raised right here in this section and I'm going to that oil well."

And he went.

By the time he got to the well, there was [sic] three or three- three or four other men crawled through the fence and they also come [sic] to the well.

By the time Captain Lucas got back, there was possibly men around the well, got down as close as they could.

And Captain Lucas blew up and said he was going to authorize the men to use a shotgun and get me deputized and all these things if I had to do that to keep the people out.

O.- Was he an excitable man, do you think?

H.- Well, he was excited that time.

I don't think Captain Lucas was-- you'd call him an excitable man at all, but he was excited at that time and he was very much elated as anyone would be on an occasion of that kind.

O.- What was done on the following days for protection of the well?

H.- Well, Peck Byrd and myself was [sic] there every minute of the day, from sun-up until sundown, or later.

And on Sunday morning there was possibly five or six hundred people gathered in this little pasture that was known as the Higgins tract of land.

There was a gate on one end of this tract of land and that was the only entrance to get in.

That's where the people come in to see the well.

They got as close as they were allowed to go.

On this Sunday morning we'd had a heavy frost, and it was really cold on this Sunday morning.

I got to the fire first and I pulled off my slicker coat and I went to fighting the fire with this slicker coat.

Directly, Peck got there and he pulled off his slicker coat and we both fought the fire all we could.

We burned our slicker coats up.

We then pulled off our jumpers; we burned them up.

And we pulled off our shirts and we closed that off.

And by this time, some of these men had begin [sic] to return.

They saw it wasn't going to blow and they began to gather.

So there was possibly 20 men returned and helped us to fight the fire, but we put them to carrying boards from this barn.

These boards was 16, maybe 20, feet long some of them.

They'd carry them boards and throw them over the fence.

And Peck and myself would get them boards and throw them on this fire.

And the fire was narrow and burning at a distance and spreading at all times, but by throwing those boards down, we would

flop out 16 to 20 feet of fire at one lick.

But we had to leave those boards there a little while.

If we didn't the fire sprung up again.

Sometimes, we had to throw two boards down on the same place.

It was that way.

But in this way and with this amount of boards that we used, which we possibly used 50 or 75 boards, the fire had burnt over something than an acre of ground before we got it out.

But we did put the fire out with those boards and the burning up of our clothes.

O.- No one hurt at all?

H.- No one was hurt other than we-- our faces was [sic] blistered, hands were blistered.

O.- Yes, sir.

H.- No one else was hurt except Peck and myself and our- we wasn't [sic] burnt.

Curt was just blistered a little.

O.- Yeah. Were you given a special reward for your work?

H.- Well, we was-- we was given a suit of new overalls and a jumper and our rainwear.

O.- How did you finally cap the well?

H. - The well was capped by making- by clearing all machinery off the floor.

We took all the boards off the floor down to the ground.

We dug two holes on either side of the casing and we buried two timbers about six feet in the ground.

Eight- these timbers were six inches thick, eighteen inches broad, and about ten feet long.

We had rods from these two timbers up as high as we was gonna have our gate valve, above

our gate valve.

Then we took two 4 x 12 timbers and we put them on either side of the derrick, bolted these timbers to the legs of the derrick.

And I would say four feet above them we bolted two more light timbers on the sides of the derrick.

On our first timbers, the lower timbers, we placed two railroad irons.

On the upper timbers, we placed two 8 x 10 sills.

These sills were- timbers and railroad irons were fastened together with planks and boards, shape of a box that was long enough to clear through our derrick on either side, and about four feet beyond the derrick on either side.

Our gate valves and fitting that was to go over this- onto this well, were bolted into this framework.

And prior to this time, our casing, our six-inch casing that had been placed in the well, had no threads on top.

The casing had been belled over with a sledge hammer, so we had to cut that bell.

And prior to the building of this framework that I mentioned, we cut this bell off with chisels, and hammers and cleavers.

We didn't realize.... O.- Was oil raining all over you?

H. - We was as wet with water- with oil as we could get with water.

We could all stand there two minutes at a time, or three at the very most, because the gas would overcome us.

We didn't realize the danger we was in and the Lord was with us, no doubt, at that time. [end of tape]

H.- After this piece was cut off, this framework was built and we put a block and line out in the lead of the derrick.

Put a two-inch pipe down behind some stobs and the wire line rolled on this two-inch pipe and we pulled this framework over with chain tongs, rolling that-- and drawing that--

When we got the pipe over the string of oil, as we did with-out a babble, we loosened the clamps and the pipe with the connections and gate valve, slid down into the threads of the eight-inch pipe that had been set and drove with the block of wood.

And we had cement between the six-inch pipe and the eight-inch pipe, which was possibly the first well that was ever cemented, but it's very doubtful if that cement did us any good.

But we had pounded rope around between the six and the eight, pounded down just as tight as we could possibly pound it in there.

We put cement.

Then we put another ring or two of rope on top of that cement, and so on.

While that cement was wet with oil, we don't know whether it was set or not, but the gate valve was put on.

It was all planned by the crew and it was put on.

It was a successful job.

No one was hurt; only I was the one to close the gate valve and I was overcome with gas which was the first person to be gassed in the Gulf Coast.

O.- Did anyone else offer to do this job?

H.- There was a man come out to the well with a telegram from Mr. Galey telling Al to allow this man who was an engineer, hydraulic engineer, to go in and get measures of the pipe with the intention of putting a gate on It.

While he was working, getting these measures, which he really failed to do, I told Al that I felt we would be foolish to allow any-one to put the gate on until we had made an effort and found out that we couldn't put the gate on.

He said he thought that was a good idea.

And when the man come [sic] out, Al told him, he says, "Now, we want to try to put a gate on this ourselves before we let somebody else."

"Well," he says, "You certainly can do it because I wouldn't put a gate on that well if they'd give me the whole well, lease and everything else."

He says, "A man's in danger in there."

He says, "I just don't want it. I'm just-- I'm through with it."