The Dramatic Oil Company

The infamous John Wilkes Booth was not just an actor and assassin, but an oilman. Despite initially being in his father and brother’s shadows, Booth made a name for himself as a young, handsome, energetic performer. As a result, he was well-off financially, and was in demand around the country. However, his luck wouldn’t hold. In 1863, his voice became hoarse through use, the strain possibly exacerbated by bronchitis. With his acting career threatened, he began to look for alternatives.

While performing Shakespeare in Cleveland, Ohio, Booth heard of neighboring Pennsylvania’s oil boom. He convinced two of his thespian friends (John Ellsler and Thomas Mears) to join with him to invest in this new resource, and in 1863 the Dramatic Oil Company was founded. The Civil War was coming to an end when Booth purchased the Fuller farm near Franklin, Pennsylvania, in 1864. The well the Dramatic Oil Company sunk was only 20 miles south of the well that started it all – the well created by Edwin Drake, which proved oil could be manually brought to the surface.

The well, nicknamed Wilhelmina after one thespian’s wife, gave instant success to the Company. While oil prices wildly fluctuated based on the number of successful wells in the area, that spring and summer demand was high. Excited by this new source of revenue, Booth quit acting in May and bought more territory near Pithole (an oil boomtown that no longer exists). The Dramatic Oil Company added banker Joseph Simonds to their group as Wilhelmina continued to produce.

By June, however, their fortunes had turned. Wilhelmina’s output was slowing, and the Company was losing money. After some debate, they decided to shoot the well. This was a once-common practice in which explosives were dropped down an oil well and detonated. The hope was that the blast would free nearby pockets of oil, allowing the derrick to bring it to the surface. The Dramatic Oil Company suffered an expensive loss when shooting the well ruined it completely. Not one drop more was to be had from Wilhelmina.

For Booth, this was the last straw. His efforts to upkeep the finicky well had cost him over $6,000 – the modern equivalent being over $92 thousand. Much poorer and greatly frustrated, Booth left Pennsylvania for Washington, where mere weeks later he began his plot to assassinate President Lincoln. John Ellsler, Thomas Mears, and Joseph Simonds remained behind to pursue the continuation of the Dramatic Oil Company. In an 1865 letter from Simonds to Booth, the banker suggests that the ex-actor return to the Company, expressing optimism about the future of the group. Booth ignored this summons, instead transferring all of his oil holding to his sister and mother.

By April 26, 1865, John Wilkes Booth was dead. A mere two months afterwards, a gusher of a well was tapped on the Pithole property he’d given to his sister, Rosalie. The Homestead Well proved much more profitable than Wilhelmina had been, producing 500 barrels of oil per day. The remaining Booth family refused the revenue and effectively disowned anything that the wayward John had done. Had Booth remained with the Dramatic Oil Company, history might have had no occasion to remember the failed actor, instead leaving Dramatic Oil Company to be lost in the vast number of small oil firms started and abandoned in the 1860s. 

“Dramatic Oil Company.” American Oil & Gas Historical Society, DC Dev Shop, 14 Apr. 2020, www.aoghs.org/stocks/the-dramatic-oil-company/#:~:text=John%20Wilkes%20Booth%20made%20his,%2C%20New%20York%2C%20and%20Boston.

Tappan, Nancy. “John Wilkes Booth: An Oily Character.” HistoryNet, HistoryNet, Feb. 2019, www.historynet.com/john-wilkes-booth-an-oily-character.htm.