[3] Alongside his family, Williams emigrated to London, Canada West in 1840, where he entered into a partnership with Marcus Holmes to build carriages.

[5] Williams entered the petroleum business on February 3, 1856, when he purchased 600 acres of land in Enniskillen Township from Charles Nelson Tripp, whose International Mining and Manufacturing Company had gone bankrupt.

[6] Unlike Tripp, who boiled the bitumen to produce asphalt, Williams sought to distill the hydrocarbons into lamp fuel.

[9] Pioneering geologist and physician Abraham Gesner might have acted as a consultant in the development of the Hamilton refinery.

Sanborne and Andrew Elliot formed the Black Creek Plank Road Company to better transport crude out of Enniskillen Township.

[15] Up until this point, the lack of a suitable road to transport crude to markets and refineries from Enniskillen township was a significant obstacle in the development of the local oil industry.

[17] The company constructed an oil refinery near Petrolia that was capable of refining roughly 3000 barrels per week.

[5] In 2008, Canada Post issued a stamp commemorating the first commercial oil well, featuring portraits of Charles Tripp and Williams.