Samuel Kier

[3][4][5] He, along with several other investors including Benjamin Franklin Jones,[6][3][7][8] founded several iron foundries in west central Pennsylvania.

This enterprise proved financially successful, allowing Kier to settle any outstanding debts from his previous business.

In 1846, Kier, in partnership with James Buchannan,[14] later President of the United States, established "Independent Line," working with special section where "amphibious" canal boats boats which could be taken apart and put on railroad cars where they were available, or put together and pulled along the canal system where there was no railroad.

This innovative transportation method thrived until the railroad's completion in 1854, at which point Kier ceased the production and operation of the hybrid boats.

By the time he terminated his canal business, Kier had diversified into several other ventures, including a firebrick and pottery factory,[4][15][16] investments in steel and iron, and notably, his involvement in the oil industry.

With no formal training in science or chemistry, he began experimenting with several distillates of the crude oil along with a chemist from eastern Pennsylvania.

But at the time whale oil, the principal fuel for lamps in America, was becoming increasingly scarce and expensive.

[1] Kier never obtained a patent for his developments and many other inventors and businessmen would go on to improve upon his work yielding huge fortunes.

Kier established America's first oil refinery in Pittsburgh on Seventh avenue near Grant Street, in 1853.