Gesner

Although trained as a medical doctor, Abraham Gesner was one of the primary founders of the petroleum industry. Known for his achievements as a geologist, author, inventor, and entrepreneur, he is without question one of the most remarkable Canadians of all time.

After receiving his medical degree in England, in 1827, and practising medicine there for a time, Gesner returned to his native Nova Scotia. While working as a country physician and surgeon in Parrsboro, above the north shore of the Minas Basin, south of Amherst, he took a particular interest in the natural history and geology of the immediate region. Geologically fascinating deposits, known later as the Cumberland and Joggins coal formations, were observed nearby. He carefully studied these and other geological features in Nova Scotia.

Gesner explored on foot, by boat, and on horseback. In 1836, he published a remarkable volume, Remarks on the Geology and Mineralogy of Nova Scotia, which included a detailed geological map giving information on the main formations and deposits of iron ore and coal in Nova Scotia. Soon he was asked to undertake a similar geological survey of New Brunswick.

Gesner’s acceptance of this responsibility made him the first government geologist appointed in any of the British colonies. Through his work from 1838 until 1843 as New Brunswick’s first geologist and through his annual reports, Gesner created great interest in the potential mineral wealth of the province. This interest subsided after many investors, including Gesner himself, lost money, and he unfairly became the scapegoat. His appointment as New Brunswick’s geologist was terminated. To pay his debts, Gesner had to forfeit his mineral collection and other personal artifacts. His collection became the initial component for what is now called the New Brunswick Museum, Canada’s oldest public museum.

A fortunate result of his work in New Brunswick was his discovery in 1839 of a large deposit of a pitch-like, bituminous substance called “albertite” after Albert County where he had discovered it.

In the mid 1840s Gesner began to search for a mineral oil to use as an illuminant. By carefully distilling a few lumps of coal, he was able to produce several ounces of a clear liquid. When this liquid was placed in an oil lamp equipped with a flat absorbent wick and cautiously lit, it produced a clear bright light. It was much superior to the smoky light produced through the burning of whale oil and other animal and vegetable oils, then the primary fuels used to produce artificial light.

Successful public demonstrations of the new light included a spectacular event in a church hall in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, in 1846. These displays of the high quality of bright light produced by Gesner’s new illuminating fuel stimulated great interest in it. He called his fuel kerosene — from the Greek words for wax and oil. Gesner then organized the Kerosene Gaslight Company. One of its first major contracts, beginning in 1850, was the lighting of homes and streets in Halifax, Nova Scotia. To increase his production, Gesner wished to use the albertite he had discovered in 1839 in New Brunswick. Legal opposition to his access there forced Gesner to resort to other plans.

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1. Abraham Gesner invented Kerosene, popularly known as "coal oil." Before the introduction of the incandescent electric light bulb, households across north America were lit up with kerosene. 2. Father of the petroleum industry, Abraham Gesner incorporated the Kerosene Gaslight Company in Halifax in 1850. This view, circa 1860, demonstrates a streetlamp in Halifax operated by Gesner’s company. Its kerosene light brightened Haligonian streets after sundown [Public Archives of Nova Scotia].

In Halifax, Gesner had met Admiral Thomas Cochrane, the tenth Earl of Dundonald and Commander of the British Naval Forces stationed there. Cochrane had extracted an illuminant from Trinidad asphalt and in 1813 had been granted a British patent on a lamp designed for its use. Encouraged by this adventurous British admiral and inventor, Gesner in 1854 sought and soon obtained patents for the distillation of bituminous rock from which he could obtain kerosene that he purified by treating it with sulphuric acid and lime and then redistilled.

The illuminant Gesner produced sold readily. By the mid 1850s he was convinced it could and would surpass whale oil. The problem, however, was supply. That difficulty was overcome when it was established that kerosene could be extracted from petroleum. Gesner learned this after he had established the North American Kerosene Gas Light Company on Long Island, New York in 1854. With an assured supply of petroleum following its discovery in both Ontario and Pennsylvania in the late 1850s and demand for kerosene increasing, Gesner believed that his future was secure. Problems arose, however, concerning his patents. Forced to pay royalties to another patent holder, Gesner eventually had to sell his patents and return to Nova Scotia.

While in the United States, Gesner had written a variety of scientific articles, reports, and books. His volume, A Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum and Other Distilled Oils published in 1861, became a standard reference in its field. On his return to Halifax, Gesner became Professor of Natural History at Dalhousie University. But the years had taken their toll and he died on April 29, 1864.

Throughout his life, Gesner demonstrated exceptional creativity and resourcefulness. His inventiveness resulted in millions of individuals in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere enjoying better artificial light. During the first half century in the petroleum industry, kerosene was the major product of refineries. Later, growing popular demand for gasoline-powered vehicles gradually made the production of gasoline and lubricants the principal concern. Then in the second half of the twentieth century, kerosene took on new significance as the fuel for jet aircraft.

Gesner made other less visible but highly significant scientific and technical contributions in addition to those he made in the petroleum industry. His work as a pioneering government geologist attracted the attention of other geologists in Canada and overseas. Prominent among these was William Logan, Founding Director of the Geological Survey of Canada. Another was Charles Lyell, the foremost English geologist for nearly half of the nineteenth century. Lyell’s interest in turn stimulated that of J.W. Dawson, who carried forward Gesner’s study of the geology of Nova Scotia before he, Dawson, became the highly influential principal of McGill University for 48 years. Dawson’s son, in his time, also became a distinguished geologist.

The United States corporation that Gesner founded, the North American Kerosene Gas Light Co., was purchased by the Standard Oil Company and became part of the Rockefeller group. In 1933 another company in that same group, Imperial Oil, originally a Canadian-controlled corporation, erected a memorial in Camp Hill Cemetery in Halifax to honour Gesner.