Bissell and Eveleth took another sample of oil to Benjamin Silliman at Yale University in 1855 for further investigation. The sample was acquired by George Bissell who, along with Jonathan G. Brewer from the Watson, Brewer and Company Farm on Oil Creek around 1853.

A sample of oil was brought to Dartmouth College by Francis B. Kier distilled the oil to make it more suitable in lamps by removing the odor and impurities that created soot when burned. Around 1848, Samuel Kier realized the potential of the medicinal oil as an illuminant. At the time, this 'mineral-oil' was used primarily for medicinal purposes and was reputed to cure many ailments, including rheumatism and arthritis. Europeans became aware of the existence of petroleum in the 1600s. Petroleum found along Oil Creek was known to Native Americans for hundreds of years through natural seeps. The presence of upwards-curving folds in the caprock called anticlines, or sometimes an inversion of an anticline called a syncline, greatly varied the depth of the reservoirs, from around 4,000 feet (1,200 m) to just beneath the surface. Over time, the oil migrated toward the surface, became trapped beneath an impervious layer of caprock, and formed a reservoir. Most of the oil produced in northwestern Pennsylvania was formed in sandstone reservoir rocks at the boundary between the Mississippian and Devonian rock layers.

On a floodplain, the well and the museum are protected by an earthen dike. The site was originally on an artificial island formed by the creek and a mill race. situated on the flats 150 feet (46 m) from the east bank of Oil Creek. The Drake Well is located in Cherrytree Township, Venango County in northwestern Pennsylvania.

Cherrytree township