The striking of oil in Pennsylvania’s first well, the world's first successful oil well in Titusville, was a boon to all of Northwestern Pennsylvania, including Erie County. Like many people, a young Frank Cleveland took advantage of the rush to oil wealth, which by the 1870s was a stable business, and opened a refinery in the City of Erie. His oil venture lasted only a few years, but an ambitious Cleveland looking for more opportunities would soon to be the impetus to Erie’s most well-known manufacturers of engines and boilers.
Frank F. Cleveland was born in Steuben County, New York, on January 11, 1853. With the outbreak of oil excitement in Pennsylvania, Frank Cleveland, in the 1870s, started an oil refinery in Erie, and continued to engage in that business for six years. Afterwards, he made successful investments in oil lands, and then embarked in the business of manufacturing mill and machinery castings in Erie, under the firm name of Cleveland & Company.
In 1879, in partnership with William Hardwick, Frank Cleveland established an engines and boilers works, under the firm name of Cleveland & Hardwick. After Frank Cleveland’s death in 1893, the firm was incorporated under the title of the Erie Engine Works, with Mr. Hardwick as president and general manager. Earlier, in 1890, the Union Iron Works was established by Cleveland & Hardwick and the Skinner Engine Company to meet the increasing demand for boilers, with the objective being to provide the boiler department of the Union Iron Works to the Erie Engines Works and the Skinner Engine Company. In 1893 Mr. Hardwick was president of both the Union Iron Works and Erie Engines Works, as well as the Erie Manufacturing and Supply Company, also organized during this time. Mr. Hardwick, holding the position of president and general manager in the supply company, became the head of the two of the largest iron manufacturers in Erie County and their supplier.
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| Frank Cleveland’s Oil Refinery (1870s) |