Abraham Pineo Gesner - Kerosene

Kerosene

Gesner's research in minerals resulted in his 1846 development of a process to refine a liquid fuel from coal, bitumen and oil shale. His new discovery, which he named kerosene, burned more cleanly and was less expensive than competing products, such as whale oil. In 1850, Gesner created the Kerosene Gaslight Company and began installing lighting in the streets in Halifax and other cities. By 1854, he had expanded to the United States where he created the North American Kerosene Gas Light Company at Long Island, New York. Demand grew to where his company’s capacity to produce became a problem, but the discovery of petroleum, from which kerosene could be more easily produced, solved the supply problem.

Abraham Gesner continued his research on fuels and wrote a number of scientific studies concerning the industry including an 1861 publication titled, "A Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum and Other Distilled Oils," which became a standard reference in the field. Eventually, Gesner's company was absorbed into the petroleum monopoly, Standard Oil and he returned to Halifax, where he was appointed a Professor of Natural History at Dalhousie University.

Gesner himself was humble about his contribution to the development of the petroleum industry. In his 1861 work, he said that "the progress of discovery in this case, as in others, has been slow and gradual. It has been carried on by the labors, not of one mind, but of many, so as to render it difficult to discover to whom the greatest credit is due."

In 1933, Imperial Oil Ltd., a Standard Oil subsidiary, erected a memorial in Camp Hill Cemetery in Halifax to pay tribute to Gesner's contribution to the petroleum industry. The City of Halifax named a street at the top of Fairview between Melrose and Adelaide in honor of Gesner in Halifax, formally the street was named Dunbrack ST, The completion of the Dunbrack Street/North West Arm Drive connectors with the Highway 102 freeway during the 1980s required a remaming of the original Dunbrack St. In 2000, he was honored by the placement of his image on a postage stamp by Canada Post.