Samuel Martin Kier was an American businessman. He was the founder of Kier, Royer & Company and was engaged in different business enterprises such as canal boat operations, coal mines, pottery factory, iron foundries and oil refiner.
Background
Samuel Martin Kier was born in 1813 somewhere between Saltsburg and Livermore along the Conemaugh River, Indiana County, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the son of Thomas Kier and Mary Martin Kier. Her father, of Scotch-Irish descent, was engaged in the manufacture of salt from brine.
Education
Kier received a common-school education.
Career
Kier found his first employment in Pittsburgh as a forwarding merchant. This business, the forerunner of the modern railway express enterprises, apparently appealed to him and in it he progressed, in due time entering into partnership and successfully operating under the firm name of Hewitt & Kier. The business thrived until 1837 when it went down in the general shipwreck of commerce and trade of that year. Although ruined financially, Kier had established a reputation which enabled him to organize in 1838 the firm of Kier, Royer & Company, owners and operators of canal boats plying over the Pennsylvania State Canal from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia with a branch line to tidewater at Havre de Grace, Maryland. Kier was even more successful in this field of transportation than in his earlier activities and paid off his earlier debts although freed of them by the bankrupt laws.
He continued the active direction of the affairs of his "Mechanics' Line" of boats for more than ten years, taking as partner in 1847, after Royer dropped out, Benjamin Franklin Jones, the iron manufacturer. Aware of the pending establishment of a private railway system from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, Kier established the "Independent Line" of section boats in 1846. James Buchanan, prior to his election to the presidency of the United States, was a partner in this enterprise. The boats of the "Independent Line" were more or less amphibious canal boats which were hauled over the railroad where that transportation medium existed and pulled through the canal in sections where the railroad did not exist.
After 1854, when the invasion of the transportation field by the Pennsylvania Railroad became complete, the boat lines were dropped. While transportation constituted the major part of his work, Kier was also a pioneer in the manufacture of firebrick, having established four works in Western Pennsylvania. Here he also established a pottery and in his later years was engaged in the coal mining and steel business.
During this time his father had continued in the salt producing business, aided financially by his son. Around 1846 oil began to flow from their salt wells at Tarentum, Pennsylvania. Kier, knowing that seepage oil had been used for years as a panacea for human ills, undertook to bottle and distribute his oil through the medium of the "medicine road show. " Again he was partly successful, and as a steady market was established, "Kier's Rock Oil" was sold directly to druggists. This market, however, did not consume all of the crude oil yield of the wells and Kier as early as 1850 began experiments with it as an illuminant.
He had burned the oil at the wells but its offensive smoke and odor made it unsuited for household use in the existing whale oil and camphene lamps. He was advised by a chemist to refine the oil by distillation, and after much experimenting he succeeded in developing finally a five-barrel still with which a rather clear oil, but retaining its repugnant odor, was obtained. By slight changes in the existing camphene lamp Kier's refined oil burned without smoke. The demand for this product was immediate for Kier sold it cheaper than the established illuminants. Subsequently he perfected but did not patent a four-pronged burner lamp which produced a steady flame with his oil. For these contributions he has come to be regarded as America's first oil refiner and industrialist.
Achievements
Connections
Kier married Nancy Eicher of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, who with four children survived him.