First President of Tidewater Oil Co. Byron was one of the giants in the petroleum industry of Pennsylvania and New York, taking an active part in the stirring times from 1865 to the latter part of the decade ending 1890. He died in the City of New York, February 6, 1888, although his home was in Titusville, Pennsylvania, he being at the time on business connected with the Tide Water Pipe Company, Limited. Mr. Benson was almost fifty-six years of age, having been born in the town of Fabins, Onondaga County, New York, on February 29, 1832. He was descended from John Benson, who came from Caversham. Oxfordshire, England, in 1638, and settled in Hull, Massachusetts. Byron David Benson was, in the best sense, a self-made man. He was the eighth of the ten children of David and Jane (Sumner) Benson, New York farmers, and his only education was in the country school of the district. Before he was twenty-one years old he had engaged in the lumber business and was operating a saw mill at Brewerton, New York. During the War he was Sheriff of Onondaga County, and at the expiration of his term, in the Spring of 1865. he joined his friend and former associate, Major R. E. Hopkins, in a lumbering operation at Enterprise. Warren County. Pennsylvania. They both drifted naturally into the oil producing business and followed that industry for the remainder of their lives. In 1874, Mr. Benson, with his partners, R. E. Hopkins and David McKelvey, leased from Dr. David Hostetter, of Pittsburgh, the Columbia Conduit Pipe Line, which had been built from the Butler County oil fields to Pittsburgh, but was bottled up at Sharps- burg by reason of not being allowed to cross the West Penn Railroad. The latter occupied the right of way of the old Pennsylvania Canal and under its franchise claimed dominion from the "center of the earth to the top of the sky." By carting the oil from the end of the line across the railroad, shipping it in boats, via the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers, to Parkersburg, West Virginia, and thence by rail to Baltimore, they made money for themselves and enabled Dr. Hostetter to sell his pipe line in 1876 at a large profit. Mr. Benson and his associates then organized the Seaboard Pipe Line and secured the complete right of way from Butler County to Baltimore, but were forced to abandon the project because of the failing production of the Butler district. In 1878 in connection with R. E. Hopkins, David McKelvey, Samuel Q. Brown and Josiah G. Benton, Mr. Benson organized the Tide Water Pipe Company, Limited, and in the following year the first of what are now known as "trunk" pipe lines, was built from Corryville. Pennsylvania, over the Allegheny Mountains to Williamsport, being ex tended a few years later to Tamanend, Penn'a, and then to Bayonne, New Jersey, the present terminus. To this enterprise, which prospered from the beginning, Mr. Ben son devoted the remaining years of his life, being President of the Company from its organization until his death. He will always be ranked in the petroleum industry as one of the pathfinders. Byron David Benson was married December 21, 1859, at Brewerton, New York, to Miss Minerva Stevens. Their three children are Robert D. Benson, William S. Benson and Mrs. Charles F. Emerson. The sons are carrying forward the work begun by the father.