Credited to Canada. The Scottish chemist James Young independently developed a process for distilling a similar product he called paraffin oil and filed a United States patent in 1852. Young won a patent infringement case against Gesner's company, which then paid him royalties, although Gesner's first public demonstration dates to 1846.
How it began
Abraham Gesner was born near Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, in 1797. He trained as a physician in London and later worked as government geologist of New Brunswick. From about 1846 he ran experiments on distilling oil from solid hydrocarbons. In August 1846, during a series of public lectures in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, he reportedly gave the first public demonstration of making and burning the new lamp fuel. He coined the name kerosene and had perfected the oil by 1853.
How it works
Gesner developed a method of extracting oils and gas from bituminous substances by distillation. He first used bitumen from the Pitch Lake of Trinidad. He then turned to albertite, a bituminous mineral he had found on the Petitcodiac River in Albert County, New Brunswick, during his geological surveys, and which he named. The oil he drew from it burned with a brighter and cleaner flame than lamps that used whale oil.
How it spread
Gesner lost a court case over the albertite deposit, in which the jury ruled the mineral to be coal. In early 1853 he moved with his family to New York City, where he had already exhibited kerosene. On June 27, 1854, he obtained three United States patents for kerosene burning fluids. A factory was set up under his guidance on Long Island to make the fuel, and the rights passed to the North American Kerosene Company.
Who pushed back
James Young, a Scottish chemist, had independently developed a process for distilling a fuel he called paraffin oil, and he had filed an American patent in 1852. When he learned of the claims of the North American Kerosene Company he sued for patent infringement and won. The company then had to pay royalties to Young. Gesner sold his patents in 1863 and returned to Halifax, where he was appointed a professor at Dalhousie.
What lasted
Kerosene became the standard lighting fuel in homes. Gesner died in Halifax in 1864. Imperial Oil put up a memorial at his grave in 1933. His birthplace was marked as a national historic site in 1954, Canada Post issued a stamp with his image in 2000, and he was inducted into the Canadian Petroleum Hall of Fame in 2007.
