John D'Oyley Noble

John O'Doyley Noble	John D'Doyley Noble came to New York from Ireland in 1854. During the American Civil War, he was jailed by Texas Rangers for being a Yankee sympathizer. Later, when he moved to Kingston, Ontario, he started a lumber shipping company. When one of his ships arrived in the Kingston harbour coated in oil, Noble learned that there was oil in Lambton County. John immediately decided to search for oil. He arrived in Petrolia, in 1866, to do just that. John built Noble house which served as a field office for the Canadian Oilfields Ltd., which controlled as many as 500 wells.
Noble House	One of John's valuable contributions to the oil story was his invention, along with Charles Jenkins, of a series of underground pipelines to connect the wells and the refineries. This ingenious idea came about after two devastating fires hit the Petrolia oil fields. The most damaging fire being at the King wells on August 23, 1868. The fire started on a rig and soon spread to a nearby above-ground holding tank. The tank collapsed, and the flaming oil spread across the field, igniting tank after tank.
Canadian Drilling Rig	Noble and Jenkins improved on these holding tanks as well. Instead of using above-ground tanks, they improvised a new system where the tanks were dug into the leakproof clay soil and lined with wooden rings, thus lessening the fire hazard. John became a very influential person in Petrolia, and in 1900 he was sent to Paris, France as a delegate to the first Petroleum Congress, which was held at the Paris Exhibition. He was asked to read a paper on the oil history of Canada, and in it he described the Canadian drilling method, which was famous around the world.
John D. Noble was the managing director of the Petrolia Oil Company Ltd. as well as the vice-president of the Petrolia Crude Oil and Tanking Company. At one time, he was also the vice-president of Crown Warehousing. Noble was active in Petrolia politics, serving as Mayor from 1904 to 1906. John also served as a member of the Petrolia Municipal Board. John D'Oyley Noble died on March 3, 1922.