Transcribed by Norma Knotts Shaffer from microfilm
of the Calhoun Chronicle dated 1/23/1941.
Pictured above is Godfrey L. Cabot, of Boston, Mass., standing at the
gate of the A.G. Mathews No. 1, the first well Mr. Cabot ever drilled in
West Virginia. The well is located on the Mathews farm, on Leafbank
about two miles from its mouth, and is still producing gas.
The well was completed September 17, 1899 by Contractor Robt. N. Miles,
and had an open flow of 3.5-8 in. water through the 8-1/4 casing or nearly
five million cubic feet daily. The well was drilled no further for
fear it could not be controlled through 3" tubing.
In a record of the well prepared by Mr. Cabot he states, "In the latter
part of August 1900, after we had been making black for nearly two months
the rock pressure was still 530 lbs. Early in September with nineteen
plates running (in the Cabot carbon factory below Grantsville) and supplying
a portion of the requirements of the town of Grantsville, there was a working
pressure of 430 lbs. on the well."
Later Mr. Cabot drilled several other wells in the Leafbank sector some
of which were as productive as the Mathews No. 1, but its dollars to doughnuts
that none gave him greater satisfaction than his initial well. And
he has drilled in some 12-to-15 million ft. wells in the Oriskaney fields
of Kanawha county.
From 1900 on, Mr. Cabot kept developing gas fields in Calhoun and adjoining
counties, and built his Grantsville carbon works up to the largest in the
world. Later on the rich fields of cheap gas in Texas and Louisana
were discovered and the industry moved there. Practically all of
the gas now produced by the Cabots is used for domestic and manufacturing
purposes. | 
