snake oil from Seneca oil?

[Gerald Cohen]

    Frank Abate has  advanced  the interesting suggestion that "snake oil"
may derive from "Seneca Oil"--(in _Verbatim_ , vol. 18, no. 1 (summer 1991,
p.4, under heading "Etymologica Obscura").  Here is the item in its
entirety:

"SNAKE OIL
   The first oil well in the United States was drilled in 1859, by Edwin L.
Drake, near Titusville, Pennsylvania, a town named for Jonathan Titus, who
settled it in 1796 (and wanted to call it Edinburgh).  Before oil was
actively sought, it seeped out of the ground in various parts of the
world...
   'Here along Oil Creek, Indians skimmed the surface oil off the water for
domestic uses, and white settlers bottled it for medicinal purposes and
called it Seneca Oil.'  [G. Cohen: source?]

    Was  'Seneca Oil' the origin of 'snake oil'?

Frank R. Abate
Old Saybrook, Connecticut'

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     Is the problem solved?
-
----Gerald Cohen







gcohen at umr.edu