If you haven't seen the documentary on the oil industry "the prize" then it is a must watch. You can watch all of it on youtube. Here is the scene were they talk about drake's significance to the oil industry:
I was there this summer.
Well over a 100 years old and some of the original equipment is still running. Sad that our modern equipment has little hope of that.
Drake drilled the well to secure a greater supply for the Seneca oil company. The drilling technology was not particularly revolutionary, since water wells and wells to pump salt brine had been previously drilled.
The key technology was fractional distillation of petroleum into an array of useful products, especially kerosene which could be used instead of whale oil for illumination.
I'm not saying he didn't use copper pipe for the first well, but one could imagine he used cast iron pipe in the first well. If he did, my layman understanding is that copper pipe must be much more less likely to break, than cast iron pipe. (Cast iron is pretty brittle.)
https://youtu.be/H2hSATHD634?t=409