Salt on the Ohio Valley Frontier, 1770-1820 Author(s): John A. Jakle Source: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Dec., 1969), pp. 687- 709 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of American Geographers Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2561834 Accessed: 24-08-2015 17:36 UTC
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This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SALT ON THE OHIO VALLEY FRONTIER, 1770-1820' JOHNA. JAKLE Universityof Illinois, Urbana
ABSTRACT. Salt, available at natural springs, seasonally attracted great herds of bison which throughyears of repetitiousmovement carved an extensivesystem of buffalo traces: avenues used by Anglo-Americansin settlingportions of the Ohio Valley. Frontier settlementconcentrated in areas of salt availability as the vital dietary element proved necessaryto sustain livestockand to prepare meats, thus providing the frontierfarmer with an exportcommodity. Salt was used as a medium of exchange enabling merchants to pursue a diversifiedcommerce centered in urban places; indeed, the salt trade, more than any other commercialactivity, sustained the Valley's early urban structure.
FREDERICK JACKSONTURNER formu- whichpatterns of sequent occupance emerged. lated the initial generalizationsrelating Turner wrote:5 salt to the Ohio Valley's frontierexperience.2 Standat CumberlandGap andwatch the procession In his epic paper, Turnertheorized that a gen- of civilizationmarching single file the buffalo eral lack of salt retardedwestward migration; followingthe trails to saltsprings, the Indian, the he wrote: "The early settlerswere tied to the furtrader and hunter,the cattle-raiser, the pioneer coast by the need of salt, withoutwhich they farmer-andthe frontier has passedby. could not preservetheir meats or live in com- Historians have been hesitant to follow fort."3Conversely, he noted that salt availa- Turner'slead in furtheringthe investigationof bilitystimulated frontier expansion:4 salt and its influence on frontiersettlement Whendiscovery was made of the salt springs of the and economy. Local historiansand antiquar- Kanawhaand the Holston,and Kentucky,and ians have detailed pioneer salt productionin centralNew York,the West began to be freed certain highly restrictedlocalities; however, fromdependence on thecoast. It was partof the treatmentof the has re- effectof findingthese salt springsthat enabled larger region been settlementto crossthe mountains. strictedto individualarticles by Akeley,Clark, and Lippincott,supplemented only by several Finally,he noted thatthe buffalopaths which unpublishedmasters' theses.6 Readily embrac connected the larger salines funneledthe ini- tial American migrationinto specific settle- 5Turner, op. cit., footnote2, p. 12. ment areas providing the frameworkupon "Works on local salt productioninclude: B. W. Hager, "The Whites of Clay County As Salt Acceptedfor publication May 23, 1968. Makers,"Register of the KentuckyState Historical Society,Vol. 50 (1952), pp. 242-48; W. P. Jillson, Big Bone Lick (Louisville, Kentucky: Standard 1'This paper presentsthe basic themesfrom the PrintingCo., 1936); R. E. McDowell,"Bullitt's Lick: author'sdissertation, Salt and the Initial Settlement the RelatedSalt Worksand Settlements,"Filson Club of the Ohio Valley (unpublishedPh.D. dissertation, HistoryQuarterly, Vol. 30 (1956), pp. 240-69; J.F. Indiana University,1967). The author wishes to Smith,"The Salt MakingIndustry of Clay County," thankProfessors 0. P. Starkey,D. Carmony,N. J. G. Filson Club HistoryQuarterly, Vol. 2 (1927), pp. Pounds,T. D. Clark, and W. Zelinskyfor theiren- 134-40; M. Threlkel,"Mann's Lick," Filson Club couragementand timelysuggestions at variousstages HistoryQuarterly, Vol. 2 (1927), pp. 169-76; and R. of the project. R. White,"The Salt Industryof Clay County,Ken- tucky,"Register of the KentuckyState HistoricalSo- 2 F. J. Turner,"The Significanceof the Frontier ciety,Vol. 50 (1952), pp. 237-41. Regional cover- in American History,"Proceedings of the State His- age is offeredby: A. P. Akeley,"Salt and the Early torical Society of Wisconsin,Vol. 41 (1893); re- Settlers,"Pennsylvania History, Vol. 12 (1945), pp. printedin The FrontierIn AmericanHistory (New 170-73; T. D. Clark,"Salt, A Factorin the Settlement York: Holt, Rinehart,and Winston,1962), p. 17. of Kentucky,"Filson Club HistoryQuarterly, Vol. 12 3 Turner,op. cit.,footnote 2, p. 17. (1938), pp. 42-52; I. Lippincott,"Early Salt Trade 4 Turnerop. cit.,footnote 2, p. 18. in the Ohio Valley,"Journal of PoliticalEconomics, 687
This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 688 JOHN A. JAKLE December ing Turner's generalizationsconcerning pio- factorof settlementon the Americanfrontier neer salt economy,these studies have tended has been largelyignored althoughShaler and to emphasize the Valley's mid-nineteenthcen- Rostlund have investigatedthe bison's pene- turycommercial salt industryby focusingon trationinto the easternwoodlands, a penetra- the evolution of modern production tech- tion in which salt played an importantrole niques. Thus Turner's overview of salt's im- Zelinsky has mapped the salt-derivedplace- portanceon the frontierstands unassailed. name,"lick," in his generalstudy of the generic The failure to pursue salt as a theme of parts of place-names.10 settlementhistory stems partially from the In light of past endeavor, this paper is of- generallack of materialsdescriptive of frontier fered as a re-evaluationof the Ohio Valley's settlementpatterns. Although manuscript ma- frontiersalt thesis. It will proceed from a terials are available, little has been done to descriptionof the Valley's salt resourceto con- evaluate their content. In addition, few ar- siderationof the derived buffalo-tracesystem chaeological surveyshave been made to sup- and its impact on Americansettlement. The plementthe historicalrecord; indeed, only for managementof the Valley's salt resourcewill Pennsylvania,where two surveyshave been then be related to the growthof towns and completed,does a reliable record of the num- cities forthe salt trade,as it fosteredcommer- ber, composition,and distributionof pioneer cial enterprise,and alteredthe region'soriginal settlementsexist.7 Lacking even for frontier settlementfabric. As such, the paper will re- Pennsylvania, however, are maps detailing ject certain of Turner'swidely held generali- basic transportationfacilities such as trail, zations regardingsalt and settlement,accept road, and river routes along which initial others with varyingdegrees of qualification, settlementaccrued. Even though such con- and suggest futureresearch direction. siderationsare essentiallyencyclopedic in na- ture, they are prerequisiteto continued con- THE SALT LICKS sideration of salt and the other natural re- Salt was readilyavailable in the Ohio Valley sourcesimportant during the frontierperiod. at what the early hunterscalled "salt licks." Here geographers can contribute greatly. Imlay, a geographerof the early Trans-Appa- Concerned with pioneer settlementin diverse lachian West, wrote:1" areas of the world, American geographers seem well equipped to furtherdescribe and A salt springis called a "Lick," fromthe earth about thembeing furrowedout in a most curious analyze past pioneerconditions here at home.8 mannerby the buffaloand deer, which lick the Indeed, historicalgeographers have taken no- earthon accountof the saline particleswith which tice in their journals of the comprehensive it is impregnated. frontierliterature produced by historiansand Commonly,a lick was an actual springwhere have related much of their own research di- saliferouswaters evaporated on reaching the rectlyto that literature.9However, salt as a surfaceto precipitatedeposits of sodium chlo- ride. Yet the physicalappearance of the vari- Vol. 20 (1912), pp. 1029-52. Theses include: M. ous springs differedaccording to the micro- R. Hoge, "Salt on the Frontier"(unpublished M.A. thesis,University of Pittsburgh,1931); and M. W. environmentsinvolved; thus, descriptionsof Mosby,"Salt Industryin the Kanawha Valley" (un- publishedM.A. thesis,University of Kentucky,1950). FrontierHistory," Annals, Associationof American 7W. A. Hunter,Forts on the PennsylvaniaFron- Geographers,Vol. 50 (1960), pp. 62-74. tier, 1753-1758 (Harrisburg,Pennsylvania: Penn- 10N. S. Shaler,"The Age of the Bison in the Ohio sylvaniaHistorical and Museum Commission,1960); Valley," KentuckyGeological Survey,Memoire, Vol. and T. L. Montgomery,Report to the Commissionto 1 (1876); E. Rostlund,"The GeographicRange of the Locate the Sites of the FrontierForts of Pennsyl- HistoricBison in the Southeast,"Annals, Association vania (Harrisburg,Pennsylvania: W. S. Ray, 1916). of AmericanGeographers, Vol. 50 (1960), pp. 395- 8 Mentionof two earlierworks seems appropriate: 407; W. Zelinsky,"Some Problemsin the Distribution I. Bowman,The PioneerFringe (New York:American of GenericPlace-Names of the NortheasternUnited GeographicalSociety, Special Publication No. 13, States,"Annals, Association of AmericanGeographers, 1931), and W. L. G. Joerg (Ed.), Pioneer Settle- Vol. 45 (1955), pp. 319-49. ment (New York: AmericanGeographical Society, 11G. Imlay, A TopographicalDescription of the Special PublicationNo. 14, 1932). Western Territoryof North America (London: J. 9See M. W. Mikesell,"Comparative Studies In Debrett,1792), pp. 46-47.
This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1969 OHO VALLEY SALT 689 the salines survivingin the historicalliterature ment, evaporation,temperature and pressure vary considerably. change, contact with hydrocarbons,and mix- From the Illinois frontiercomes the fol- ing with surface and meteoric waters.16 In lowing account:12 general, the brines of the Ohio Valley are strongerthan ocean salt water indicative of I saw a lick [locationunknown] of singularsize extendingover nearlyhalf an acre of land, all ex- more widespread concentrationas opposed to cavatedthree feet, that is to say, lickedaway, and dilution.'7 eaten,by buffaloes,deer, and otherwild animals. The stratacontaining such salt solutionsare It has the appearanceof a large pond dried. The generally sandstones, conglomerates, dolo- earth is soft,salt, and sulphurous,and they [the mites, or open-texturedlimestones; the buffalo]will resortto it. most prolificstrata for the productionof brinein the Michaux, the French traveler,recorded the Valley are foundin the Pottsvilleseries of the followingimpression of the Lower Blue Lick Pennsylvanianage.18 At Kentucky'sBig Bone in Kentucky:13 Lick, by way of example, the brine-saturated Passed by a place where the soil is impregnated measure (locally knownas the St. Peter sand- with saline substancesand whitherthe Buffaloes stone) overridesthe disconformityof the Cin- used to go in great numbersto lick the particles cinnatiArch at a depth of 800 feet (Fig. 1). of Salt continuallyexuching from the surfaceof From its originalseat the brine rises under a the soil. There are at thisspot springswhose water is bitter,putrid, blackish and full of mephiticair strong hydrostatichead, passing through a whichfrees itself at the slightestmovement of the series of offsettingjoint planes and fissuresof soil by the bubblesappearing on the surfaceof the nearlyvertical attitude which penetratesuper- springas one approaches. imposedlimestone rocks. This spring,as many Sodium chlorideis the most abundant solid in the Ohio Valley, occupies a glaciated site dissolvedin groundwater; however, only when and thus brinesapproaching the surfacemust presentin quantitiesas great as 250-300 parts penetratea thicklayer of loose sedimentpro- per million do such solutions give a salty ducing the "quaking bogs" and "jelly ground" taste. As late as the Triassicperiod, the Ohio noted by manyearly travelers. In thismorass, Valley was covered by an inland sea in which the remains of Pleistocene mammals are still depositedsands and muds accumulatedto sev- in evidence despite nearly two centuries'of eral thousand feet, entrappingconnate water archaeological retrieval. Thus the fossil re- between the mineral grains. This entrapped mains of the mammothand mastodon,caught sea water representsthe major source of the by the deadly bog, bear witness to the seem- Valley's salt brine although many brines are inglyageless processionof animals who came partially composed of meteoric solutions to lick the salt earth.19 which have migratedinto their present hori- zons.15 The brines vary considerably in THE AMERICAN BISON strength,for physical and chemical changes To the Valley's largest salines came the have concentrated solutions in some strata buffalo,Bison bison americanus. So numer- while dilutingbrines in others. Alterationde- ous were the buffalo herds about the licks rived froma combinationof factorsincluding that early naturalistsaccepted them as an in- groundwater migrationowing to earth move- tegralpart of the forestenvironment. Indeed, many classifythese bison as having been a 12 W. Faux, A Journalof a Tour to the United States(London: W. Simpkinand R. Marshall,1823), native woodland subspecies identified as p. 260. 13 A. Michaux,"Journal of AndreMichaux," 1793- 16 R. E. Greten,"Brine Productionand Utilization 1796, in R. G. Thwaites (Ed.), Early WesternTrav- Fromthe Salt Sands of the PottsvilleSeries," Appala- els (Cleveland: A. H. Clark, 1904), Vol. III, p. 37. chian GeologicalBulletin, Vol. 1 (1949), p. 320. 14P. H. Price, et al., "Springsof West Virginia," 17 Some brinesnow containsolids in solutionup to West VirginiaGeological Survey,Vol. 6 (1936), p. twenty-fivepercent of theirtotal composition as com- 20. pared withthree and one-halfpercent for sea water; 15 G. C. Gaimbsand G. W. White,"Ohio's Mineral Gambsand White,op. cit.,footnote 15, p. 5. Resources: Salt Reserves," Ohio State University 18A. C. McFarlan,Geology of Kentucky(Lexing- Studies, EngineeringExperiment Station Circular ton: Universityof KentuckyPress, 1943), p. 430. No. 49, Vol. 15 (1946), p. 5. 19Jillson, op. cit., footnote6, p. 112.
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I MAJORSALT SPRINGS AND Yellow Creek A I ASSOCIATEDBUFFALO TRACES Lick IN IHE OHIO VALLEY
Muskingum
Si20 B 40 60 Li K miles j Double P < r e n - t~~~~~~~~ Llck@*~~~~~~~ico Lick { Lick SiolSc iotand\ S e, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Saine \nt's GraL Lick renhL Lch Big Bone Ala Drenn ns MClover tr A Lick Lick BuffaPBlobLick Licke iLower Bluf Lick % s r Falls of the Ohio~~ 7 Upr le / nn's OhiO ~~~~~~~~MLc ,UprB~ ik ~ '% / Illinois Md Q- Sa line BullIitt's ~ ick Ar- % 4Howard's ~~~~~~Lick Lick Wdens Knob Lick ' L ic k.%,
7he 8res cmeln
Muddy River
FlatfS Licran jMansker's LickGa
French Lick Lick _____Alanant-O-Wamiowee / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Knownbuffalo trace / -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~....Probable buffalo trace
Fig. 1. Shown are the buffalotraces adopted by Anglo-Americansas routeways.
Bison bison athabascae.20 Fossil remains un- Ohio Valley bison were possibly the plains earthed at various of the Valley's salt springs, subspecies frequently designated as Bison particularlyat Big Bone Lick in Kentucky, bison bison.23 gave apparent proof that the buffalohad in- The buffalo's recent migration into the habited the region since the late Pleistocene; forestedOhio Valley was greatlyaided by the subsequentinvestigation, however, has identi- historicIndian who, althougha predator,em- fied these prehistoricbuffalo as the extinct ployed fire to enlarge, create, and sustain Bison bison latifrons.2' Authoritiesnow regard prairielands attractive to the bison. Shaler the modern buffaloas a recent intruderwho wrote:24 may have come to the woodlands as late as the seventeenthcentury A.D.22 In this light,the Remember that the Indians . .. were much in the habit of burningthe forestsand so makingopen plains,or prairies. . . [for]the buffalo[could] not 20 For moredetailed discussion see J. A. Allen,The penetratefar into the denserforests; it may be that AmericanBisons, Living and Extinct (Cambridge, it was this destructionof the foreststhat laid the Press,Memoirs of the Mu- Massachusetts:University way open to theirentrance. seum of ComparativeZoology at Harvard College, Vol. IV, No. 10, 1876); M. S. Garretson,The Ameri- Thomas Hutchins,the eighteenth century geog- can Bison (New York: New YorkZoological Society, 1938); F. G. Roe, The NorthAmerican Buffalo (To- rapher and surveyorin the West, described ronto:University of TorontoPress, 1951). 21 Jillson,op. cit.,footnote 6, p. 19. 23 Roe, op. cit.,footnote 20, p. 3. 22 Shaler,op. cit., footnote10, p. 72. 24 Shaler,op. cit., footnote10, p. 29.
This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1969 OHIO VALLEY SALT 691 the vegetationallandscape derived from the We wentto thegreat lick .... In ourway we passed Indians' huntingactivity:25 througha finetimbered clear wood; we came into a large road whichthe buffaloeshave beaten,spa- On the north-westand south-eastsides of the Ohio cious enough for two wagons to go abreast,and below the GreatKanawha Riverat a littledistance leading straightinto the lick. from it, are extensivefine natural meadows or savannahs.These meadowsare from20 to 50 miles Many buffalotraces in the Ohio Valley were in circuit.They have manybeautiful groves of trees retained by Anglo-Americansas roads (Fig. interspersed,as if by art in them,and whichserve 1).29 Two deserve special mention. The "Al- as a shelterfor the innumerableherds of buffalo anant-o-wamiowee,"which began at the mouth . . . with which they abound. of the LickingRiver, ran southto the Big Bone THE BUFFALO TRACES and Drennon's licks, where it cut east con- nectingthe Leestown Crossingat present-day Whereas the prairiegrasses encouraged the Frankfortwith the Lower Blue Lick, May's buffalo in their eastward migration,the salt Lick, and finallythe Limestone Crossing of springs proved an even strongerattraction. the Ohio River at latter-dayMaysville. The The woodland bison developed a compelling Wilderness Trail, the famous pioneer route appetite for salt which stimulated seasonal to the KentuckyBlue Grass, originatedat the movement from the Valley's prairie feeding Flat Lick where it connected with buffalo grounds to the salt licks. The salt resource tracesrunning to the east of CumberlandGap. attractedthe migratingherds funnelingtheir The trace strucktoward the northwestwhere movementalong specific routes and concen- at Knob Lick the second and less famouspor- tratingtheir attention at definitesites. Buffalo tion of the trail continued westward to the traces thus emerged as routes of maximum Falls of the Ohio by way of Bullitt's and salines. convenience connecting the larger Mann's licks, respectively. From the Falls, Filson, the early Ohio Valley historian,de- the trace continued across southernIndiana scribed Kentucky'slicks and traces:26 to the French Lick and finallyto the crossing Many finesalt springsconstantly emit water which, on the Wabash River at present-dayVin- beingmanufactured, affords great quantities of fine cennes. salt .... The amazing herds of buffalo which resort Outside the Kentuckyarea, where the bison thither,by theirsize and number,fill the traveler with amazementand terrors,especially when he were numericallyless significant,the traces beholds the prodigious roads they have made were correspondinglyless-developed. Where fromall quartersas if leading to some populous traces did exist,as in West Virginiaand Ten- city. nessee, most had been reclaimed by second- JamesSmith described Kentucky'sbest known growth vegetation following the destruction trace, the "Alanant-o-wamiowee,"which the of the buffaloherds by whitehunters. Second- Americanstranslated from the Shawnee lan- growth timber was exceedingly difficultto guage as "The Buffalo Trace." "We left the penetrate;therefore, obscured traces were of lick [probablythe Lower Blue Lick] and pur- little use to farmerson enteringthese areas. sued our journeyto Lexingtonfollowing one of Only in the Nashville Basin and along the the old buffalo roads, which I suppose was Kanawha River where permanentsettlement generally200 feet wide."27 George Croghan, followed quickly the exploitative "hunter's at an earlierperiod, wrote of the same trace:28 frontier,"did the survivingtraces invite ex- 25 T. Hutchins,A TopographicalDescription of Vir- tensive use. ginia, Pennsylvania,Maryland, and North Carolina (London: J. Almon,1778), pp. 14-55. Journals1748-1765 (Cleveland: A. H. Clark,1914), 26 J. Filson,The DiscoverySettlement and Present Vol. I, p. 135. State of Kentucke(Wilmington, Delaware: J.Adams, 29 An extensiveeighteenth century map literature 1784), pp. 32-33. was consultedin attemptingthis cartographicrecon- 27J. Smith,"Tours into Kentucky and the North- structionof the Valley's trace system. Utilized also west Territory:Three Journalsby the Rev. James were the numeroustravel journals,gazetteers, and Smith of Powhatan County, Virginia, 1783-1795- emigrantguides of the period,as well as local his- 1797" (J. Morrow,Ed.), Ohio State Archaeological torical and archaeologicalsurveys when available. and HistoricalQuarterly, Vol. 16 (1907), p. 372. Similarsources were employedin the compilationof 28 G. Croghan,"The Journalsof George Croghan, all the settlementdata subsequentlypresented in map 1750-1765,"in R. G. Thwaites(Ed.), Early Western form.
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THE BUFFALO HUNTERS to this Practiceit will in a shortTime be a dif- ficultMatter to supply even Fort Chartreswith The firstAnglo-Americans to cross the Ap- Meat fromthence. palachians in large numbers were hunters and trappers operating initiallyfrom Harris' SALT AND PERMANENT SETTLEMENT Ferry in Pennsylvania and from scattered Prior to the RevolutionaryWar, permanent settlementsin the Great Valley of Virginia. settlersin the Ohio Valley were few indeed. Combiningexploitation and exploration,these As previouslymentioned, Turner believed that so-called "long-hunters"explored the West, the general lack of salt in the Trans-Appala- mapped the important traces, publicized the chian West had discouragedsettlement, a situ- most importantlicks, and generallyserved as ation altered by the discoveryof the western the vanguard for permanentsettlement. De- salines.32 It is not certain,however, that the spite a potentiallylucrative fur trade with In- salt springs,once discovered, were appreci- dians in the Great Lakes area, these English ated by the Anglo-Americansfor their salt- hunters were primarilyconcerned with the makingpotential; immediate benefits accrued buffalo which, unlike the beaver, thrivedin only to the hunterwho preyed upon the game the more readily accessible Ohio Valley. attracted to the salt brine. Implying no Buffalo hunters in the Cumberland area, greater use of the licks than for hunting, which was seeminglythe Valley's most pro- Thomas Walker wroteof the large salt lick at ductivehunting ground, came by way of Kas- present-dayRoanoke, Virginia,and the influ- kaskia, the French village occupied by the ence which the use of this saline exerted on English after1765. The Philadelphia firmof the initial occupance of Virginia's Great Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan stimulated Valley:33 this huntingactivity as part of a grand com- mercial scheme to supply the English garri- This lick has been one of the best places forgame sons of the West and to develop a westernfur in theseparts, and wouldhave been ofmuch greater advantageto the inhabitantsthan it has been if the and hide trade. Under George Morgan'sdirec- hunters had not killed the buffaloes . . . and the tion, merchandisewas shipped by wagon to elk and deer for theirskins. Fort Pitt and then by flatboatto the Illinois Country. Salt was perhaps the most impor- Perhaps the lack of protectionagainst the tant commodityincluded since the producing Indian was the true cause of frontierretarda- salt springsof the MississippiValley were all tion,a conditionaltered by the re-fortification located in newly-createdSpanish Louisiana. of the West at the beginningof the American Carried eventuallyto Tennessee, this salt was Revolution. The western garrisons gave used to cure buffalo hides and meat. At an easternmerchants a rationale for establishing early date, therefore,a commercialtie devel- the extended trade routes along which salt oped between Illinois and Tennessee which, and other supplies moved freely. Whereas curiousas it may seem, involvedlong-distance salt may have tied the settlerto the coast, as salt importationinto an area of natural salt Turner suggested, it seemingly did so only availability. where eastern supply routes failed to pene- In 1767 the Morgan interestsreceived from tratethe westernwilderness. In westernVir- the Cumberland area some 18,000 pounds of ginia and Pennsylvania, as in Illinois, salt buffalobeef, fifty-fivebuffalo tongues, and a supplies were imported;originated along the "great"weight of tallow,but less than Morgan Atlantictrade routes from England to theWest needed.30 The herds diminished rapidly Indies, a foreignsalt product was distributed caused, Morgan claimed, by the French who by way of Philadelphia and Baltimore. In ad- entered the area fromSpanish territory.31 dition, the establishmentand supply of the westerngarrisons went hand in hand with the Theyhave so thinnedthe buffaloe . . . thatyou lifting of colonial restrictionson frontier willnot see the 1/20part of theQty as formerly and unlesssome method be takento put a Stop settlement.With restrictionson settlementre-
30 H. S. Arnow,Seedtime on the Cumberland(New 32 Turner,op. cit.,footnote 2, p. 17. York: MacMillan Co., 1963), p. 127; quotingletters 33 T. Walker,Journal of an Explorationin theSpring of Morgansent to Bayntonand Wharton. of the Year 1750 (Boston: Little,Brown, and Co., 31 Arnow,op. cit.,footnote 30, p. 130. 1888), p. 10.
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I WESTERN IPENNSYLVANIA Vt ~ ~ 1780
A~~~~_ NEW YORK % aPENNSYVANIA
,d I
/ 6StatDonI
\:75 I A >t \Station \ --- ~~~~~~~Surveyedboundary j1 / A-- -- Unsurveyed boundazry l
0 _ \ e miles
- - /_ _ - - __ _ - PENNSYLVANIA ' _ _ - ______/ VIRGINIA I -- __ 7 ______
Fig. 2.
This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 694 JOHN A. JAKLE December
KENTUCKY 'I 1790 Losantive I SlnScSMioto 0 20 40 60 M)
SO5=j A~~~~renchLick / I ISX n' slLiicI k > ;, mA Fr n k f o X e S lue gad\ 1\B*gBone IcI |ranko / * . UpruL s_\t \,\ul nSlt lick) SaatiA * Vnens*De a hingtn_ \ ~~ ~* ~ ~~~anI Lic WsVRGIIA sweer.dGa French Lic Lick Ltl ...... Frankfort UpTracel luefLi acke ik Town Lo pier *. Nashborough 0 ari---- Buffalo Fig. Salt3lick.Statio moved,the basic trade commoditiesavailable, The stations varied from small two-room and adequate protectionassured, the large- blockhouses to large stockaded villages and scale migrationinto the Ohio Valley began. althoughone cannot assume any size equiva- lent, each did representa focal point for the Western Pennsylvania common defense of an occupied neighbor- In Pennsylvania,Fort Pitt representedthe hood. So necessarywere thesestations to fron- primarybastion on which the major supply tier survival,that one can safely assume all routesfocused. Lesser fortsor "stations"were districtsnot so defended were, in fact,unoc- establishedin adjacent areas servedby several cupied. With the approach of open hostilities, of these routes: i.e., Forbes' Road, Braddock's isolated communitieshastened to fortifyas Trace, the Mingo Path, and the Kittanning described in a letterwritten to George Wash- Path respectively(Fig. 2). Generally,Ameri- ington by a neighboringlandowner on the can settlerssought the relativeisolation of in- Pennsylvania frontier:34 dividual farmsteads,but under threatof con- I have,with the assistanceof someof yourcar- tinual Indian attack their settlementsmost pentersand servants,built a verystrong block- became communal experiments house,and theneighbors, what few have notrun frequently away,have joined me and we arebuilding a stock- conducted in the confines of fortifiedcom- pounds. 34 Montgomery,op. cit.,footnote 7, p. 353. This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1969 OHIO VALLEY SALT 695 ade fortat my house. Mr. Simpson,also, and his tion of the "Alanant-o-wamiowee."An im- neighborshave begun to build a fortat yourbot- portant clusteringof settlementsalso devel- tom; and we live in hopes we can stand our groundtill we can get some assistancefrom below. oped near Louisville which had emerged as an entrepotfor the growingagricultural sur- Salt's influence on the Pennsylvaniafrontier plus which moved via the Ohio River to New came not as a site factorunderlying the spe- Orleans. Numerous stations were erected cificpositioning of fortifiedstations, but as a along the old buffalotrace which now served permissive factor. Settlementswere neces- as the principal trade route connecting the sarilylocated in areas of salt availability,i.e., Blue Grass with the river. Settlementssouth in districtsserved by trade routes. Most of of the Falls were orientedto Bullitt'sLick on the region'ssalt licks were peripheralto areas the Salt River which had emerged as Ken- of settlementconcentration suggesting that tucky'sprime salt supplier. Only in this in- settlersdid, in fact, obtain their salt supply stance, however,did salt-making,as such, di- throughthe commercialtrade structureand rectlystimulate the concentrationof a large not through subsistence-productionefforts pioneer population. focused at local salines. Salt influencedsettlement distribution pri- marilythrough the derived mechanismof the Kentucky buffalotrace system.The roads whichbecame Fortifiedstations were particularlyimpor- the major axes of settlementin Kentuckywere tant to the defense of Kentucky,for the Vir- created by the great herds of bison recently ginia governmentinitially proved reluctantto arrived in the Valley. It should be noted, subsidize a large westerngarrison such as Fort nonetheless,that many buffalotraces did not Pitt. Stations came to provide a collective appreciablyaffect the region'scourse of settle- defenseagainst Indian attackand were, there- ment. Even as late as 1790 few stationshad fore, closely oriented to the principal traces been erected along the traces in the northfor since mutualaid was based upon ease of inter- settlers were understandably reluctant to action (Fig. 3). However, the quality of land settle in areas highly vulnerable to Indian was also a prime considerationwhen sites for attack. In addition,the buffalopaths in this settlementwere chosen. The Kentucky sta- districttook a north-southorientation. The tions,in contrastto Pennsylvania,represented Kentuckymigration, however, was essentially initial settlementforms as they were not a westwardmovement and only the east-west erected to defend already developed agricul- traces could provide the basic road network tural districts.Land improvementproceeded conduciveto Kentucky'srapid growth. fromthe safetyof the stockaded enclosures. Prior to 1783, most Kentuckysettlers came Virginia,Tennessee, and the by way of Cumberland Gap which was not, NorthwestTerritory unlike the Ohio River route,harassed by the Buffalotraces did not stronglyinfluence the Indians. On reachingthe richsoils of the Blue positioning of settlementelsewhere in the Grass Basin, most of these early migrantslo- Ohio Valley. In Pennsylvania,military roads cated their settlementsalong the Wilderness laid the foundationfor early settlement.Al- Road and its several extensions. Hesitant to thougha buffalotrace roughlyparalleled the risk the farthestfrontier, most chose land be- Kanawha and Greenbrierrivers in present- hind the bufferpopulations of Lexingtonand day West Virginia,that region's relative iso- Harrodsburg (the district'stwo largest sta- lation, mountainous terrain,and less fertile tions) thus fosteringthe large populationcon- soils discouraged large-scalesettlement there. centrationat Danville, later chosen as Ken- In the Territorynorth and west of the Ohio tucky'sfirst capital (Fig. 3). River,where buffalotraces also survived,the With the reopening of the Ohio River, principal migration came by river; earliest settlerscame increasinglyby flatboat. Taking settlementwas orientedto water and not land advantage of the superior landing at Lime- routes. Only in Middle Tennessee did buffalo stone,many utilized the buffalotrace to gain traces appreciably reinforcethe initial settle- access to the interior. Accordingly,settle- ment pattern; the concentrationof stations mentswere closelyoriented to the easternpor- in the rich Nashville Basin partiallyreflected This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 696 JOHN A. JAKLE December the high degree of accessibilityprovided by rural and urban economic sectors. Although the buffalopaths which focused at the French most frontiersettlers initially pursued a sub- Lick (Fig. 3). sistenceagriculture supplemented by the hunt, cattle-raisingas a commercialendeavor was SALT AND TOWN GROWTH equally important. Indeed, the early Trans- In addition to fortified stations, urban Appalachian West was, in essence, a "cattle- centerswere importanton the Valley's early man's frontier"where the sale of beef or pork, settlementlandscape. Towns developed to eithersalted or on the hoof,enabled purchase serve both the agriculturalpopulation con- of powder,lead, irongoods, and othernecessi- centrated along the traces and new settlers ties, and paymentof annual tax bills and land movingalong these principalmigration routes. obligationsas well. Withoutan adequate salt Towns emerged at the major vertices of the supplyfrontier livestock could not survivenor, trace system,at principalriver crossings,and forthat matter,could animals deprivedof the at sites along the Ohio River connectedto the vital dietaryelement be slaughtered,for such interiorby the formerbuffalo roads. Although activitynecessitated salt-curing.As salt was most towns began as stations,their evolution made available by merchantslocated in the into urban centersproved most rapid. Thus towns where livestockand salted-meatswere by 1790, in addition to Lexington,Harrods- also marketed, commercial agriculture and burg, Danville, Limestone (Maysville), and urban growthare seen to have been mutually Louisville previouslymentioned, Losantiville related through the mechanism of the salt (Cincinnati), Washington, Paris, Frankfort, trade. Stanford, Bairdstown, and Nashborough (Nashville) had also developed as urban THE SALT TRADE PRIOR TO 1783 places located along the Ohio Valley's former Diagrammatic representationof the move- buffalopaths (Fig. 3). ment of salt within the Ohio Valley, at ten- Towns should be considered,therefore, an year intervalsbetween 1770 and 1820, indi- essential element in the Valley's early settle- cates both well-establishedcorridors of move- ment fabric,as Wade has so persuasivelyar- mentsustained by a permanentmarketing ap- gued.35 Referringto the largest centers of paratus and commercialties, and lines of in- Pittsburgh,Cincinnati, Lexington, and Louis- termittentmovement responsive to unstable ville, he noted that ". . . the towns were the patternsof demand lacking commercial ties spearheads of the frontier.Planted far in ad- (Fig. 4). The diagrams also depict changes vance of the line of settlement,they held the which reflectboth new sources of supply and West forthe approachingpopulation."36 Most new consumermarkets. urban centersin the Ohio Valley,however, de- The initialsalt movementinto the Ohio Val- veloped only as focal points within a system ley came by way of the Illinois Countrywhere of occupance generallycharacterized by his- French colonistsmanufactured salt at the sev- torians as agriculturaland thus rural. With eral salines located near present-day Ste. the improvementof transportation,agriculture Genevieve, Missouri. The French, unlike the in the Valley became increasinglycommercial English, recognized early the full resource in its orientation;farm products moved to dis- value of the westernsalt springsand salt-mak- tinctivelyurban places to be exchanged for ing became a popular economicpursuit during importedcommodities. To debate which was thesummer months. The Frenchfur trade, mil- more important,the rural or urban settlement itary,mining, missionary, and agriculturales- apparatus, is to obscure the basic point that tablishmentsrequired large quantities of salt both were mutuallydependent. In real mea- impossible to importowing to high transpor- sure the town insured the success of the pio- tation costs. Thus, a salt-makingenterprise neer farmer whose effortspointed toward proved vital to French interests.When, after commercial economy. 1763, Spain took controlof the Upper Louisi- Salt played an importantrole in relatingthe ana salt springs,the English,as mastersof the Ohio Valley,began to importtheir salt supply, 3 R. C. Wade, The UrbanFrontier (Chicago: The Universityof Chicago Press, 1964). findingit economicallyfeasible to do so, hav- 36 Wade, op. cit.,footnote 35, p. 1. ing tied salt importationto the fur and hide This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1969 OHIO VALLEY SALT 697 trade. The exploitsof George Morgan and his tant KentuckyCountry. Whereas salt moved Philadelphia associates in moving salt to the through Cumberland Gap, the Kentucky interiorhave already been mentioned. Most settlerslacked sufficientspecie to sustain this of this foreignproduct originatedon Tortuga overland trade connection indefinitely.Yet and Turks Islands in the West Indies and al- with the rapid growthof Kentucky'spopula- thoughthe MississippiRiver was, perhaps,the tion a large demand forsalt had been created. logical trade corridorfor its importation,Spain Conditions were ripe for the introductionof controlled the port at New Orleans forcing an Americansalt-making technology into the the English to ship the commodityacross the Trans-AppalachianWest. As in the East, how- Appalachian Mountains. ever, the real initiativewhich led Kentucky's With the approach of open rebellion the pioneer element to tap the local salt resource American colonists placed an embargo on came fromthe Virginia Government.In Oc- trade with England. This, coupled with the tober, 1777, the House of Delegates recom- retaliatoryBritish naval blockade, greatlyre- mended that a salt works be established at duced American salt imports. Merchants Bullitt'sLick and that a fortbe erected at the turnedto privateeringfor salt whereas many Falls of the Ohio to offerthe Kentuckysettlers plantationowners turned slave labor to boiling (the salt-makersincluded) protectionagainst sea water. Priorto trade restrictions,salt sold Indian attack.41Profit from the sale of salt in on the coast at fifteenshillings per bushel,but western Pennsylvaniaand Kentuckywas in- by October, 1775, its price ranged fromfive tended to support the proposed garrison to nineteen pounds sterling.37Great distress housed eventually at Fort Nelson, around characterizedthe frontieras a letter written whichthe townof Louisville quicklyevolved. fromFort Pitt in 1777 indicates:38 In November,1779, Colonel William Flem- ing, head of the Virginia Land Commission, We have now about 5000 head of hornedcattle in the neighborhoodof this City which are daily journeyedfrom Harrodsburg to the Falls. In growingpoorer and cannotbe killed for want of his journal he described the salt-makingoper- salt, of which we cannot get a Bushel.... The ation introducedat Bullitt'sLick:42 greatestpart I thinkwill die thiswinter. Bullitt'sCreek as it is cald [sic] is perhapsthe best It is not surprisingthat many frontiercom- Salt Springs in the Country. . . . They have a munitiesorganized regulatormovements and troughthat holds very near 1000 gallonswhich they emptythrice in 24 hours. They have 25 kettles openlyraided the dwindlingcoastal salt stores. belongingto the Commonwealthwhich theykeep Edmund Pendleton, chairman of Virginia's constantlyboiling . . . filling them up as the water Committeeof Correspondence,wrote in April, waistes[sic] fromthe troughfirst into kettles which 1776, requesting". . . the approved methodof they call freshwater kettlesand then into others. makingit [salt], as we have sufferedin other Afterthis management . . . they put the brine into a Cooler and let it standtill cold and [then]draw cases by settingout wrong."39 He proposed offthe clear brineinto the last boilersunderwhich ... to risque even a loss of Public money to they keep a brisk fire . . . till [the salt] grains. secure an Article without which our own They thenput it to drain. 3000 Gallons of water people will break throughall restraint."40 boiled down yieldsfrom 3 to 412 bushels. By late 1777, state-subsidizedsalt works Althoughscores of salt licks had been dis- along the coast had come to meet Virginia's coveredin Kentucky,only the largestand most minimalsalt needs except that of the far-dis- accessible were actually developed, i.e., Bul- litt's Lick on the Wilderness Road and the L. Morton,Robert Carter of NominiHall (Wil- Lower Blue Saline on the "Alanant-o-wamio- liamsburg,Virginia: Colonial Williamsburg,Incor- wee." Since salt was easily distributedalong porated,1941), p. 183. these traces,two corridorsof high salt availa- 38 J. Reed, letterof September28, 1777, to the ContinentalCongress, in "Notes and Queries,"Penn- bilitymay be said to have existed. We have sylvaniaMagazine of Historyand Biography,Vol. 11 (1887), p. 502. 41 J. W. Wayland, The Bowmans (Staunton,Vir- 39E. Pendleton,letter dated April28, 1777, to R. ginia: the author,1943), p. 68. H. Lee, in D. J.Mays, Edmund Pendleton 1721-1803, 42 W. Fleming,"Journal of Travels in Kentucky, A Biography (Cambridge, Massachusetts:Harvard 1779-1780,"in N. D. Mereness(Ed.), Travelsin the UniversityPress, 1952), p. 47. AmericanColonies (New York: MacMillan and Co., 40 Mays,op. cit.,footnote 39, p. 47. 1916), p. 620. This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 698 JOHN A. JAKLE December SALTROUTES CENTERED IN THE OHIO RIVERVALLEY 1770-1820 Kaskaskia 4 -Ste eneviever lu SSalt / Wr uk I - Bullitt's Tidiewater Lick 177 1~~~~~~~~~~~780 0 100 200 0 100 200 * ~~~~~~~Onondaga I Salt Works (Pitts~bfrgh)* 'Muskingum fScioto AL I Saline % I Baltimor iiin Drennoi's Lick Bone Lick n ~~sl A Louisvil A A AOhio Salt~ A% I Lck A Upper A T A * A Lick A ALxn on Blue Lick A satlick ,A(Saltville) 1790 Nashville 1800 0 100 200 100 200 . producingnsaonnA A Major Ini*., Salt Works Saline --ALittle SandyA Clay CountyAA Salt Works-.' 1810 12 0 100 20 0 20 - Stable salt flow .-Irregular salt flow Major marketng center Major producing saline 1z" ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~A Fig. 4. This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1969 OHIO VALLEY SALT 699 C-illicothe Cincinnati Sioto Salin BigBne Lick Gallipolis i~~~~~~~~~~~~~yv( j Rw SaltLick Kanawha L BlueLick hpngo Drennhnn Washingtn LiOhio LittleSandy Shippin spor ~~~~~~~~~~ppr BlueLick Salt Lick ouisville ve Paris MnnsLkck rankfort I % BuIllitt'sLick Lexingto at iveI Bardstown SALTROUTES CENTERED ON Eliza ettt LEXINGTON,KENTUCKY 1807 Greep, 0 10 20 30 40 50 miles ivr Clay County SaltWorks mlier Fig. 5. already observed the manner in which sub- pit. Each furnace was fired from the front sequent settlementcame to concentratealong and the flame and smoke was drawn beneath those major axes: a concentrationreinforced, the row of kettles and out througha stone no doubt,by the salt convenience. chimneyat the far end of the trench.43Ini- tially, the brine was obtained from shallow THE SALT TRADE 1783 TO 1820 wells located near the original salt lick and Kentucky supplied to the nearby furnaces in wooden as the supply of fuel By 1790, commercialsalt manufacturehad troughsor flumes,but to been established at most of the larger salt wood grew scarce the furnaceswere moved and brine was conveyed springsin the Blue Grass and the new salt- the remainingtimber gum or sassafraslogs making technologyhad diffusedto salines in in pipelines made from line.44A wildcattown, Ohio and the Great Valley of Virginiaas well. buriedbeneath the frost near the furnaces,for In Kentucky,nine salines became important Saltsburgh,developed 800 laborers were employed at salt producers,i.e., the Bullitt's,Mann's, Lower upwards to the saline.45 Blue, Drennon's,May's, Big Bone, LittleSandy, In a salt station was established at Ohio, and Clay Countylicks (Fig. 5). 1782, Lick and a companyformed to The Bullitt salt works was probably the nearbyMann's most advanced as well as the largest salt regulate the salt trade of both salines.46 By operation. There the western salt industry storingsalt in large warehouses, thus with- firstdeveloped its salt-makingtechnology as holding it frompublic consumption,the com- methods of operation, principles of furnace pany successfullyinflated prices. At the turn construction,and procedures of well-digging of the centuryproduction was shutdown com- were perfected.The furnaceswere comprised of long trencheswalled with slate held by a 43McDowell, op. cit.,footnote 6, p. 256. 44 clay mortar. The kettles, which contained McDowell,op. cit.,footnote 6, p. 256. 45 McDowell,op. cit.,footnote 6, p. 256. about twenty-twogallons each, sat atop these 46 Deposit Station formedthe urban nucleus for excavationswith as many as sixtykettles to a Newtown,Kentucky. This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 700 JOHN A. JAKLE December TABLE 1.-ESTIMATED PRODUCTIVE VALUE OF Passed the creek at Blue Lick, belly deep, with SELECTED OHIO VALLEY SALT BRINES sulphurouswater runningfrom a sulphurspring, PRIOR TO 1815 once a salt spring.The waterstinks like the putrid stagnantwater of an English horse-pond,full of Brine required for one animal dung. This is resortedto forhealth. Saline bushel of salt (in gallons) Kentucky: Drennon's, May's, and Big Bone licks were Bullitt'sLick 1,000a hardly as successful as the Lower Blue salt Lower Blue Lick 1,00Ob operation;indeed, these salines were also de- Ohio: SciotoSalt Works 500e veloped as health resorts once salt-making Illinois: ceased shortlyafter 1800. U. S. Saline 1804 The Ohio Salt Lick enjoyed a greaterpros- West Virginia: perityas we read fromthe journal of Andrew Kanawha Salt Works 10O0 Ellicott who visitedthe site in 1796:50 a W. Fleming, "Journalof Travels in Kentucky,1779-1780," in N. D. Mereness (Ed.), Travels in the American Colonies The salt works . . . are about one mile from the (New York: MacMillan and Co., 1916), p. 620. [Ohio] river in the State of Kentucky . . . 300 b V. Collot, "A Journeyin North America [1810]," Transac- tions of the Illinois State Historical Society,Vol. 13 (1909), p. gallonsof thewater produce one bushelof salt ... 290. they had 170 iron kettles and made about 30 e J. Cutler,A Topographical Descriptionof the State of Ohio, bushels of salt per day, which sold for 2 dollars Indiana Territory,and Louisiana (Boston: J. Belcher, 1812), p. 33. cash per bushel or 3 dollars in trade, as they d Report of W. Prince to the Secretary of the Treasury termit. [1803], in C. E. Carter (Ed.), The TerritorialPapers of the United States, Vol. VII (Washington, D.C.: GovernmentPrint- Cuming recorded the followingimpression in ing Office, 1939), p. 109. e D. Ruffner, "The Kanawha Salt Works," Niles Weekly his journal for 1807:51 Registe-,Vol. 8 (April 22, 1815), p. 135. A furnacerequires eight men to do its work,whose wages are fromtwenty to twenty-fivedollars per week each. The proprietorsof each furnacepay pletely and the price of salt rose to a high of a year'srent from three to fivehundred bushels of three dollars a bushel.Y Competition from salt to the proprietorsof the soil. The valley in newly erected salt worksin easternKentucky, which the springsare [located] is small,and sur- rounded by broken and ratherbarren hills, but westernVirginia, and southernIllinois, how- [produces] wood enough to supply the furnaces ever, prompted resumption of salt-making with fuel constantly. . . . There is a wagon road operations and, by 1805, fourteen furnaces of seventymiles from hence to Lexington,through with sixtykettles each were in service pro- a countrysettled the whole way. The road passes ducing an average of 1,400 bushels of salt the Upper Blue Licks where are also salt springs and furnaces,not nearly however,so productive weekly.48 as these. At the Lower Blue Lick, salt was produced commerciallyfor more than two decades, but After1810 sophisticatedwell-drilling tech- the small furnaces which operated under a niques enabled salt productionat many licks succession of owners and lessees could not whose surfacewaters had previouslybeen to- competeeffectively with the Saltsburghopera- tallynonproductive as in Clay County. James tion,for the local brinewas weak and thusthe Collins,a hunterand the county'sfirst settler, fuel and labor costs greatlyinflated. Table 1 discovered salt brine by followinga buffalo offers ready comparison of selected Ohio trail;there he built a cabin and manufactured Valley salt works according to the strengths the firstsalt in 1798.52In 1810 therewere four of theirrespective brines. Salt-makingslowly establishmentsin the districtproducing at a declined and by 1820 only the small hotel, capacityof over 70,000 bushels a year.53This, which thenfunctioned as a spa, survivedfrom coupled with the equal production of the the salt-makingperiod. An Englishmanpen- 50 A. Ellicott,The Journalof Andrew Ellicott (Phila- ned the followingtribute:49 delphia: T. Dobson, 1803), pp. 14-15. 51 F. Cuming,Sketches of a Tour to the Western 47 McDowell,op. cit.,footnote 6, p. 256. Country(Pittsburgh: Carmer, Spear, and Eichbaum, 48 H. Bartlett,"Diary of a Journeyto Ohio and Ken- 1810), p. 143. tucky,1805," VirginiaMagazine of Historyand Biog- 52White,op. cit.,footnote 6, p. 240. raphy,Vol. 19 (1941), p. 76. 53 M. Verhoeff,"The KentuckyRiver Navigation," 49Faux, op. cit.,footnote 12, p. 337. FilsonClub Publications,Vol. 28 (1917), p. 153. This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1969 OHIO VALLEY SALT 701 TABLE 2.-ANNUAL PRODUCTIONOF SALT IN BUSHELS, provisionof salt; and preparesome way to Nash- 1810 AND 1829 ville,and theredispose of it forcotton, beaver furs, raccoon skins, otter, etc. . . . when you have com- Area 1810 1829a pleted yoursales, you will yourselfmove with the Kanawha County, Virginia 740,000 925,000 horsesetc., by land, and committhe otherarticles, with the barge of Capt. Alexander. . . . The goods Western Pennsylvania no data 750,000b Ohio 24,000 426,350 which . . . Alexander carries down to the falls, I Kentucky 324,870 137,320 wish you to sell . . . for cash, peltry, or cotton. Illinois 150,000 138,000 One Smithis preparingto go down with two or Indiana no data no data three hundredbushels fromthe lower lick. En- Tennessee no data no data deavorto get offbefore him. a The Census of 1820 gives only capital invested. Salt was the one commodityreadily con- b Estimate. Source: U. S. Census 1810, 1830. verted into cash and the one commodity readilyaccepted in barter. Participationin the salt trade, therefore,proved requisite to as- Little Sandy Lick also located in the eastern semblinggoods forshipment, either down the mountains,accounted for over half the state's MississippiRiver or elsewhere. On September total salt output54(Table 2). Thus, the sa- 6, 1788, Wilkinsonadvertised that he had re- lines of eastern Kentucky came quickly to ceived a quantityof salt which he desired to exert an influence on the Ohio Valley salt exchange for tobacco.56 Tobacco cost $2.00 market aided, no doubt, by the attempted per hundredweightin Kentucky,but sold for Bullitt's Lick salt monopoly. $9.50 at New Orleans.7 Wilkinsonobtained At the close of the American Revolution, tobacco in excessof 35,000pounds and shipped salt was in such great demand that customers it down the Ohio and Mississippito the Span- were not only obliged to pay inflatedprices, ish port,greatly stimulating the cultivationof but were also required to absorb transpor- tobacco in the Blue Grass area.58 the tation costs by purchasing directlyfrom The increasingsupply of salt and the de- increased, salt producers. As the salt supply velopmentof the rivertrade fosteredthe Val- however,merchants began to speculate in the ley's livestockindustry, placing it on a com- plen- commodityand it became increasingly mercial level. For example,one JamesMorri- tifulin the merchantilehouses of Lexington, son advertised in 1795 for 30,000 pounds of In- Louisville, Frankfort,and other towns. salt pork for the southerntrade.59 Similarly, the Ohio deed, surplus salt which entered in 1800, anotherenterprising merchant sought Cin- River trade was shipped to Nashville, several thousandpounds of pork forwhich he far east as cinnati,and, on occasion, even as intendedto exchange salt.60In 1801 the Ken- Pittsburgh. tuckyGazette containeda list of commodities to tie Ken- JamesWilkinson, whose attempt which were shipped from Louisville in the accu- tuckyto Spanish Louisiana laterbrought precedingyear; 92,300 pounds of pork,91,300 firstsalt sationsof treason,became Kentucky's pounds of bacon, 14,860pounds of dried beef, merchant.Wilkinson's political intrigueswere 2,587 pounds of butter,and 8,718 pounds of fact that firmlyanchored on the economic biscuitwere included.61 the Spanish New Orleans at the mouth of The salt trade also stimulated Kentucky's logical MississippiRiver remained Kentucky's early iron industry. The Old Slate Furnace an role marketoutlet. Salt played important (also called the Bourbon Furnace) was the connec- in his attemptto develop this trade first iron works west of the Appalachian in December, 1786, Wil- tion. From Danville Mountains. ChristopherGreenup of the Ohio kinsonwrote the followingletter to his agent Salt Lick advertisedin 1790 for stonemasons, Nathaniel Massie, later famous as a merchant carpenters,quarriers, woodcutters, and other and land speculatoron the Ohio frontier:55 I beg you to proceedwith all possibledispatch to 56 KentuckyGazette, September 6, 1788. the falls. You will call by the lick, and urge the 57 C. R. Staples,History of PioneerLexington (Lex- ington,Kentucky: Transylvania Press, 1939), p. 55. 54 Verhoeff,op. cit.,footnote 53, p. 153. 58 Staples,op. cit.,footnote 52, p. 55. 55R. H. Collins and L. Collins,Collin's Historical 59Clark, op. cit.,footnote 6, p. 45. Sketchesof Kentucky(Louisville: J. P. Mortonand 60 KentuckyGazette, February 6, 1800. Co., 1924), p. 370. 61Kentucky Gazette, May 18, 1801. This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 702 JOHN A. JAKLE December laborers to erect this facilityeast of Lexing- lower transportationcosts and consequently ton where iron ore, lime, and timber were lower salt prices; at least, thatwas the reward readilyavailable and where the steep gradient thatvested interestsheld beforethe public. of Slate Creek proved adequate to the power- ing of the mill's machinery.62This and the Western Pennsylvania other early pioneer furnaceswere frequently Although Kentucky produced a domestic called "salts" because their iron product was salt product after 1778, settlers in western usually cast in fortyinch pots used for evapo- Pennsylvania continued to import their salt rating salt.63 supply. Initially,the high cost of transporting As a stimulusto commercialeconomy, the salt forced most frontiercommunities to pur- salt trade fosteredurbanization, as previously chase the vital articlein easternmarkets, thus discussed. Salt, absolutely essential to the absorbing the costs of shipmentthrough the Valley's growing livestock industry,was in expenditureof labor. Turner attached great constant demand. When a fluctuatingbusi- importanceto the annual "salt pilgrimages," ness cycle curtailed the trade of other goods, as he termedthem, for they kept westernersin the salt exchange kept trade routes open and contact with eastern society and the annual the region'searly commercialstructure intact. trekacross the mountainsopened new oppor- As we have seen, the commercein salted meat, tunities for traded66Cuming commented as iron goods, and tobacco was clearlyrelated to late as 1810 that "Countrymen,sometimes salts availability; indeed, salt used as a me- alone, sometimes in large companies carry dium of exchange figuredin a wide range of salt fromMcConnelstown and otherpoints of trade activitiescentered in urban places. Fre- navigation on the Potomack and Susquehan- quently salt-centeredcommercial success was nah."6-7 directlytranslated into urban developmentas After 1800, however, Pennsylvania's salt in the case of Kentucky's second capital, came increasinglyfrom the Onondaga salt Frankfort. The town, laid out in 1786 by springslocated at Salina, New York (present- JamesWilkinson, developed at the site of his day Syracuse). The New York product first principalwarehouse. entered the Ohio Valley in large quantities Salt commercealso fosteredroad and river when JamesO'Hara, the Army'squartermaster improvementwhich furtherstrengthened the general, having obtained a governmentcon- region's urban structure. In 1810 the Ken- tract to supply barrels of salt to the federal tuckylegislature subsidized road construction fort at Oswego, realized the value of the connectingthe newlyestablished Clay County empty containers for shipping the desired salt operations with the Wilderness Road.64 commodityinto Pennsylvania. From Salina, In actions initiated at the local level, many barrels of salt intended for Pittsburghand counties had already constructed so-called otherpoints moved to the lake portat Oswego. " This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1969 OHIO VALLEY SALT 703 LAKE ONTARIO Omwego Queentown Salina Chipa Onondaga Buffalo Saline LAO~ Conneau4> (V --- C~ New Market' Waterfod - I ~~~~Mead le Clevela Franklin 0 Mahoning Fran Lick IS a e NEWYORK SALT ROUTES TO ./ / 5Yellow Creek Karaing THEOHIO RIVERVALLEY 2 Lick Freot1810 'ag /stt~burgh f a nSaltsburg 0 20 40 60 80 mies / anesvillel e mies' l Franklinton 7e _ Muskingum Bedford Lick -.-- -- - Lancaster ~ si~ Cumbe'T~F. Fig. 6. A Meadville newspaper reported in 1805 salt were manufacturedat the various Onon- that: 68 daga salt works with six percentof this total Eleven flat-bottomedand six keel-boatsloaded with passing throughthe port at Erie.70 Twelve salt passed by this place duringthe last freshin years laterthe New Yorksaline produced over French Creek the formercarrying on an average 500,000 bushels of salt with fourteenpercent, 170, and the latter60 barrelseach, makingin the or 57,000 bushels moving to Pennsylvania."' whole 2,230 barrels. This computedat 11 dollars per barrelat thisplace amountsto 24,530 dollars; The influence of the salt trade on town the sellingprice in Pittsburghis now 13 dollars, growth is well illustratedin Pennsylvania's whichwill make it amountto 28,990 dollars.[One Northwest.In additionto Erie and Waterford, barrel was equal to approximatelyfive bushels.] a stringof towns,including Meadville, Frank- During the precedingsummer, spring, and winter lin, Kittaning,and Freeport,developed along morethan double the foregoingquantity has been broughtacross the carryingplace between Erie the Alleghenycorridor. Although commerce and Waterford,which was eitherconsumed in the was not limited to salt alone, it is clear that countrybordering on the Alleghenyand Ohio urbanization in the region would not have Rivers, or in this and the neighboringcounties been as rapid withoutthe catalyticsalt trade. amountingin the whole to upwards of 80,000 dollars. Keelboat traffic,sustained by the salt com- merce,offered two-way connection with Pitts- With the opening of the Waterfordroute burgh; thus the Alleghenytowns functioned the price of salt in westernPennsylvania fell. early both as assemblypoints fromwhich the Originally sold at eight to ten dollars per region'sfarm surplus moved to marketand as bushel, the PittsburghGazette in 1803 adver- points for the distributionof manufactured tised "lake salt of a superiorquality" at $2.75 goods and otherimported commodities. per bushel.69 In 1798 some 59,000 bushels of 70 New York Assembly,Journal, Twenty-Second 68CrawfordWeekly Messenger(Meadville, Penn- Session,1799, p. 171; L. D. Baldwin,"The Riversin sylvania),December 12, 1805. the Early Developmentof Western Pennsylvania," 69 J.N. Boucher,Old andNew Westmoreland (New Western PennsylvaniaHistory Magazine, Vol. 16 York: AmericanHistorical Society, 1918), p. 520; (May, 1933), p. 94. PittsburghGazette, December 16, 1803. 71 Baldwin,op. cit.,footnote 70, p. 94. This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 704 JOHN A. JAKLE December In southwesternPennsylvania urban centers TABLE 3.-FEDERAL RESERVATION OF SALINE LANDS developed at vertices in the trace systemin IN THE OHIO VALLEY areas of highestpopulation density where pre- Total reserved viously the fortifiedstations had been most State Dates of reservation in acres highlyconcentrated. Prior to 1820, however, Ohio 1796,1802, 1804 24,216 only one town, Saltsburg,had evolved in di- Indiana 1816 23,040 rect response to salt commerce. There, along Illinois 1818 121,629 the Conemaugh River, one William Johnson Kentucky - 0 successfullydrilled for salt about 1810,having Tennessee - 0 firstestablished a gristmill to sustainhis salt Virginia - 0 exploration;the mill and salt works formed Source: U. S. Public Land Commission,The Public Domain the nucleus aroundwhich the town emerged.72 (Washington, D.C.: GovernmentPrinting Office, 1884), p. Salt-makingin Pennsylvaniawas not a pioneer 217. activity but was, to the contrary,the out- growthof a well-establishedcommercial eco- nomy. At Saltsburg, for example, Johnson In the Western Reserve salt was first enjoyed a maturetransportation structure and brought from New York State at twelve to an already large and well-definedsalt market twenty dollars a barrel.75 Shipments were upon which to base his own salt-makingen- made across Lake Erie to Conneaut, New deavor. Market, and Cleveland and thence into the settled interiorover "salt roads" constructed The NorthwestTerritory southwardfrom the lake (Fig. 6). In 1804, Settlers in southeasternOhio initially se- by way of example, Bemis and David Niles cured Onondaga salt by way of Pittsburghand surveyeda trace fromthe mouthof Conneaut the Ohio River (Fig. 6). In 1809 the Mead- Creek to connect with trails leading to the ville, Pennsylvania,newspaper again reported MahoningSaline. This road was used initially that at Waterfordthere were ". . . upwards of to carry salt southward,but later enjoyed a fourteenthousand barrels of salt, containing reversalof the salt movementwhen, following fivebushels each ... waitingthe raise of those the introductionof improved drilling tech- waters in order to descend to Pittsburgh, niques, a salt works developed at the Mahon- Wheeling, and Marietta."73In southwestern ing Spring. The town of Saltsburgh (later Ohio Judge Symmes, the region's principal renamed Niles) was established adjacent to colonizer, intended initially to import salt this salt operation. fromKentucky; indeed, he engaged one Isaac As the lack of governmentalcontrol had Taylor to establish a road to Lexington for prompted monopolistic abuse in Kentucky, purposes of salt importation.Taylor marked Ohio's salt resources were deliberately re- the existingbuffalo trace southwardfrom Cin- served to the public good; indeed, a total of cinnati (Fig. 5). Symmesthen advertisedfor 24,216 acres were set aside assuringthe State settlersin the East:74 controlof both the salt springsand the sur- Salt is now made to any quantityin Kentucky, rounding timber lands.76 The acreages re- oppositethis tract on thesoutheast side of the Ohio, served in the various states of the Northwest where seven counties are already considerably settledand where any numberof neat-cattlemay Territoryare given in Table 3. Laws regu- be had verycheap. lating the management of the "Public Salt With the development of local salt works Works" preventedindividuals from operating along the Scioto and Muskingumrivers and more than 120 or less than thirtykettles; for along Yellow Creek,however, settlers came to the privilege of making salt, lessees initially lean increasinglyon a locally produced com- paid annual rents of twelve cents a gallon modity. 7 J. Badger, Memoir of the Rev. JosephBadger 72 Boucher,op. cit.,footnote 69, p. 521. (Hudson, Ohio: the author,1851), p. 131. 73Crawford Weekly Messenger(Meadville, Penn- 76 AmericanState Papers,Fourth Congress, Second sylvania), November23, 1809. Session,p. 896; U. S. Public Land Commission,The 74Brunswick Gazette and WeeklyMonitor (Bruns- Public Domain (Washington, D.C.: Government wick,New Jersey),January 8, 1788. PrintingOffice, 1884), pp. 217.-18. This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1969 OHIO VALLEY SALT 705 based on the capacity of theirkettles.77 Rents changed and, by 1807, twentyfurnaces were were quickly reduced (firstto four cents and in operation,producing an average of fiftyto then to two cents), for the Ohio brines were sixtybushels of salt per week; initially,five to generallyweak and the state's surchargeonly seven hundredgallons of brine were required heightened the Ohio producer's competitive to make a bushel of fiftypounds weight.8' disadvantagein the Valley's salt market.78 The Scioto Saline, located in Ohio's Jackson The Scioto Lick was by far the most im- County, declined in importance as eastern portantsaline in Ohio. The exact date of dis- Kentuckyand westernVirginia salt producers coveryby the whites is unknown,but it was rose in prominenceafter 1810. Yet before its probably located during the mid-eighteenth decline, salt-makingstimulated industrial ac- centuryby French fur traders. For several tivityof a differentsort. As in Kentucky,the decades the Indians made salt at the lick,hav- demand foriron kettlesand evaporatingpans ing adopted the European's taste forthe com- gave impetus to iron manufactureas timber, modity. Whereas small amounts of sodium coal, iron ore, and lime were readilyavailable chloride taken indirectlythrough the con- along Little Salt Creek. To the east along sumptionof game had been adequate to the Yellow Creek in JeffersonCounty, the salt in- Indian diet previously,salt used in large quan- dustrysimilarly fostered iron manufacturing titiesdemanded sustainedconsumption at high centeredeventually at Steubenville.82In addi- levels.79 Thus, the Shawnee and the other tion,Ohio's salt industryencouraged coal pro- Ohio tribes, including the Seneca and the duction,for an inadequate fuel supply was a Delaware, were eventuallytrapped by an in- general problem whereversalt was manufac- adequate salt technology.Incapable of meet- tured by the evaporation process.83 In 1810 ing theirsalt needs, theybecame increasingly the Ohio Legislature offeredrent rebates to dependent upon the white man for their salt any "salt boiler" who successfullyintroduced supply. As hunterswith complementaryagri- "mineral coal" into his operation.84 At the culture,the Indians developed seasonal migra- Scioto works,where two coal seams were ex- torypatterns in theirsearch forgame (includ- posed in the adjacent hills, coal began to re- ing the dwindling buffalo herds) and salt, place wood in the furnacesas early as 1807.85 both found at the salines. The Indian pattern Salt's greatestinfluence on the Northwest of migrationbecame one of continual move- Territory's mentbetween the larger salt springs. early settlement,however, came AlthoughCongress had reserveda township not as a stimulusto resourcedevelopment, but at the Scioto Lick, as at every large salt lick throughthe Indian's growing need for salt. in the NorthwestTerritory, provisions were Followingthe Americanvictory at Fallen Tim- not properlymade to lease the saline until bers, the federal governmentinadvertently after statehood had been achieved. Thus, pursued a land acquisitionpolicy aimed at de- for many years salt productionremained in privingthe various tribesof theirOhio Valley the hands of squatterswho came in the sum- salt springsthus, presumably, to weaken theIn- mer,made salt illegallyfor a few months,and dian's economic base. Generally speaking, then dispersedwith the approach of winter.80 areas containinglarge salt springs were the These transientsdid not attemptan extensive improvementof the saline, for the common "IS. P. Hildreth,Pioneer History(Cincinnati: H. law of the camp which secured theirproperty W. Derby and Co., 1849), p. 409; "Observationson titles did not hold when they were absent. the SaliferousRock Formationin the Valley of the Ohio," AmericanJournal of Science,Vol. 24 (1833), Following statehood this situation quickly p. 48. 82 Historyof the UpperOhio Valley (Madison,Wis- 77 S. P. Hildreth,"Early Historyof Salt Manufac- consin:Brant and Fuller,1890), Vol. II, p. 393. ture,"Annual Report of the Ohio GeologicalSurvey, 83 T. R. Joynes,"Memoranda Made on a Journeyto Vol. 1 (1837), p. 70. the Statesof Ohio and Kentucky,1810," Williamand 78 Hildreth,op. cit., footnote77, p. 70. MaryCollege Quarterly,Vol. 10 (1902), p. 153. 79 See H. Kanitz,"Causes and Consequencesof Salt 84 C. Whittlesey[Editor's report], Ohio MiningJour- Consumption,"Smithsonian Institution, Annual Report nal, Vol. 2 (1883), p. 15. (1957), pp. 445-53. 85 W. Stout,"Ohio MineralResources, Part I, Coal," 80 D. W. Williams,A Historyof JacksonCounty, Ohio State UniversityEngineering Experiment Sta- Ohio (Jackson,Ohio: the author,1900), Vol. I, p. 66. tion,Circular, Vol. 15 (1944), p. 3. This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 706 JOHN A. JAKLE December firstto be freedof Indian claim and hence the fest in American land acquisition through firstto be settled by Americanfarmers. both treatynegotiation and treatyviolation. As the Treaty of Greenville deprived the Government control of the Indiana and Shawnee and their allies of the Ohio salt Illinois salt springsbegan with the reservation springs,the subsequent Indian migrationto of the Illinois Saline. Set aside was a rec- the west found the tribes concentratedsea- tangulartract ten mileswide and sixteenmiles sonallyat the Illinois Saline, near present-day long supplementedby a strip three miles in Shawneetown, and at various other licks in width running to the mouth of the Saline southernIndiana, includingthe French Lick.6 River. Althougha total of 144,669acres were In 1803 in separatenegotiations at Fort Wayne eventuallyreserved in the two states,numer- and Vincennes,William HenryHarrison, Gov- ous salines escaped detectionuntil afterland ernorof Indiana Territory,successfully forced sales had been completed.88Thus, in 1816 a the assembledtribes to cede firstthe Shawnee- frontiertraveler advised prospective immi- town area and then the whole of southern grantsto Indiana that:89 Illinois in returnfor annual annuitypayments salt springsof greatvalue in the New Purchase whichincluded a guaranteedsalt supply. Har- have been partiallyexamined, but as the Govern- risonhad writtento the Secretaryof War, Al- mentof the United Statesreserves the land which includesuch, if knownbefore the sale, individuals bert Gallatin,in March of 1802:87 who exploredeem it prudentto be silent. Withrespect to thissalt spring[the IllinoisSaline] Yet no salt springswere ever discoveredthat which the chiefswho were at the seat of govern- mentlately expressed a desireto lease [to us], my could rival the Illinois Saline, which came to opinionis, thatit would be altogetherimproper to supply the whole of Indiana Territoryand comply with their request consideringboth the even exportedsalt to Middle Tennessee and presentadvantage of the Indians and the interest Missouri (Fig. 7). Sale of the Illinois product of white settlers,now and in time to come. The also helped to break the salt monopolyin Ken- springalluded to is perhapsthe verybest in the whole extentof countryfrom the AlleghenyMoun- tucky. Many Kentuckians and Tennesseans, tains to the Mississippi,and may,if the preserva- having journeyed to Shawneetown for salt, tion of the wood in the neighborhoodbe properly later returnedbringing families to settle in attendedto, give so large a supplyof salt as very southernIllinois. The salt spring,which be- considerablyto reduce the price of thatindispens- Vin- ible articlein all the settlementsof the Ohio and came the focal point forroads leading to the navigable branches of that region . . . the cennes, Kaskaskia, and Nashville, came to betterplan appears to be to extinguishthe title funnel a sizable migrationinto the Illinois altogetherto the springand a small tractaround Country;at nearby Shawneetownthe federal it; the UnitedStates could verywell affordto give governmentestablished a land officein 1804 each of the tribesa sum equal to one year'sannuity forthe spring and 10,000acres around it. to servicethe migratorytide. After 1810 the district's principal salt- With the government'sattention focused on making operations were shiftedto the Half southernIllinois, large tractsof Indiana Terri- Moon Salt Lick where the town of Equality toryadjacent to populated Kentuckyand Ohio evolved. Obtained from shallow wells, be- were not opened to Americanoccupance until tween 125 and 280 gallons of the brine pro- well after 1810. Squatters, nevertheless,in- duced a bushel of salt.90This gave the various vaded these lands to precipitateIndian unrest worksa definitecompetitive advantage in the only compoundedby the Government'sinabil- Lower Ohio Valley salt market. From 1807 ity to properlyarrange the annual salt pay- until Illinois was admittedas a state in 1818, the ments called for by the various land treaties. rentalsaccruing to the federalgovernment Thus underlyingthe Indian's participationin 88 U. S. Public Land Commission,op. cit.,footnote the War of 1812 was a salt controversymani- 76, p. 217. 89 D. Thomas,"Travels Through the Western Coun- 86 The IllinoisSaline was also knownas the "Wa- tryin the Summerof 1816," in H. Lindley (Ed.), bash" and as the "U. S. Saline." Indiana As Seen By Early Travelers(Indianapolis: 87W. H. Harrison,letter of March 25, 1802, to A. Indiana HistoricalCommission, 1916), p. 562. Gallatin,in L. Esarey (Ed.), "Messagesand Lettersof 90A. H. Worthen,Economic Geology of Illinois William Henry Harrison,"Indiana HistoricalCollec- (Springfield:Illinois Geological Survey, 1882), p. tions,Vol. 7 (1922), p. 47. 562. This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1969 OMO VALLEY SALT 707 St.LouisVncne ,:L S fl~~~~~~~~~~~~nene Frankfort Ste. Kskaskia BlitsLc Genevieve ^ salt lick/ Genevieve ~~~~~~~~IllinoisSalinie A!o aneown Elizabetlito Half MonLc Vanil t_\ t\ We ~~~~~SALTROUTES l 0 t ama6e >k~useliv SHAWNEETOWN, J I ^S (t \\ ~~~~~ILLINOIS ~~~~~~~iep~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~v Fig. 7.Nashvie Fig. 7. fromthe "U. S. Saline" totalled $158,394,and Clark wrote to PatrickHenry in 1778 immedi- bushels of salt turnedinto the treasuryduring atelyprior to his victoryat Vincennes:93 the same period were valued at $28,160 mak- I learnthat the governmenthas reserved. . . lands ing the region'ssalt industryan importantrev- on the Cumberland. ... If I should be deprived enue source for the support of the Illinois of a certaintract of land on thatriver which I pur- territorialgovernment.9' chased threeyears ago, and have been at a con- siderableexpense to improve,I shall in a manner Tennessee and Western Virginia lose my all. It is knownby the name of great The weak brines of Tennessee did not sus- French Lick on the southor west side containing three tain commercialsalt production,although pio- thousandacres. If you can do anythingfor me in saving it, I shall foreverremember it with neer salt-makingdid characterize the early gratitude. yearsof settlementparticularly in Middle Ten- nessee. As in Kentucky, private interests Salt was first carried to the Tennessee rushed to controlthe area's salt resourcespar- settlementsfrom salines in Missouri. The tiallyin the belief that the Cumberland Basin younger Michaux wrote:94 lay withinVirginia's jurisdiction and was thus Althoughthis country [Middle Tennessee]abounds subject to that government'slaissez-faire land with saline springs,none are yet worked as the policies. George Rogers Clark purchased the scarcityof hands would renderthe salt dearerthan French Lick at later-dayNashville only to lose what is importedfrom the salt pits of Ste. Gene- the propertywhen North Carolina reserved vieve which supplyall Cumberland. the area's salines,setting a precedentfor sub- 93 G. R. Clark,letter to P. Henry,in A. Henderson, sequent legislation in the Old Northwest.92 The Founding of Nashville (Henderson,Kentucky: the author,1932), unpaged. 91G. W. Smith,"The Salines of SouthernIllinois," 94 F. A. Michaux,Travels to the West of the Alle- Publicationsof the Illinois HistoricalLibrary, No. 9 ghenyMountains in the Statesof Ohio,Kentucky, and (1904), p. 249. Tennessee and Back to Charleston,By the Upper 92 W. A. Provine,"Lardner Clark, Nashville's First Carolines (London: B. Crosby and Co., 1805), in Merchantand ForemostCitizen," Tennessee Histori- R. G. Thwaites(Ed.), Early WesternTravels, 1748- cal Magazine,Vol. 3 (1917), p. 115. 1846 (Cleveland: A. H. Clark,1904), Vol. III, p. 280. This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 708 JOHN A. JAKLE December /t Finca Le Neu, \ontgomery CourtHouse Clay County Salt Works ef~~~~~~~~~~~efesnul Jeffersonvil J ~~~~~~Abingdonl -:;= Jonesville Bristol ___ ;----N--__-_ ------Tazewell Rogervsille / X t / f SALTROUTES CENTERED ON Greenville - '_ SALTVILLE,VIRGINIA 'Knoxville 1810 0 10 20 30 40 50 Sevierville ml Fig. 8. After 1803 the salt makers at Shawneetown ing of a turnpikeroad fromKingsport to Salt- and Equality displaced the Missouri pro- ville,"'and in 1805 he was appointedto oversee ducers, taking advantage of strongerbrines the opening of the Holston's North Fork for and more advanced productiontechniques as navigation.97 Finally, King erected an iron well as the shorterdistance to the Tennessee works at Bristol, Virginia, midway between market. Kingsportand the salt works,where he manu- Whereas the Nashville area obtained salt facturedsalt kettlesand pans. fromthe north,East Tennessee importedthe However, the real impetusto the Ohio Val- commodityfrom Saltville in the Great Valley ley's salt economy came not from Virginia's of Virginia(Fig. 8). Firstdeveloped forcom- populated Valley and Ridge province in the mercialproduction in 1782, this saline did not east, but from the remote Kanawha district become an important producer until 1795 to the west where isolation fromestablished when one William King began salt-making marketsencouraged technologicalinnovation. operations.95King builta wagon road fromthe In an attemptto obtain an undilutedsalt brine salt works to the Holston River at Kingsport, in order to reduce productioncosts and thus Tennessee, a town which he developed as a offsethigh transportationexpenditures, David real estate speculation. There he erected a and Joseph Ruffnerin 1807 drilled the first warehouse fromwhich salt moved by riverto deep-well in the United States at what had Knoxville. By 1800 King was producingover been the marginallyproductive Buffalo Lick 200 bushels of salt a day and vigorouslypur- at present-day Charleston, West Virginia. suing a host of business schemes designed to From this well came the strongestbrine yet increase salt profits.96 In 1803 he was ap- discovered in North America,for as little as pointed by the Virginia General Assembly ". . . to markout and let to contractthe build- 97L. P. Summers(Ed.), Annalsof SouthwestVir- ginia, 1769-1800 (Abingdon,Virginia: the author, 95E. Lonn, Salt As a Factor in the Confederacy 1929), p. 1227; S. C. Williams(Ed.), "The Executive (New York: WalterNeale, 1933), p. 27. Journalof Gov. JohnSevier," East TennesseeHistori- 96 Lonn,op. cit.,footnote 95, p. 27. cal SocietyPublications, Vol. 7 (1935), p. 147. This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1969 OMO VALLEY SALT 709 one hundred gallons produced a bushel of CONCLUSION salt.Y8 The new drillingtechnology not only The development of revolutionarywell- offset transportationcosts, but enabled the drillingtechniques along the Kanawha River area's producers eventuallyto dominate the was but the culminatingphase of the Ohio Valley's salt trade. Valley's frontiersalt experience. Since the The Ruffner'sfirst furnace of fortykettles, historicIndian occupied the region,manage- placed into operationin February,1808, was mentof the Valley's salt resourcehad changed capable of producing twenty-fivebushels of dramatically. The Indian initiallyperceived salt per day.99 In the second year of opera- the Valley's salt licks as huntinggrounds and tion, when the well was deepened to fifty- encouraged the buffalo's salt consumption eight feet,the brine was sufficientto supply through the creation of prairie enclaves at- four furnaces of sixty bushels daily.100 Ini- tractiveto the migratingherds. Anglo-Ameri- tially sold at two dollars a bushel, the price can settlers,in followingthe bison's tracesinto had fallen to one dollar by 1810.101As might portionsof the region,initially oriented their be expected,the success of the drillingexperi- settlements to the well-defined migration mentinaugurated a boom in salt manufacture paths. However, unlikethe French in Illinois, along the Kanawha. In 1815 David Ruffner they failed to recognize the salt-makingpo- informed the Niles Weekly Register that tentialof the westernsalines and preferredto fifty-twofurnaces were in operation import their vital salt supply from coastal (and many more erecting) containingfrom markets. Only with the severance of eastern 40 to 70 kettlesof 36 gallons each-all which trade connections during the Revolutionary make from2500 to 3000 bushels of salt per War did Americansettlers undertake to manu- day."102By 1817 over 700,000 bushels of salt facturetheir own salt. Trade in domestically were being produced annually near Charles- produced salt greatlystimulated and, indeed, ton.103 sustainedthe Valley's early commercialecon- The well-drillingtechnology of the Kanawha omy focused in urban places. Merchants diffusedrapidly to otherportions of the Ohio replaced the pioneer huntersand farmersas Valley,but only those wells which tapped the the primaryinstruments of spatial organiza- affluentPottsville sandstone of western Vir- tion; towns and cities replaced the fortified ginia,eastern Kentucky, and easternOhio pro- stationsas the dominantsettlement forms. duced brine equal that of the Charlestondis- Viewed in thiscontext the salt thesisoffered trict;one importantexception was, of course, by Frederick Jackson Turner nearly three- the U.S. Saline in Illinois. At most of the es- quarters-of a centuryago is seen to require tablished salt works elsewhere in the Valley, revision. Whereas settlerswere tied to the drillingfailed to improve the quality of the coast by a lack of salt,discovery of the western salt brine and, with increasing competition salines did not stimulatea rapid trans-Appala- from successful drillers,a widespread aban- chian expansion,for the lickswere knownonly donment of marginal salt works ensued, al- as huntinggrounds. Instead, fortificationof thougha few continuedto functionas spas. the West during the AmericanRevolutionary War and the subsequentestablishment of sup- 98 P. H. Price,et al., "Salt Brinesof West Virginia," porting trade routes fosteredfrontier move- West VirginiaGeological Survey, Vol. 8 (1937), p. 7. ment. Whereas the buffalopaths did exert a 99S. P. Hildreth,"Observations on the Bituminous Coal Deposits of the Valley of the Ohio," American definite influence on the initial settlement Journalof Science,Vol. 29 (1836), p. 117. fabric in portionsof the Valley, particularly 100Hildreth, op. cit., footnote99, p. 117; Joynes, in Kentucky,salt's greatest influence came op. cit., footnote83, p. 151. the of It is 101 during period early urbanization. Joynes,op. cit.,footnote 83, p. 151. on the urban sector,therefore, that students of 102D. Ruffner,"The Kanawha Salt Works,"Niles WeeklyReview, Vol. 8 (April22, 1815), p. 135. the Ohio Valley salt economyshould, perhaps, 103 Price,et al., op. cit.,footnote 14, p. 7. focusfuture attention. This content downloaded from 128.163.2.206 on Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:36:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions