File:Ohio archæological and historical quarterly (1887) (14769749331).jpg

Identifier: ohioarchologic21ohio (find matches)
Title: Ohio archæological and historical quarterly
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society
Subjects: History Archaeology
Publisher: Columbus : Published for the Society by A.H. Smythe
Contributing Library: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Digitizing Sponsor: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center

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back or inwagons across the mountains, causing the supply to be very oftenscanty and the price always very high. However, the early set-tlers found that Jackson county was a favorable hunting groundwith the Indian, and perhaps through them the salt springs werelocated, and naturally the manufacture of salt from the brineswould follow. The exact date of the discovery of the salt springs by thewhites is unknown, but it was probably early in the eighteenthcentury by the French Canadian fur traders through their barterwith the indians. The Virginia colonists did not attempt tomake use of the salt springs until the close of the eighteenth cen-tury (1798), although they were familiar with their location andexistence about the middle of the century. The John Mitchell map of the British and French Dominionsin North America, 1755, has a note of the salt licks and saltcreeks furnishing salt for the inland country. Salt Creek is also.marked upon this map. The saline water of this region was very
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(177) 178 Archaeological Remains of Jackson County. weak and it would often require ten to fifteen gallons of thewater to make one pound of salt. The salt was distributed tothe settlements by pack horses. So important was this sourceof supply to the inhabitants that, when Ohio was formed intoa state, a tract of land six miles square, embracing the salinewaters, was set apart by Congress for the use of the state. In1804 an act was passed by the Legislature of Ohio regulating themanagement of this tract and appointing an agent to rent smalllots on the borders of the creek for the manufacture of salt.Salt for the most part was made by evaporating the saline water,and this was done by constructing salt furnaces made by sur-rounding large iron kettles, of 30 to 40 gallons capacity, withstonework having a furnace beneath. But the large iron kettleswere difficult to secure at this remote manufacturing site in thewilderness, and the slower process of evaporation by naturalmeans was used durin

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