from below. The water thus gathered in the gum rises about
as high as the surface of the river at high water mark, and it
requires from seventy to 100 gallons of it to make a bushel
of salt. Each well produced on an average a sufficient quantity
of water to make 300 bushels of salt per day. There are now
established and in operation fifty-two furnaces, and more are
being erected, containing from forty to sixty kettles of thirty-
five gallons each, which make from 2500 to 3000 bushels of
salt per day. The quantity may be increased as the demand
shall justify. The wood in the course of time must become
scarce or difficult to obtain, but we have stone coal that can
be used for fuel, and the supply is inexhaustible. These works
are situated six miles above Charleston, Kanawha Courthouse,
sixty-six miles from the mouth of the river and twenty-six
miles below the great falls. The river is navigable, with a gen-
tle current, at all seasons of the year for boats drawing two
feet of water, and at most seasons for boats of any size.
Your obedient, humble servant, David Ruffner.
Kanawha Salt Works, November 8th, 1814.
It appears from old account books that salt rated as high as
$2 per bushel in Rutland township as late as 1820. The first
salt water seen on Leading creek was a small pond of reddish
water, which in dry weather cattle would visit for drink, the
place being near the channel of the creek, about a quarter of a
mile below the old Denny mill, in a bend of Leading creek. In
1820 several of the neighbors brought in their kettles and set
them on a kind of furnace and made of that water one bushel
of salt. After which a company was formed consisting of
Benjamin Stout, Caleb Gardner, Thomas Shepherd and Michael
Aleshire, who bored a well and erected a furnace and com-
menced making salt in 1822, when Benjamin Stout bought out
the other parties.
